This is where the cutting edge research is being conducted on wearable technologies.
Mobile Worker
University of Oregon Computer & Information Science
MIT Wearable Computing
Georgia Tech Future Computing Environments
University of North Carolina -Chapel Hill
Artificial Life Team (British Telecomunications)
Lucidity Institute
Sun Microsystems
Mobile Worker
http://research.dnv.com/hci/
"We are currently doing extensive research into the possibilities that wearable equipment may offer for surveyors, consultants and other mobile workers".
University of Oregon Computer & Information Science
http://www.cs.uoregon.edu/research/wearables/papers.html
Wearable Communities is the umbrella project at the University of Oregon that investigates the use of cutting-edge mobile and wearable computing technology to assist people during social encounters in the real world: when people meet on the way to the office, in the elevator, or at the grocery store.
Projects:
1. Proem is a platform for developing & deploying Peer to Peer (P2P) collaborative applications in a mobile ad-hoc networking environment.
2. Auranet is the University of Oregon's Wearable Computing groups implementation of a wearable community. The Auranet is the network of computing devices that exist in a person's social space or "Aura". The Auranet is where people and their personal computing devices have face-to-face encounters.
3. Developing a wearable assistant for those with cognitive impairments (e.g., Traumatic brain injury, dementia). The assistant will have access to GPS information to track a user's location. It will have Internet access to alert a care-giver that help is needed. Finally, it will be able to establish Point to Point connections with good samaritans in the local vicinity for assistance.
4. MEDIWEAR:
-A mobile computer that is taken home by a patient in order to monitor vital functions that could otherwise not be monitored outside a hospital. We call this mobile computer a patient wearable. The issue of patient acceptance of human-computer connections has yet to be addressed.
-A mobile computer that informs paramedics outside the hospital. The paramedic wearable combines different functions that help the paramedic to accomplish typical tasks more rapidly.
5. The Oregon Wearable Computer is a body-worn multi-purpose computer designed for tasks that require hands-free operation. It is equipped with a heads-up display and a hands-free voice driven user-interface.
MIT Wearable Computing
http://lcs.www.media.mit.edu/projects/wearables/
Projects:
1. MIThril combines small, light-weight RISC processors (including the StrongARM), a single-cable power/data "body bus" and high-bandwidth wireless networking in a package that is nearly as light, comfortable, and unobtrusive as ordinary street clothing.
2. The MIT/IDEO project is a joint effort between the MIT Media Lab and IDEO Product Development to address the human side of wearable computing.
http://lcs.www.media.mit.edu/projects/wearables/mit-ideo/index.html
3. Beauty & Bits Fashion Show/Design Contest http://wearables.www.media.mit.edu/projects/wearables/out-in-the-world/beauty/show1.html
4. Affective Computing-working on building a computer that can read your moods and respond to them by biometric signals. Prototype can play mood music dependent on biometric signals.
5. Shoe Power- Ordinary shoe designed as a personal-area network that turns the body into a 'wet wire' for transmitting data. The shoe has flexible film sensors in the sole that generate power to run the system when the user walks on top of them.
Georgia Tech Future Computing Environments
http://www.cc.gatech.edu/fce/
The Future Computing Environments (FCE) Group is a collection of students and researchers across various units of Georgia Tech who are interested in developing a culture and infrastructure on campus for the investigation, prototyping, and construction of computing environments now that we believe will be commonplace in 10-15 years.
Projects:
1. Eclass http://www.cc.gatech.edu/fce/eclass/
2. (Other projects-check website)
University of North Carolina -Chapel Hill
http://www.advanced.org/tele-immersion/cubenet.html
Projects:
1. Telecubicle (Teleconferencing)
2. (Other projects -check website)
Artificial Life Team (British Telecomunications)
Projects:
SoulCatcher -an 'immortality chip' that would be implanted somewhere behind the eye and interface with your neural network, thus creating a digitized existence. It's professed to be able to record what you say, think and see and download that data into a mainframe computer.
Lucidity Institute
-Company focused on how lucid dreaming may enhance training.
Projects:
Invented NovaDreamer that professes to help you become lucid during your sleep, which would enable you to start learning. (see ProQuest article on the Future Training Room)
Innovative Technologies/Research
Navy- -Orientation Vest that is equipped with tactile stimulators (an orientation tool for pilots with vertigo)
Sun Microsystems
-(iButton)-pinky ring that hold keys that unlock encrypted Internet message, contains a microprocessor, math accelerator, clock and memory.
US Customs Service
-using Xybernaut belt-mounted computers which has voice recognition software, full color monitor in eyeglasses, and enough memory to hold every license plate number in the country.
Boeing -Using wearable eyeglasses that are transparent, mechanics are able to overlay a wiring diagram over a manual and with a position-and-orienting device the appropriate schematics zoom into view.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
-WARP (Wireless Augmented Reality Prototype) wearable audio/visual computer access system that relays what astronaut says, her vital signs, and a video of what she's working on to a central computer, and she can access all sorts of info from her headset.
University of Illionois (Chicago)
http://www.cs.unc.edu/~scher/immers.html
-Developing CAVE (Tele-immersion system) where dwellers wear lightweight stereo glasses and interact with virtual objects project on the walls.
Human Interface Technology Lab at U of Washington
http://www.hitl.washington.edu/
-Created VRD (Virtual Retinal Display) retinal scanning devices that project from your retinas the image on a computer screen into your field of vision…training were and when you need it without monitors (and can be used w/o a light source).
-"A clinical trial conducted by Microvision for novice automotive mechanics demonstrated an increase in training efficiency between 60 to 80 percent when traditional paper-based training was uploaded into VRD devices."
US Airforce Human Engineering Division
-Developed brain-activated computer-controlled devices that are triggered by reading brain waves.
ViA Inc.
http://www.via-pc.com/
-Created a bendable motherboard which was used for NATO troops parachuting into Bosnia -full color touchscreen display, headphones, microphone, and software for translating English into Croatian and other languages.
Xerox Palo Alto Research Center
http://www.parc.xerox.com/parc-go.html
-Invented a programmable tattoo (a computer chip with visible readout through the skin)
Sun Microsystems
Java Jacket
-Doug Sutherland, a staff engineer at Sun Microsystems, has come up with the ultimate mobile computing solution: the Java Jacket. What appears to be an ordinary leather coat is in fact a homemade wearable computer that lets Sutherland interact, via the Net, with everything from Sun's network to his home aquarium.
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