The Wearable Internet Will Blow Mobile Phones Away
Earlier this year at the TED conference, Pattie Maes from the MIT Media Lab's Fluid Interfaces Group showcased a wearable computing system that allows users to display and interact with the Web on any surface - including the human body. The video shows the system's main developer, Pranav Mistry, taking photographs with his hand, summoning up Amazon review data onto the cover of a physical book, displaying information about a person he's just met on their tee-shirt, and calling someone by inputting a phone number onto the palm of his hand.
Look out mobile phones, because in a decade's time wearable systems may be the primary means of accessing the Web!
In the TED presentation, Maes refers to this system as a "sixth sense" - a sense that would give us seamless, easy access to information on the fly about situations and objects we come across.
The current system, albeit relatively clunky, could be purchased for as little as $350. Essentially it is made up of a webcam, a battery-powered 3M projector, mirror, phone and colored finger caps. But in 10 years - according to Maes, the period of time when this type of system might be fully developed - it could be one device and as small as a watch. Or indeed maybe even a brain implant.
This type of product will undoubtedly go well beyond what mobile phones are capable of now. As Maes put it, mobile phones currently don't have easy access to all of the relevant information we need on a daily basis. A mobile phone still requires a user to change their behavior, she said.
Plus the Web as we know it today is full of manual steps, such as visiting websites and searching for information. In 10 years time we'd hope that the Web of Data would be much better realized, for example product data easily viewed outside of its official website no matter what the context.
One example given in the TED presentation was looking at a book in a bookstore. Currently to get access to reviews information, a person would need to take out their cellphone, open up Amazon's mobile website - or a relevant iPhone app perhaps - and search for that book. Whereas with the wearable internet device demoed at TED, the user simply wiggles his or her fingers and up pops the Amazon rating on the front cover (reviews data can be reached by opening up the book).
You can see the power of this as a next generation Internet interface, as it removes several manual steps from the process of receiving relevant, contextual information about something or someone.
We've blogged a fair amount about sensors this year, because they connect the real world up to the Internet. The wearables system relies a lot on them, for example the caps on Pranav's fingers. Add that to the many other points of connection to the Web and it's a powerful system; for example the book has a barcode that, in combination with the wearable device, will pull down data from Amazon.com via the Web.
The Internet as Sixth Sense
As explained in a Wired article earlier this year (found via h+ Magazine), a lot of the information that "helps us understand and respond to the world" doesn't come from the 5 senses humans are usually born with. It comes from computers and, increasingly, the Web. So the goal of this MIT wearable device is to "harness computers to feed us information in an organic fashion, like our existing senses."
We at ReadWriteWeb are very excited about next-generation Internet interfaces, such as augmented reality and so-called cross reality. These wearable devices strike me as being the most impressive future Web interface that I've seen in a while. Check out the video and see if you agree.
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really cool article. this technology reminds me of minority report as far as the technology in the movie not actually looking into future which would be cool.
OR we can say "Mobile phones will be wearable"
This outlook into the future is really amazing.
The other AR devices, long in development, present a better model for this type of data access. There is little need to project the imagery - it is intrusive and requires a surface - whereas typical AR implementations are overlaid on the world but only for the user via retinal projection or mediated through a device like an iPhone.
I see this going the way of voice interaction, works well for sci-fi but in practice... who wants to sit on the subway speaking aloud the things they are doing on their computer?
It is an impressive video indeed. If the data will become available it will give a lot of power to consumers.
Last week I watched a webconference from Wal-Mart (can be seen here: http://walmartstores.com/Sustainability/9264.aspx?p=232) where they announced to take the initiative to start a global sustainability index. As part of that they announced they will make the data available in a database for competitors & for the consumer. For that last part I do hope Wal-Mart employees are reading RWW too (or that they are fans of the mashable web already :-) It's part 2 and 3 of the factsheet: http://walmartstores.com/download/3879.pdf
WE ARE BORG - RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.
So, has anyone tried to wear one of these into an airport yet, say, in Boston?
Reminds me of Oblong technologies:
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2008/11/minority-report/
and more recently, the EPOC emotiv:
http://fora.tv/2008/12/12/Tan_Le_Brings_the_Force_to_Life_with_Mind_Control_Device
http://emotiv.com/
While the EPOC is targeting the game industry with their own SDK (hardware: ~ 300 USD, software license: ~500 USD), MIT is already collaborating with Oblong:
http://zig.media.mit.edu/Work/G-stalt
The last point (as well as the ideas for X-Box Project Natal [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpC2TXhJGkE]) make one thing quite apparent: Just like "pinch to zoom", there has to be some kind of standard for input metaphors in a 3D context.
Hopefully, there'll be more initiatives around open hardware (like arduino) and not limited to being in a dark room with an expensive set of gloves on.
Laser-based projectors will be coming to mobile phones in Q3 this year (http://www.gizmag.com/samsung-pico-projector-mobile-phone/10773/), so there will probably be some intermediary solutions until everybody is wearing a "though cap".
But consider this: If you're able to read the electrical currents of the brain to controls real-world interactions, in a couple of years/month there will be a device to also manipulate sensing directly: So a projection screen, heads-up-display or portable beamer will only be a precursor for things like retina projection or "augmented sensing".
At some point onwards, a device the size of an rfid chip should suffice to read/write all five senses.
Of course, this now invalidates the Amazon API terms of service, which has already seen at least two non-Amazon iPhone apps removed from the iPhone AppStore. This presents a worrying case where this type of innovation will be held back by the controllers of big databases and APIs.
(And what is hugely ironic about this is that the Amazon APIs drive Amazon sales, which has historically been why they wanted people to use them - surely a far better change would have been to simply prevent anonymous use of the APIs, and then used the information - now linked to your account - to drive better sales?).
Dans un de ces billets, manubonnet montre qu'on peut faire quasiment la même chose (vidéo à l'appui) avec quelques lignes de code ActionScript écrites (tuto disponible) en quelques heures il y a déjà plus de 1 an.
http://code.google.com/p/wiiless/wiki/First_Demos
http://blog.emmanuelbonnet.com/2007/06/16/projet-wiiless/
And think about how this technology is going to entirely change our news and media consumption once it goes mainstream in a few years
Well, that was something.
I showed this gadget to my 11-14-year-old students last semester. Naturally they were fascinated. How cool that they will probably get to see all this come to the general market. I hope I live that long as well. Star Trek and the Jetsons were right about the future of gadgets. LOL
I wrote about this last week in an article:
http://www.examiner.com/x-13879-iPhone-Examiner~y2009m7d10-An-iPhone-with-face-recognition-and-a-video-projector-could-revolutionize-data
I don't think it will compete with smartphones at all. I think it will be an extension of them. Why walk around with two mini-computers?
I agree - there is great potential for innovation in 'wearables'. But don't underestimate the challenge; by and large, consumers have never before worn electronic technology on a wide-scale basis, so we are paving new ground.
The challenge - once we put something on us, this quirky thing called "fashion" raises its head. People will need to feel comfortable being seen wearing these devices...in addition to feeling comfortable using them.
In short, until wearable technology goes mainstream, developers of wearable devices who ignore the fashions of the day will do so at their peril.
it didnt help
really cool article. this technology reminds me of minority report as far as the technology in the movie not actually looking into future which would be cool.
I showed this gadget to my 11-14-year-old students last semester. Naturally they were fascinated. How cool that they will probably get to see all this come to the general market. I hope I live that long as well. Star Trek and the Jetsons were right about the future of gadgets. LOL
Interesting, but recognition of gestures/symbols on projected surfaces is a very old concept. Today of course, we are into ultra mobility, however like Pierre Wellner's work 20 years ago, its got to go beyond stages video presentations.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8lCetZ_57g
Intersting article. Liked it.