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 NAME                      DATE              DESCRIPTION
 
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    One                    -                 -  
 
       Body Tech           Dec/Jan 2001      Someday - and someday soon - technology will
                                             fuse with the human form. A report from the
                                             front lines of wearable computing.
 
 
 
One (Dec/Jan, 2001)
 
Body Tech 
 
By David Pescovitz 
 
Two years ago, when I spotted someone walking down the street having a heated
conversation with himself, my immediate reaction was: "How sad, another
schizophrenic." Things have changed. Now when I see a suit-wearing schizo
bustling through the Financial District, an increasingly common occurrence, I
just look for the wire running from his ear into the mobile phone in his pocket.
These hands-free jabberjaws are the advance scouts in the nascent
wearable-computing revolution.

In 1972, the first digital watch wowed the world with its bright red display and
space-age design. Less than 30 years later, cell phones are practically
comparable with Dick Tracy's wrist radio, and handheld personal digital
assistants have nearly made the Filofax obsolete. Meanwhile, Levi Strauss &
Co., Nike and even IBM are putting a fashionable face on totable technology.

Combine wireless Internet access with a just-announced full-blown PC the size of
a matchbox and new eyeglasses rigged with a tiny video display, and you can
search an online restaurant guide to find the best vegetarian dim sum as you see
the sights in Chinatown. Or comparison-shop online while you're browsing in a
brick-and-mortar retailer. Or add a tiny video camera and stream your child's
fun in the park to your spouse stuck at work. And that's just what you can do
today.

In the foreseeable future is technology under development at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Laboratory that enables your body to act as
the conduit for your own Personal Area Network. Imagine, you shake hands with
someone and instantly exchange digital business cards, which are stored in tiny
computers hidden in the soles of your shoes — the data streamed as
low-power electricity right through your body. Inspector Gadget, meet the Six
Million Dollar Man.

"Instead of intelligent highways, smart rooms, smart floors and smart television
sets, we should consider having 'smart people,'" says Steve Mann, a professor at
the University of Toronto and pioneer of wearable computing.

I briefly met Mann in person several years ago; his reputation preceded him. I
had heard tales of a small group at the MIT Media Lab, where Mann studied, who
nearly all their waking hours wore headgear rigged with small screens and
cameras controlled by bulky belts packed with sensors, microprocessors and
batteries. They were exploring issues of constant connectivity, electronic
surveillance, and what they called "augmented reality," online information
continuously streamed into their field of view. Mann told me that he was
designing "second-brain devices that were true extensions of the mind and body."

In casual conversation with me, Mann seemed chronically distracted — either
I bored him, or he was checking his email, or both. Ironically, he came across
as more machine than, well, Mann. And the feeling of alienation I was flooded
with when we spoke was certainly something to reckon with. Today
wearable-computing contraptions have shrunk tremendously, yet the issues of
techno-etiquette, privacy and human-computer interaction that Mann and his
colleagues have raised are bigger than ever.

And as the wearable computer spreads into the mass marketplace, a
counterrevolution is beginning to brew as well.

The sign taped on this San Francisco café's door is barely noticeable
— it's scrawled on a piece of notebook paper — but once it catches
your eye, the message comes across loud and clear: No mobile phones. A
tiny boutique record store nearby has a similar sign posted in its window.
Across town, at a bookstore founded by a Beat poet, the same demand is directed
to browsers in a more creative manner: Turn off your sell phones!

At the core of this attack on body tech is the fear that we're becoming cyborgs,
a term that MIT's wearable researchers use (only half-jokingly) to refer to
themselves. The sci-fi inspired concern is that by integrating electronics so
closely with our bodies we're becoming somehow less human. And that's admittedly
a scary notion. But that's not the reason why, when my cell phone rang to the
tune of Beethoven's Fifth in that café, I was attacked by evil eyes.

The questions we face are not just how design dictates how we relate to
computers, but how the design of computers impacts the way we relate to each
other.

"We have had millions of years of evolution of how we pay attention, how we
allocate our attention to the world around us, and wearable computers change our
relationship to that space," says professor Judith Donath, director of the
Sociable Media Group at the MIT Media Lab. "When you're in a public space with
other people, part of the notion is that we're all here together. But with
cellular phones, there's the sense that those people on the phones have removed
themselves from that public space into some other realm. And you're kind of left
behind. So it's interesting to think about how the design of future devices
could be less intrusive."

One way to do that, Donath suggests, is to take a step back from
technofetishism, in this case technology for technology's sake, and ask basic
psychological questions about how we use the devices we already own. For
example, what is it about a wearable computer as simple as a cell phone that we
find so annoying? Answer: people talking on them. And therein lies the irony.
The very act of withdrawing from the public space in order to take a call is
also an act of intrusion.

Chatting on the go is one thing, but running into an on-call mobile worker at a
party is a whole different story. Quite simply, you can't have two conversations
at once.

Or can you?

Text messaging, where short missives are fired back and forth wirelessly via
pagerlike devices or cell phones, is extremely successful in Europe and Asia,
Donath notes. Handheld email devices from Motorola and Research in Motion are
available in this country as well, and make use of tiny keyboards and small LCD
screens as interfaces. On the recent crop of Web-enabled cell phones, you input
text by scrolling through the characters on the keypad. The practical beauty of
these devices is that during your downtime in public spaces you can keep the
channels of communication open without tuning out the world around you. The
design challenge then is to develop the ultimate input device for wearable
computers.

That's where Stanford University professor Vaughan Pratt's attention is focused.
Pratt recently spun out a commercial version of his Matchbox PC, the world's
smallest computer capable of running Windows. Plug a head-mounted display and a
portable keyboard into the Matchbox PC and you become your desktop. But while
wrist-worn mini keyboards and other handheld data entry devices are available,
Pratt has come up with his own unobtrusive input scheme for wearable computers:
Thumbcode, a "device-independent, digital sign language."

"You simply say, 'Okay, my hands are my keyboard,' and you use your thumbs to
press on the segments of your fingers [to transmit letters]," Pratt says. The
prototype Thumbcode input devices his group at Stanford have developed consist
of gloves wired with sensors that act as the keys of a keyboard when you press
on them. "If you've got your hands as your only typing device, then there is no
limit to how small the rest of your wearable computer system shrinks," Pratt
says.

But ingenuity aside, the bottom line is that a silicon accessory has to be
visually appealing in order to entice people to put it on before they leave the
house every morning. For better or worse, aesthetics are likely to be more
important than politeness, at least initially, when it comes to wearable
computing.

This is less of a concern with commercial applications, wearable computing's
current, if limited, stronghold. One company, Fairfax, Virginia–based
Xybernaut, is a leader in wearable technology for repair, maintenance and
inspection workers. For example, an aircraft mechanic wearing a Xybernaut
head-mounted computer has instant access to a searchable technical manual right
before his eyes, which he can control using voice-recognition technology.
Xybernaut has plans for the consumer sector, too. Michael Jenkins, Xybernaut's
vice president and chief technology officer, foresees scenarios like a homeowner
reading instructions for building a deck via an eyeglass display instead of
running indoors to rewind the home-improvement video.

But he's quick to point out that "you're not going into a bar on a Friday night
wearing this thing."

You would though — if the gear weren't too geeky. Instead of uploading the
directions to your deck, envision accessing a digital address book complete with
digital snapshots to your wearable device. You run into someone at the pub who
seems to know you quite well, but you're drawing a total blank on their name. A
tiny video camera built into your eyeglasses snaps their mug and the PC scans
your database until it matches their face. Instantly, a secret reminder pops up
in the corner of your eye with a reminder of who you're talking to and how they
know you.

But before video cameras and eyeglasses with onboard screens become hip fashion
accessories, product designers must destroy the stigma associated with wearing
your technology on your sleeve. That's one idea behind ICD+ (which stands for
Industrial Clothing Division), a new line of clothing from jeans giant Levi's
and Philips Electronics that merges utility wear with wearable computing.

The ICD+ line launched four jackets for on-the-job urban nomads. Each style
— which are sort of Mad Max-meets-Carhartt — is tricked out with a
cell phone, an MP3 player and a chest-mounted remote control enabling easy
operation. The devices are linked by wiring in the coat's lining so that each
bit of electronics works hand-in-hand with the rest. For instance, when a call
comes in, the volume of music from the MP3 device automatically lowers.

Each coat is targeted to a specific industry — the all-climate Producer
jacket, with numerous pockets, is aimed at on-the-set Hollywood types while the
durable Beetle jacket is custom-built for scooter couriers on delivery trips.
The clothing is planned for modularity: The jackets could link with
yet-to-be-announced garments like shirts with keypads in the sleeves, for
instance. Dry-clean only? Nope. The devices are removable; the wiring impervious
to water.

Currently, the first jackets are undergoing, er, beta-testing in Europe. Only
2,500 of the $1,000 coats were produced.

If the jackets catch on, mass production paired with the ever-dropping cost of
mobile electronics will likely lower the price of the ICD+ line. Regardless, the
big barrier to U.S. introduction is the incompatibility between European and
U.S. wireless communication networks.

"Levi's is famous for developing the first workwear, the first denim jeans for
the gold miners in the 1850s," says Peter Bas, Levi's brand manager for the ICD+
line. "Now with this new line we are pioneering new forms of workwear, for the
new modern worker, the new gold miner."

Make that data miner, the 21st century counterpart.

While Levi's is using the ICD+ line to target "millennial workers" — road
warriors of one sort or another — other companies are going directly for
the mainstream with fashionable wearable technology. Nike is integrating MP3
players into its sportswear, and Samsonite launched their Blacklabel Travel Wear
line, rigged with simple devices like reading lamps and alarm clocks.

Even IBM, the quintessential example of corporate geekdom, is dabbling in
computer couture these days. While one division of Big Blue is collaborating
with Xybernaut on the next generation of wearable computing for commercial
applications, IBM's future-forward Almaden Research Center, in the heart of
Silicon Valley, is developing a line of digital jewelry created by Denise Chan,
a recent graduate of Stanford's School of Engineering, who hooked up with the
company at a job fair. As legend has it, the idea was sparked by an
out-of-character comment from Almaden Director Robert Morris, who muttered that
he'd be willing to pierce his ears if it negated the need to wear a headset for
mobile communication. The result? Demo devices like earrings with tiny onboard
speakers and a ring with a built-in TrackPoint, the nipple-like cursor
controller found on IBM ThinkPads.

Further along are the elegant offerings of Charmed Technology, a Los Angeles
firm that spun out of the MIT Media Lab to commercialize wearable-computing
couture. Indeed, the CTO of the company is Thad Starner, who, along with fellow
Media Lab alum Mann, the first cyborg I closely encountered, are arguably the
preeminent envelope pushers in wearable computing. Currently, the company is
best known for its successful series of Brave New Unwired World fashion shows
which merge spacey runway fashion with wearable technology from numerous
developers, including Xybernaut, Motorola and others.

Their first two signature products, due out this month, include the Charmed
Communicator, a PC in a belt buckle with a display inside sunglasses; and the
Charmed Badge, which automatically transmits its wearer's electronic business
card to other users via infrared.

Katrina Barillova (who formerly worked in the security surveillance industry) is
the 27-year-old Czechoslovakia-born chief operating officer of Charmed. "People
are afraid to look like cyborgs," she has said. "Our goal is to make technology
fashionable and to incorporate these items into everyday lifestyles."

While Charmed, along with Levi's, IBM and other companies, is racing toward
making aesthetic improvements of today's wearable computing, the social impact
of the technology's far-future applications remain largely unresolved. And the
annoying symphony of cell-phone rings is just the first cue encouraging us to
consider how wearable technology can become as banal as it is empowering.

Extrapolate a scenario from this example: the impressively inexpensive yet
conceptually advanced key-ring computer, the Japanese Lovegety. Users enter into
the Tamagotchi-like device whether they're in the mood for "love," "chat,"
"drink" or "movie" and the Lovegety beeps whenever they're within 30 feet of
another Lovegety-carrying individual with whom they're "compatible."

Now expand the Lovegety's preference possibilities (foreign films, loves kids,
etc.) along with its range, so it can cover entire neighborhoods or even towns.
"At its worst, it turns every city into a giant singles bar," Donath says.

A next-generation Lovegety could bring the "Buddy Lists" of virtual chatrooms
into the physical realm, providing a pleasant surprise by alerting you that your
best friend happens to be in the next café over, or tracking your child
if she's lost. The key for designers is to incorporate a host of custom-control
features into the product, enabling you to block what information you'd like to
broadcast and to pick and choose who receives it. "Wearable computers are not
handcuffs," Pratt says. "No one forces you to wear them."

True, but even if you're not wearing one they still can make you feel like a
prisoner of the datasphere. Take the research of Ph.D. candidate Bradley Rhodes
at the MIT Media Lab. Rhodes has designed a system he calls a Remembrance Agent,
a program that continuously "watches over the shoulder" of the wearer of a
wearable computer and displays one-line summaries of notes, files, old e-mail,
papers and other text information that might be helpful to the user at any given
moment.

The benefits of having a Remembrance Agent in your peripheral vision are
enormous. Picture wandering around a museum and having background on each
artifact you see automatically pop into view. Or the notes from a talk someone
gave that you saw several years ago displayed in your peripheral vision the
instant you shake that person's hand in real life. Now imagine meeting a person
wearing a Remembrance Agent system at a dinner party. As soon as your name is
entered into his wearable computer, either transmitted by the likes of a Charmed
Badge, or entered manually, a full Web search of you begins. The problem
(actually, not a problem), is that a person is much more than their home page,
resume or list of favorite films.

"The physical world around us has lots of information in it that we are
subconsciously picking up," Donath says. "When we add a whole new data-stream,
we really need to think about how we control it, especially when you could be
paying attention to it later. Otherwise, you may lose a lot of subtle,
hard-to-articulate information if you're looking at a person's Web site instead
of into their eyes."

Turning off the Remembrance Agent may be akin to dispensing with a built-in
bullshit detector. But you can always do your Web search after the party ends,
instead of missing out on the very things that make us yearn for real-world
interaction to begin with.

"I'm curious to what extent people are going to adapt to these new devices as
opposed to the devices' adapting to our existing mores." Donath adds.

And, lest we forget, there's always the "off" switch.