So given that I will not have a full time visual display, nor do I want random beeps and sounds emanating from my jacket, I need a invisible device to act as a notification. First to mind is a vibrator (think cell phone, not your horny little nymph of a girlfriend), this would be easily integrated, and difficult to detect from the outside, however they do seem to drain batteries quickly. Any ideas here people?
Second up is no full time input interface. I'm hoping I can get voice Recondition working on a basic level (hell if my cell phone can, why not?) as well as a few hidden buttons.
http://www.linux.com/base/ldp/howto/Speech-Recognition-HOWTO/software.html
http://www.faqs.org/docs/Linux-HOWTO/Speech-Recognition-HOWTO.html
http://freespeech.sourceforge.net/FreeSpeech/html/
(looks like I have 2 real options here, IBM's offering is out, their stuff is usually a bit obscure and hard to install and seldom maintained.)
As far as buttons on the outside, i am thinking touchpad or touch strip (think like a synth ribbon controller)
Some wearable pages/blogs:
http://staticfree.info/projects/wearable/
Kinda Basic, but a few good ideas.
http://www.ableq.com/
This site reccomends hardware for a fee for a purpose (usually disability.)
They have some good interface ideas such as electronic braille readers, I should look into this!
http://www.parvus.com/products/MilitaryAerospace/RuggedComputing/ZypadWL1000/
Purpose built wrist mounted mini-pc with Touch-TFT display that runs linux or ce. Interesting interface, bluetooth, etc, but a bit large for unencumbered use. Most likely pretty expensive.
http://www.frogpad.com/
One handed keyboard for limited space one-hand operation. Looks like a steep learning curve (as with braille) but effective... Maybe I should just wait for vr-glove and use more standard interface until then. My ideal is to make it intuitive, and this might not fit that goal.
http://www.holux.com.tw/
Manufacturers website for small usb-GPS units. Cheap and reliable with apparent linux support. Web site is not in English.
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/vuman/www/boeing/index.htm
Notes from a boeing brainstorming session on wearables from '96. Still some accurate info. Seems odd how little has really been standardized/accomplished in wearables in the last 10 years... what happened?
http://jakeofalltrades.wordpress.com/2007/09/30/25-head-mounted-display/
So this is a HUD that costs 25-125$ to make. It is a b/w LCD with 'eyepiece'. Instructions on hacking are easy and interface is pretty standard.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Emacspeak could theoretically help you setup an entirely aural interface, though it has a learning curve associated with it.
http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2007/10/31/asus-eee-subnotebook.html
Boing Boing reviewed a very small laptop, which goes for $400.
Might be worth considering as your hardware platform.
There is also the "$100 per child" laptop, which I think currently costs $200, and you'd need to buy-one-to-get-one. (I'd heard you could buy them for domestic use, but only if you sponsor one for a needy child, or something like that, so it'd still run you close to $400.)
There is also the option of buying a used laptop of some kind, or of using a tablet PC.
I mentioned the Eee PC by asus yesterday, and current prices are closer to 400$ but still not too bad. Drawbacks are battery life (only about 3-4 hours as tested with all systems online), storage space (4 gb at this writing).
The OLPC is weaker, larger, heavier. Not quite what I need, but I did also consider this.
Lastly, I have an IBM Thinkpad 240 (celeron 300, 192 ram, 1XPcmcia, 1xUSB, VGA, Serial, 800x600 screen)
Maybe an Ipod with linux?
I want audio in and out, and i already have 4 usb devices that will need a home with my current laptop or an e3 PC.
1. GPS
2. Bluetooth
3. Keyboard, twiddler, etc.
4. Flash drive (or 2.5 ide) for storage.
So that will drain the power even faster. :-/
most of these wearable setups seem to involve home-made battery packs to extend life. I imagine you'll need to do something similar.
Hello! Do you have any success in building your wearable computer? You have posted link to your blog in our community http://community.livejournal.com/ru_wearable/ some time ago. In february 2008 I've build my first version of wearable computer. Recently I have started the blog on English: http://advegam.blogspot.com/ (sori for bugz in my Inglish!) in which I'll describe the way I build my wearable PC and tell in details about software tuning that permit my device to be really wearable. Good luck with your own device!
Post a Comment