History and Challenges of Wearable Computing
The last post was mainly focused on the work done by Mark Weiser(in 90s) at Xerox PARC(A very cool place to be in the 80s-90s, birthplace of laser printing, Ethernet, ubiquitous computing, GUI and the list goes on..). In this one, I’d like to talk about the advances at the start of the new millennium.(starting from 97 till 2003)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMid2xUtWmo
The most precious resource in a computer system is no longer its processor, memory, disk or network. Rather, it is a resource not subject to Moore’s law: User Attention.
This was the tag line of a really cool project going on at Carnegie Mellon , called Project Aura which was pioneered by Prof. M. Satyanarayanan. Their concept video(definitely watch this ‘futuristic’ tele-ad) showcases an environment which augments a user’s day to day life by providing information on cue without distracting the user(totally reminds me of Okay Google!). In his paper on challenges faced by pervasive computing, he mentions focuses on the software stack implementation challenges rather than the hardware challenges(which was Weiser’s main focus).
This change in paradigm is noteworthy as while Weiser had to create and invent his own hardware, Project Aura could rely on the existing (but not completely mature) technologies such as Wifi(called 802.11), Distributed computing (Prof. M. Satyanarayanan is also known for his work on Andrew File System, the tech behind Dropbox, Drive and other distributed management systems)and Mobile Computing (Nokia 3310 was a thing by then). His paper gives an excellent example of how even though all the technologies needed for fully immersive and ubiquitous computing existed (laptops, wireless communication, natural language processing, face recognition, video camera) YET there was no one such seamless interaction of them.
Whole is much greater than the parts.
This is how he paraphrases the challenge and it still seems to be the case even today.
Moving on from Project Aura at CMU to this incredibly rad fellow called Thad Starner at Georgia Tech. Prof Thad Starner is a pioneer in the field of Augmented Reality and is probably the only person to be wearing a customized computer on person since 1993. He is also the technical lead on the Google Glass project.(No points for guessing why!). Along with these really cool glasses, he also carries a Twiddler (one handed keyboard) for taking notes. Since his entire setup is connected to the internet, it allows him to augment his conversation with pieces of information from the web or from a earlier conversation you might have had with him( due to his super amazing note taking skills.)
All it takes is a one-line summary to remind me of what was so important. It’s not that it’s replacing my memory; it’s helping me recall stuff. Computers are really good at recall and really bad at recognition. People are the other way around.
This is an extract from one of his interviews with Engadget in 2013. (It kinda makes you want this awesome setup that he has!)
While Prof Satya focused on the implementation issues faced in designing a truly pervasive interface, Prof Starner’s paper (part 1 part 2) focused on challenges faced by wearable computing. He talks about a style of interface which can be generalized for any piece of hardware. An interesting example regarding development of networking is given as the locust positioning system (a DIY combination built using RFID, PIC).
Another interesting sidebar note present in his paper is about the Thorp/Shannon wearable roulette predictor (a unit present in the observer’s shoe which would track the timing of the roulette wheel and send this data over to the gambler who would listen to it using an earpiece). In order for this system to be private and secure, there had to be subservient considerations for power, networking and interface design. This sidebar note discusses the design tradeoffs needed to be made while considering one parameter over others.
Once again it is really astonishing to note how innovative and future ready both Prof Satya and Prof Starner were. Their research and their papers note the hurdles that were and still are present in the development of truly ubiquitous computing. These papers show the need for solving the seamless interaction problem instead of focusing on the technology itself because the technologies have already matured.
