What do I mean by that?  Well I think the time is right, the technology is ready personal computing technology can start to evolve into something coherent and clever.  (don’t get confused – I’m not talking about the old-fashioned PC !)  

Although technology is racing into this area, it always bugs me that the use of it takes another decade to evolve into something you could actually call ‘clever’.  So what’s the current situation?

Let’s take a look at what we can currently load into some typical geeky pockets.  Mobile phone, that’s now the most basic necessity, but for some people, they like to have something that works a bit more like a mini computer as well; so we add a PDA.  Next, if you like a bit of music you’ll want a MP3 player, even though your PDA probably plays music, and maybe your phone as well, but a MP3 player looks cool and you can compare colours with your friends etc, oh and it produces better sound right!?   What next, maybe you’ve got a digital camera.  Even though you’re PDA has one, and your phone and your MP3 player as well, you’ll want a proper camera as it takes much better pictures, oh and it has a flash, the other’s don’t - right?  Yeah it will really bug you taking photos at concerts if you don’t have a flash! 

All these things are starting to make you pockets bulge.  Yeah it might feel good having bulging pockets for a day or two, but you’ll grow tried of hefting those pants up soon enough.  So with all that I don’t suppose you really need a memory stick as well?  Or do you? Can you plug the PDA, camera, mp3 player into any old computer and see what’s on it??  Mostly not, so chuck in a memory stick as well, it’s ok they’re only small.  Like playing games?  Or watching movies on a mini screen, you can add those things if you feel your PDA screen isn’t big enough as well.  Maybe that’s a bit over-the-top, but I think there actually might be people out there with a list of gadgets like that.

But wait there’s more.  (This is starting to give me a headache)  Then get in your car and, turn on that GPS tracking thing that tells you when to turn into your driveway.  Then there’s the subject of my last post with that dreaded cycle computer and heart rate monitor and … and then there’ll be something else as well, there all ways is.

Aaarrgh!  am I crazy?  I feel I’m a fairly dedicated tech-head sort of a guy, but all this stuff makes me start to feel a bit ill.  The annoying thing is I don’t have all those things, but one day I hope to!  It’s a common quest of many people to reach their technological peak a sort of technological-realisation.

Ironically, my suggestion doesn’t involve shying away from it all - not at all!  I just don’t want to have to all those different things hanging around my neck.  I just want one thing!  (hanging around my neck)

And this is what it is:

I want a computer!  That’s all, but not so much in what it does… well, I want it to do all those things above.  But that’s obvious; it’s how it fits into my life or literally how it fits onto me that is important here.  At this stage I’m not sure how or which way to would be best to wear this computer, but I can think up a variety of options - as a belt, a holster, or a sash, a wrist band (I start to feel like a sci-fi writer thinking about this problem) ??  A singlet with the computer is woven into the fabric? 

Ok let’s say my imaginary computer is in the shape of a belt for the time being.  So how does it work? – it works like any other computer really.  That’s not really the point.  So what’s the point?
1. Flexible!  A belt, a band, a sash or singlet has to be flexible.  It can have stiff bits, but only bits, not the entire thing. 
2. Wireless! – wireless like never before… many things hooked up at once, with auto detection. Wireless all over the place!
3. Extendibility.  So you buy the basic frame, like a computer box… then add to it with all sorts of various options which can be attached or swapped in.
4. The basic device is really basic – no monitor, no keyboard just a very open framework which can interface (sorry I’m using these silly words, but they do a good job of describing what I mean) with anything you bring near it.  

There are other points which should be common sense (maybe a bit presumptuous of me) it has to be light weight and cool running, good batteries and so on.  (But it seems if you don’t point these things out, the people who make these things don’t figure they need to include them??)

So the setup goes like this… you buy your wearable computer.  Then you buy the options for it that you want – simple! 

But how do the options work?  The more fundamental options can slot physically into a series of… umm slots!  For example phones, GPS receivers, wireless internet receivers, sound amplifiers, video accelerators.  Then other devices that you may have with you or you might leave at home and can attach themselves wirelessly when you have them near by.  The things that fall into that category would include ear-bud speakers, keyboards, screens, cameras, printers, external storage just to name a few. 

Taking the belt idea for example, I’ll take you through how it could be set up.  The physical slots would be around the edge of the belt, on the side, at the back.  Those addon devices would come in the shape of a small card which would slot in.  Like the PCM%^ thingy cards on the side of a laptop, but smaller. 

Let’s have a day in the life example.  Let’s say you want to use it to watch a video on the bus, well you’ve bought yourself a nifty little screen which doesn’t have to do much but wirelessly hook itself up to your belt computer, no storage in it, just a screen… ok maybe it’s touch sensitive, but apart from that it will rely on the computer for everything else.  It comes close to your belt and ‘zap-zap’ it comes to life.  The computer figures you might want to watch a video and pulls up a list of what it has to show.  Maybe your screen has a little speaker as well, or maybe you prefer your own wireless headphones, either way the computer has attached them and you’re off in video dream world - on a bus.  Amirah doesn’t like buses – I don’t mind them myself.

So now a friend calls in the middle of your video, you take the call and the computer kindly pauses the video during the call.  Since the computer is running the show, this is the sort of service that you can expect now.  As it turns out your friend is near by, (while you were talking your computer’s swapped GPS details now you now know where to met!)  Switching to the GPS program for a moment it tells you via the speakers or via the screen that the bus you’re on is getting close to your friend’s place.  So you get off at the next stop.  Start to walk and the computer tells you to keep walking straight for 300m to get to your friend’s place.  Now you’re there, your friend shows you a new sound card they’ve got.  You plug it in and wallah! you’re now listening to sound quality twice as good as before.  But you hate music so you hand the thing back and start talking about the party you took your camera to last night.  You left the camera at home today, but the pictures are still with you in the belt as the camera sent them directly there at the time.  They want a copy of one so they turn their printer on and you’re computer has hooked in, a nice print of the photo is sliding out but, narh they don’t want a real copy of the photo, the print will do just fine. 

So the whole point of heading out today was to pick up your bike you left behind yesterday.  Reunited with your bike, your belt and it have connected and now the mini LCD on the handle bars is being managed by the computer, telling you your speed and that you’ve got a call coming in from your friend?  You stop and answer.  Just as well they’ve called; you’ve left some food in their fridge.  At least you no longer leave your phone behind somewhere.

Ok so my example is a little naff, but I’m trying to illustrate how useful a multipurpose, comfortable device like that would be, everything you need on a daily basis gets fitted snugly into it, and everything you need occasionally gets left at home mostly, and everything you don’t want at all, you don’t buy.

Naturally, the key to making something like that work is a very good set of standards… everything has to be able to talk to everything else and in a way which makes sense.  For example, a program might have a given message it wants to get out, but it should leave it to the computer to handle how the message is to be delivered.  To send it in whichever form is appropriate at the time, or to whatever device it has at its disposal. 

It all sounds a bit fanciful, but really it isn’t as far fetched as you might think.  Everything required to make something like this work is already out there.  All the parts just have to be brought together in the right way, and programmers have to learn how to write proper programs.  Such powerful CPU’s nowadays and such pithy programs that are still being written to a recipe that hasn’t changed for decades!  That’s half the problem right there, but…that’s a topic for another time.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 20th, 2006 at 10:18 pm and is filed under My thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.