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Hardware Hacking Technology

Wearable Computer With Lightweight HUD 150

zeazzz writes to mention that the folks over at UMPC have a very cool little writeup and pictorial of a user's latest wearable PC. With the surge in smart phone adoption it seems that enthusiasm for wearable computers has dropped off a bit, which is too bad. I certainly look forward to my augmented reality HUD instead of depending on my iPhone for everything. "Essentially he took the MyVu headset, removed one of the eye pieces, and mounted the other to his glasses to that he could see his surroundings and the UX's screen at the same time. The MyVu is attached to the UX through the A/V output port on the UX's port replicator dongle. With some additional addons he provided his UX with extra battery life via an external battery, and several input methods to communicate with the UX while the rest of the kit resides within the backpack."
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Wearable Computer With Lightweight HUD

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  • I'll believe it when I try it... Have seen similar promises before...
    • Re:Holding my breath (Score:5, Interesting)

      by JWSmythe ( 446288 ) <jwsmythe@nospam.jwsmythe.com> on Monday July 27, 2009 @06:33PM (#28844785) Homepage Journal

          I still haven't seen one that truly interests me.

          What I want to find is a setup that hooks up to both a long infrared (thermal imaging) and a short infrared (night vision) cameras, and overlays the images on reality through the glasses.

          Imagine being able to not only see in the dark, but see the heat signatures from things.

          My dad experimented with long infrared with the Army in the 60's and 70's. In some of the books that he had published, he demonstrated interesting things. The equipment was huge and static. He'd set up for a shot, take the picture, and then process it. At best, you were looking at hours to see the result. You could see a residual handprint on the wall, inefficiencies of insulation, etc.

          Imagine seeing a real time feed overlaid over the world. Amazingly useful things would be seeing hotspots in a house, caused by overloaded power circuits or inefficient insulation. You may be able to see where someone had walked before you (temp changes in the footprints), touched items such as door knobs. Fire rescue would be able to see through smoke, take extra precautions on very hot doors, and very likely save more lives. Police could search darkened areas with ease, and avoid hostile suspects jumping out from the shadows. In every day use, you could see long distances ahead when you are driving at night, and even spot when someone you're talking to is lying.

          It could open up a whole new world for us.

          The idea wouldn't be very hard. You should be able to run a pair of fiber optic cables from the edge of a pair of glasses down to the cameras. A very small PC should be able to overlay the images in real time, and then display them through something resembling the glasses shown. I've been watching for cameras that are small enough, and are affordable. I have yet to find the kind of gear that I could afford. :(

          An extra overlay of other data could be useful too, without causing an information overload. The time, ambient temperature, some GPS data (heading, speed, altitude). Things that you'd see on TV are a bit fanciful right now, such as threat detection. Determining a car is on an intercept path and may cause an impact is a bit beyond what a portable PC can do, but a human can determine it quickly by seeing it.

          For fire/rescue and law enforcement, I would see it being amazingly useful to transmit that data back to a central location. Where or what happened? It would all be available.

          I know a lot of people hate cops, but a lot of them are actually doing something very useful for our protection. We simply don't see it all the time, because most of our interaction is with traffic cops who may or may not be right, but they'll write the ticket anyways.

      • Seems like it wouldn't be difficult to tie that to the output of the Fluke Ti25 - that thermal imager already can internally blend standard visual wavelengths to IR. It would be a bit bigger than I'd want, and expensive, but the tech seems to be already out there to do something similar to what you're suggesting. I've found having a thermal imager is very, very useful to have around - I could only imagine how nice it'd be to have a agumented reality HUD with one integrated. Great idea!

        Here's a review I r
        • Aw, a $7,500 toy. :)

          That does look to be around the right size to start working with though. I'm sure the handle and some of the plastic are extra. They're usually pretty good about making sure their equipment can handle folks bouncing them off the floor. :)

          The pictures on your site are great. They're a good sampling of thermal imaging, for those who haven't played with it. I'd love to be able to see the world like that as a 50% opacity overlay.

      • by mcvos ( 645701 )

        I still haven't seen one that truly interests me.

        Over 10 years ago I saw a project that did truly interest me: transparent glasses that project the computer's output directly on your retina, using fighter jet technology. No idea what happened to that, but I won't be happy with anything less than that.

        The problem with the setup from TFA is that, while a tiny screen hanging in front of your glasses might look very cool and cyberpunky, it's not terribly practical. It does block part of your vision, and it doesn't really overlay the computer output over your

        • Back in the day, I had seen a hack for the old Sony Glasman visor. You could remove the front shield, and the back of the LCD. LCD's are inherently transparent. They have a coating on the back so they are opaque, usually reflecting light from a source like a small fluorescent tube. Something like that would seem to be almost perfect. From what I read, it worked really well, but I'd wonder how the focal length worked out. It would seem your eyes would be adjusting back and forth constant

          • by mcvos ( 645701 )

            From what I read, it worked really well, but I'd wonder how the focal length worked out. It would seem your eyes would be adjusting back and forth constantly to be able to read it.

            Exactly. That's why I was so intrigued by projecting straight onto the retina. No need to focus on it.

      • The possibilities are endless. I have a terrible memory, so I'm always looking for ways to help with that. Facial recognition software could identify someone you're talking to. Information about them could be displayed to you, like birthdays, wife/kids names, notes you've taken in the past, etc. Whatever you look at (using eye tracking) could do an information lookup and display all sorts of information, or whisper it in your ear.

        The computer could listen to your conversations and pick out and remember

        • For the storage, I would say that storing it back to a server would be the more advantageous route. It would suck if you were to trip and fall, or say get hit (but not killed) by a car. Your stored history would disappear.

          What would be better, assuming there's anyone you could trust, would be to have a communal pool of information. Say you and I were friends, and you met someone. It could tell me what I needed to know on demand about the friend.

          Facial recogni

    • by Dan541 ( 1032000 )

      Have seen similar promises before...

      Indeed, a "wearable motorbike" springs to mind.

  • I'd like to have one implanted in the eye like in the Doctorow book, kind of like IOLs are implanted for cataract surgery. I wonder how close we are to developing that?

    I mean, I wore glasses from 1958 until 2002 when I got contacts, and since I had surgery in 2006 I don't even need contacts. Glasses suck. Contacts are better, but a multifocal IOL beats even them.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      And I would like to see someone hack one. LOL. Can you imagine walking down the street and seeing some guy suddenly freak out because his wearable computer started blaring music and showing totse images?
    • by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Monday July 27, 2009 @05:07PM (#28843723) Homepage Journal

      I think contact lenses make a lot more sense. Then you could remove them. They'd be a lot easier to upgrade as well. I don't see any reason they couldn't have their circuitry embedded in them off near the edge, and have power beamed in.

      Contact lenses might make a lot of sense as targets for a vision system like the one described in Snow Crash. Perhaps if you integrated some MEMS components into them they could contain a scanning mirror set, even, and perform a sort of DLP-esque function.

      If I'm getting an eye implant, I want a lot more than a HUD. I expect telescopic vision via electrowetting lenses.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        That won't work...try to focus on your contact lens...or more likely, some bit of dirt or smudge on it. You can't; there needs to be a bit of distance between the lens and the thing you're trying to optically perceive.

        • by hobbit ( 5915 )

          There only needs to be distance because your eye's lens has a minimum focal length. As long as you can arrange for the light to enter the lens *as if* it comes from some distance away, it doesn't actually need to do so. That's easier said than done, mind you.

      • I see you've been watching Torchwood.
        • I haven't seen it. Where I live, "high-speed" internet means "can't stream shit". And there's no TV reception. And I refuse to get Cable or Satellite TV. I'll see it eventually, I suppose. I've been thinking about augmented reality for a real long time, even before I read Snow Crash... which was a long time ago too. I guess I started thinking about how to do it shortly after seeing Terminator as a tween or so, but I didn't have any useful thoughts on it until much later, when I saw adverts for the Sony Glas

      • by mcgrew ( 92797 )

        Well, like I said, contacts beat glasses hands down, but implants are even better. Contacts require maintenance, implants don't. It's really REALLY nice to be able to get out of bed and SEE without messing with contacts or worse, putting glasses on.

        If I'm getting an eye implant, I want a lot more than a HUD. I expect telescopic vision via electrowetting lenses.

        That will likely come before implanted HUDs. My implant already gives me better than 20/20 vision at all distances, although some people only have 20

    • by Cyberax ( 705495 )

      Glasses rule!

      They protect eyes and with photochromic lenses you won't need separate sunglasses.

      Also, you can get some time to think by taking off glasses and slowly wiping them, when you're asked a question.

  • Except this time you'll look even more stupid wearing it
  • by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Monday July 27, 2009 @04:49PM (#28843443)

    With the surge in smart phone adoption it seems that enthusiasm for wearable computers has dropped off a bit, which is too bad.

    OK, the bluetooth headset seems to be winning out over the HUD as the main UI device. Other than that, how is a smartphone not a wearable computer?

    • Because I don't wear my phone?

    • by fuzzyfuzzyfungus ( 1223518 ) on Monday July 27, 2009 @04:53PM (#28843511) Journal
      Smartphones are not really wearable computers for two reasons. First, they don't really count because, in general, you have to hold them during use, rather than actually wearing them. Second, they are not "wearable computers" in the sense that people with pacemakers or cochlear implants aren't "cyborgs": That is, they actually are; but they aren't what people imagine when they say so, so we don't really consider them to be.
      • by mdwh2 ( 535323 )

        He has a computer in his backpack and wears a headset. Compare with someone with a phone in their pocket, and wearing a bluetooth headset. I don't think even of them count as wearable computers. Yes, he's wearing a headset, and people talk about wearing bluetooth headsets with their phones too.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by mcvos ( 645701 )

          He has a computer in his backpack and wears a headset. Compare with someone with a phone in their pocket, and wearing a bluetooth headset. I don't think even of them count as wearable computers. Yes, he's wearing a headset, and people talk about wearing bluetooth headsets with their phones too.

          The computer's output is definitely wearable. The big question is the input. Do you need to get your smartphone out to type stufff? Does it have voice recognition? Do you have an input device in your pocket that you can use without looking at it? Does it track your eye movement?

          Ideally it has both audible and visible wearable output, and several types of wearable input. But with even one type of practical output and one type of practical input, it'd count as a wearable computer in my book.

          • by Dan541 ( 1032000 )

            Do you need to get your smartphone out to type stufff? Does it have voice recognition? Do you have an input device in your pocket that you can use without looking at it? Does it track your eye movement?

            Is there a Tree, Pole or Bus-stop in your path?

      • You just made a pacemakers sound cool. Too bad I have a good heart. Maybe I could get a pacemaker put in in Mexico so I could be a Cyborg?
        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by mustafap ( 452510 )

          >You just made a pacemakers sound cool. Too bad I have a good heart. Maybe I could get a pacemaker put in in Mexico so I could be a Cyborg?

          If you work in IT, don't worry, just be patient. You'll be needing one in 10 - 20 years time.

      • by Qubit ( 100461 )

        in the sense that people with pacemakers or cochlear implants aren't "cyborgs"

        One of my friends has a pacemaker and I totally think that she's a cyborg. She doesn't deny it -- sometimes she even gets this look in her eye, you know, one of those "one day we're going to rise up and kill all of you meat-only people" looks.

        It's hard to draw the line between basic humans and cyborgs, but I'd say that, at the very least, if you are reliant on some kind of electronic tech bound to or inside your body to survive (she'd die if she didn't have the pacemaker), then you're a cyborg.

        On the down s

      • in the sense that people with pacemakers or cochlear implants aren't "cyborgs": That is, they actually are; but they aren't what people imagine when they say so, so we don't really consider them to be.

        Incidentally, a cochlear implants was one of the "powers" of the 6 million dollar woman.

    • by jollyreaper ( 513215 ) on Monday July 27, 2009 @05:22PM (#28843881)

      OK, the bluetooth headset seems to be winning out over the HUD as the main UI device. Other than that, how is a smartphone not a wearable computer?

      Wearable computers are supposed to make you look like a clumsy ass when using them. Smart phones typically don't unless you use a bluetooth headset.

      Honestly, I think the conceit is a holdover of older technology where you ended up looking borgified with all the hardware you had strapped to your body. You used to have to wear heavy-duty batteries strapped to your waist, a funky keyboard strapped to your arm, doofy goggles, and the computer itself was on your back. Heady stuff for people who were used to computers having to be plugged into walls but this was even before laptops became practical, when luggables were still the latest and hottest shit.

      The iPhone is pretty much representing the ideal of the Tricorder or the PADD from Star Trek. Pretty screen, touch interface, wireless everything, sound and video, cool stuff! The only way it could get any better is if you didn't even need to hold anything in your hands (or pay out the ass for the data plan). That'd be an ear piece that tucks away invisibly in your ear like a hearing aid, bone induction microphone imbedded inside the earpiece, and a display that either sits on contact lenses in your eyes or would be built into your glasses and either projects information onto the glass or shoots it onto your retina with low-powered lasers. Where would the computer be? Maybe still clipped to your hip like an iphone feeding data via wireless, or maybe it'll be small enough to be built into the hearing aid or contact lenses.

      What's the ultimate UI goal? Terminator vision. Integrated lowlight vision, thermal vision, object tagging like a fighter plane's HUD, etc. The early concepts were mocked up for military maintenance crews, you could watch a video showing you what you're supposed to do as you do it.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by thedonger ( 1317951 )
        Yes, what you said, and, for the love of Christ, a way to "talk" without having a one-sided conversation with the freaking air. I hate that. Fifteen years ago you would have been sent to the loony bin for talking to voices in your head. Now, we assume one half of a bluetooth-enabled conversation. Seriously, how many completely, balls-out fucking crazy people are walking the streets who we assume are on the phone?
        • by mcvos ( 645701 )

          Yes, what you said, and, for the love of Christ, a way to "talk" without having a one-sided conversation with the freaking air. I hate that. Fifteen years ago you would have been sent to the loony bin for talking to voices in your head. Now, we assume one half of a bluetooth-enabled conversation. Seriously, how many completely, balls-out fucking crazy people are walking the streets who we assume are on the phone?

          Why is that a problem? Suddenly crazies can pretend to be normal well-adjusted members of society too. Isn't that great?

        • I'm probably taking this too literally, but you don't get taken to the "loony bin" for talking to voices in your head. You're left to rot on the streets. So back in the day, we might have given the poor bastards a funny look--now we can completely ignore them. That's progress!

      • by hobbit ( 5915 )

        What's the ultimate UI goal? Terminator vision.

        Which was pretty inexplicable in the context of the Terminator. The visual processing system derived information about the environment, then integrated it as text into the signal from which it was derived such that it had to be processed a second time to be acted upon?

        • Which was pretty inexplicable in the context of the Terminator. The visual processing system derived information about the environment, then integrated it as text into the signal from which it was derived such that it had to be processed a second time to be acted upon?

          For the benefit of the audience. I can forgive it for Terminator. Less easy to gloss over is something like the original Battlestar Gaalactica with robots sitting inside starfighters flying it manually -- even better, communicating via vibrating the atmosphere. Now some will say "The dialog is just for the benefit of the audience, who wants to watch computers bleeping at each other with subtitles?" And to that I would say embrace the alien otherness of machines. Don't explain their motivation, leave it as s

      • The iPhone is pretty much representing the ideal of the Tricorder or the PADD from Star Trek.

        I think the iPhone is the Tricoder. However I think the Kindle is the PADD because it is lightweight, low power requirements and has a big enough screen to be able to read it for long periods of time.

    • Exactly. A video interface just isn't (in general) a sensible UI when you are walking around and interacting with the world. I think an audio user interface is what is needed -- but there's little consumer interest at the moment.
      • Exactly. A video interface just isn't (in general) a sensible UI when you are walking around and interacting with the world. I think an audio user interface is what is needed -- but there's little consumer interest at the moment.

        There seems to be a lot of interest in this:

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH6r2tIaRXU [youtube.com]

        Now if they could make it so you could wear bluetooth glasses that you can see through that don't make you look like a dork plenty of people would buy it.

        You can read more about augmented reality o

    • by Dan541 ( 1032000 )

      how is a smartphone not a wearable computer?

      Because it fits conveniently in your pocket not making you look like an arse.

  • Wonder how far your body will end if you are wearing one of those computers on the street and get hit by this slashdot effect.
  • Resolution (Score:4, Informative)

    by chill ( 34294 ) on Monday July 27, 2009 @04:51PM (#28843479) Journal

    640x480

    While this may be fine for watching video without getting neck strain from being hunched over, it makes computing life a pain.

    Until one of these things can give me a full 1024x768 or better display, it'll always be a niche toy for computing.

    • by hesiod ( 111176 )

      You echoed my own thoughts exactly.

    • Until one of these things can give me a full 1024x768 or better display

      Only XGA? What is this? 1990?

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by chill ( 34294 )

        No, reality.

        I've spent a lot of time as an admin for some fairly large companies. One thing I noticed is that a lot of people who aren't into CAD, programming or graphics design, don't like resolutions above 1024x768. I've lost count of the times I've set shiny new LCD monitors to their spec res like 1280x1024 only to have people change the res back down. The fonts are too small. If you change the font sizes, programs start to look weird, so they change the res.

        Hell, look at the number of web page templ

        • Why is it sad?
          • Because people are content with the status quo, same as always, and just as sad.

            • But if the status qou provides a better service, it does not seem sad anymore. Higher rez = small text = harder to read. Why is not wanting harder to read text sad?
          • by chill ( 34294 )

            Because all the resolution and associated benefits go to waste because there is no graceful way for the fonts to be bigger, but not fsck-up the interface. Or, if there is, it takes so much effort most people won't do it.

    • by mdwh2 ( 535323 )

      Get off my lawn! I remember when 640x480 was a luxury...

      For mobile devices, I don't see it's bad, unless you plan on lugging a massive screen around with you? It's only a pain because so many stupid websites/applications/operating systems assume you're running at least 1024x768, and they've yet to catch up with the wide availability of Internet phones and netbooks.

    • by ODiV ( 51631 )

      The iPhone resolution is half that, and it's doing fairly well, last time I checked.

      I think you need to redefine what you think of when you see the word "computer".

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Opportunist ( 166417 )

      Realize that you're dealing with a display that is inches from your eye instead of half a foot to a foot. 640x480 on less than 3" is heaps more resolution than what you get with a current 22" 4000something by 3000something monitor.

      • by chill ( 34294 )

        Mmmmm...not really. 640x480 still amounts to a small amount of real estate. It works on a 5" diagonal display, but I'm not sure how well it'll translate to the 45" display image of an HMD.

        Still, there is a lot of potential. It wasn't until recently that we had a decent COMPUTING platform with a screen that size. The iPhone and other smart phones/PDAs have introduced something that could be very interesting. Prior to their arrival nothing was really that size except for video. Now...

        It just means *desi

    • by Hatta ( 162192 ) *

      All you really need is 80x24.

    • by mcvos ( 645701 )

      640x480

      While this may be fine for watching video without getting neck strain from being hunched over, it makes computing life a pain.

      Until one of these things can give me a full 1024x768 or better display, it'll always be a niche toy for computing.

      It's not supposed to be a workstation. High resolution is mainly important for workstations.

  • No demand (Score:1, Flamebait)

    This is just pointless narcissism. There's no demand for this sort of thing currently. Instead of furiously wanking while trying to stand out from the crowd by wearing highly visible equipment, these guys should be finding a niche where mobile computing makes sense. It's about as relevant as top-secret super plans for that great treehouse hideout I'm going to build. Sure, it's fun to talk about, but is it stuff that matters?
    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      As far as demand goes...I demand to own one of these...I mean really, the concept is just awesome, I can level up characters in all my favourite games while driving to work! Heck, I could play GTA while driving to work (as long as I don't mix up which eye is the game). What could possibly go wrong?
    • Re:No demand (Score:5, Insightful)

      by paeanblack ( 191171 ) on Monday July 27, 2009 @05:39PM (#28844117)

      Instead of furiously wanking while trying to stand out from the crowd by wearing highly visible equipment, these guys should be finding a niche where mobile computing makes sense.

      -Anybody working in a factory or a warehouse, where nobody cares how you look.
      -Field service techs that need access to a ton of reference data.
      -Anybody that climbs up a telephone pole or down a manhole.
      -Anybody who needs use of both hands and access to information simultaneously to better do their jobs.

      It's not exactly a "niche" market. Designing a wearable eyescreen that doesn't suck will be worth a ton of money.

      • It'll certainly start off as a niche. That's good, niches are usually quite profitable. Your first three cases, I'd say an eyepiece would be too expensive for the work they do. The fourth, however, is spot on and figuring out where that case makes sense is the key to the future of wearable computers.

        What's NOT the future of wearable computers is some dorks putting on an eyepiece in a bid to make everyone look at them. Narcissism is bad, mmmkay?

        • by hesiod ( 111176 )

          Narcissism is bad, mmmkay?

          WHAT??? Now you tell me... I could have saved ten grand on my last car!

    • This is just pointless narcissism. There's no demand for this sort of thing currently.

      I dunno. I could really use a wearable hud for my iPhone.

      Sometimes I always feel rather awkward having people read my conversations especially taken out of context.

  • It seems to me like the real killer app for a HUD is when you can have augmented reality [youtube.com] built into your normal glasses. It would normally require a transparent screen, though, or a virtually transparent screen (by mounting a camera on the HUD which shows you what is in the field of vision being blocked by the display.

    Of course, there's some danger there, too. No doubt some dumbass would use that sort of thing while driving, only to have the "augmented reality" block his vision of real reality, thereby c

  • by MartinSchou ( 1360093 ) on Monday July 27, 2009 @04:56PM (#28843549)

    At least for what I have in mind for a personal project. I haven't been able to find a decent optical see-through HMD that is affordable for regular people.

    Liteye [liteye.com] makes a system for the military, but this seems like a rather limited system.

    I wouldn't mind seeing an OLED system in this form factor [3m.com]. They're quite sturdy, allowing you to mount decent loads onto it, the bridge and resting pads are quite big making them rather comfortable even with a big load on them. The stems are wide allowing big mounting points for stuff like camera(s) and wires. Connect it to something like an nVidia Tegra [youtube.com] and you'd have an optical see through display, head mounted cameras and a small computer that can handle augmented reality with apparent ease.

    But I suspect I'd be better off hoping to see Megan Fox splayed across my bed.

    • Well, my friend... I have planned such a device for a loong time now. Technically, it's completely possible.
      Give me an investor, and I'll sell you such a thing in some years.

      Until now, their excuses mostly are the circular reasoning fallacy, that nobody would use or buy it because there are no applications or anything for it. (And there are no applications, because no device for it exists, of course.) So it's "too risky", with "no chance" to make a profit from it.
      Stupid, stupid, stupid!
      But imagine such stup

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        Of course it's feasible.

        Samsung presented a transparent OLED display [youtube.com] at CES 2009, another example from 2008 [youtube.com]. Sony presented a flexible OLED display [youtube.com] in 2007, making a display following the glasses curvature easily doable.

        And I picked the nVidia Tegra as the computer, as that's already been proven to be plenty capable of doing AR and HD playback.

        You don't even need to mount batteries in the glasses. You can run power and data cables inside a tether for the glasses, similar to the thingie for the iPod with cab

  • there used to be a commercial on the boob tube in the 90s where a guy was in the middle of some courtyard and he was jumping up and down yelling buy! buy! sell! into his headset with an eyepiece screen and a small computer on his belt. I was just reading some news on Motorola doing Android phones and it made me wonder why we are not seeing devices like what that commercial showed. When an ARM chip and do 720P HD video in just a few watts, one would think that driving a tiny transparent display screen and do
    • I was reminded of that same commercial. I think I saw it maybe 2 or 3 times, never to hear of it again. Either it was a real load of vaporware or it contained one of the best HMDs I've ever seen, tacked/glued to glasses, along the bottom edge, with the rim doubling as the cable canal. One of the gags of the commercial was that you simply did not see that the person was wearing a wearable, thus seemingly yelling "buy!" and "sell!" until you saw that he is watching a ticker on the bottom of his glasses.

      How co

  • "Oh, my God, you didn't turn into a gargoyle, did you?"
  • by Phizzle ( 1109923 ) on Monday July 27, 2009 @05:06PM (#28843691) Homepage
    Condoms got NOTHING on this when it comes to preventing reproduction!
  • by MarkvW ( 1037596 ) on Monday July 27, 2009 @05:07PM (#28843709)

    When my bicycle HUD displays rear-views and navigational data I'll be all set.

  • And the "OMG gargoyle" comments probably didn't help either ...
  • Been done (Score:2, Informative)

    by skrimp ( 790524 )
    Xybernaut did this back in the 90s with a monocle hud, voice recognition, and a wearable cpu. It was underpowered, but saw some demand in the manufacturing and maintenance fields. I always thought it was a good idea and hoped it would go mainstream. Sony even threatened to make a 'ComputeMan' with the tech. I would have to agree that there's not enough demand and or it's too geeky.
  • I wonder. (Sometimes too much.)

    Has anyone ever been accused/found guilty of using an article post on /. as a means to perpetrate a DDoS attack on a website?

    A website being "Slashdotted" may not always be a good thing...especially if you were not wanting/expecting the sudden influx of viewers.

    Just curious...

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      Yeah, we got this dude good. Looks like the server didn't just slow to a crawl, it's been pushed completely offline. Instead of an endless wait, I'm getting an instant connection refused message.
      • Same here.

        That is precisely why I asked. Seems an efficient way to do it. Post ONE article (real, or NOT) and let Slashdot do the rest.

        Don't get me wrong. I'm not comparing Slashdot readers to Zombie Machines, but it is certainly an amusing thought.

  • http://www.umpcportal.com/ [umpcportal.com] = slashdotted right?
  • Distributed Denial-Of-Service attack on a bandwidth strapped MyVu enthusiast website
  • The iPhone or a smart phone of some sort is just the beginning of a wearable pc, it's a component in the mess. Bluetooth and other wireless technologies need to further develop and better batteries. No component except the central unit should be bigger than a bluetooth headset. Until they get that far its never going to catch on.

    We have the technology. We have the capability to build the world's first reasonable wearable computer.

  • The thought of signs and arrows on my glasses or beamed directly into my retina doesn't sound like an improvement to me. It sounds more like purposefully giving myself a cataracts. Augmenting the way I see the world by improving my mind would be a much better thing.

  • I don't get it. All those modules and wires and heads-up display and stuff, so I can see the Windows desktop wherever I go? This is a good thing how?

  • Augmented reality need camera, so that camera image can be registered in 3d and overlay drawn over it could be seen as organic part of the scene. As it is this is just a wearable display.

Two can Live as Cheaply as One for Half as Long. -- Howard Kandel

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