John Lindal’s Blog

A Wearable Computer

March 19, 2006 on 1:14 am | In Crazy ideas | No Comments

The idea of a wearable computer is not new, but a tiny cell phone has many advantages over a piece of clothing, so I’m not expecting a computer to migrate from my phone to my underwear any time soon.

However, in some situations, a computer that is built into a jacket could be helpful, e.g., if the jacket is part of your work uniform. So here are my thoughts on how it might work…

If a cell phone can contain a computer, then so can a jacket collar. This distributes the weight across the shoulders and puts it in an area that we instictively protect, namely the neck.

The CPU communicates with all peripherals, e.g., the earpiece or a DVD drive, via short-range wireless, e.g., Bluetooth. The CPU communicates with the Internet via a standard cell phone channel. One cool idea would be to have a third channel similar to that provided by a wireless router, i.e., medium range, and use this for peer-to-peer communication, e.g., within a warehouse or to your friend sitting close by. By using an ssl tunnel and only allowing connections from people on a Friends list, this ought to provide a much higher bandwidth connection than that obtainable via a cell phone. The obvious extension is to a full ad-hoc network.

The best input mechanism that I can think of is the flexible computer screens currently under development. These can be rolled up like paper, but provide a 2D array of pixels for displaying images. The display could be stored rolled up around either forearm, with a spring mechanism similar to what is used for keychains. In order to keep the sleeve flexible, only the 120° covering the outer side of the forearm would be rigid. This is the area most in need of protection. The inner forearm, which we naturally protect, would be where the screen would unfold from. Since a handle would be needed to make it easy to pull the screen out, this handle could also contain a set of controls and a stylus could be stored inside the handle, along its axis. The controls would be used for whatever actions need to have shortcuts (additional controls could be placed on the collar), while the stylus would be used to interact with the display when it is pulled out. Communication with the CPU would obviously be via the short-range wireless channel.

By making the screen attach to the spring mechanism via a strip magnet, it would be easy to detach and reattach the screen, thereby allowing the screen to be placed on a table when convenient. When a table is not available, bracing could fold out from the screen’s handle and attach to the corners of the slot from which the screen emerges. This would provide at least some rigidity while using the stylus with the primary support coming from the arm, of course. For this to work, the stylus would have to have a special tip that would interact with the screen without requiring a lot of pressure.

With a special card that could plug into a laptop and communicate with the worn computer via short-range wireless, one could achieve a remote desktop solution, thereby reducing the need for the flexible screen when a normal computer is available.