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Portables Displays Technology Hardware

Wearable PC with an Artificial-Reality Helmet 197

Posted by timothy from the who-says-they-flamed-out? dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "In this short article, InformationWeek writes that 'two sexy technologies that flamed out five years ago -- wearable computers and artificial reality -- are combined in a new training-development system' for the military. This system, developed by Quantum3D, includes a binocular head-mounted OLED display and head-leg-weapon motion-tracking systems, integrated with a vest-worn tactical visual computer. It runs under Windows XP and is compatible with the 802.11 a/b/g wireless networking standards. It will be used by the infantry to train soldiers, but it looks so complex that I would need intensive training just for using it. Read more for other details and an illustration of the full scary system."
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Wearable PC with an Artificial-Reality Helmet More

Wearable PC with an Artificial-Reality Helmet

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  • Welcome to the Borg ! (Score:3, Funny)

    by JaCKeL 1.0 ( 670980 ) on Saturday February 19, 2005 @10:26PM (#11726163)
    Welcome to the Borg !

    • cLIPPY (Score:3, Funny)

      by Uber Banker ( 655221 )
      Hello. I notice you're attempting to assymilate or eliminate deverse species into your race. It seems like youj're writing a letter...

  • platform? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Ok, I'm not as religous a microsoft hater as many here, but is there ANY good reason to have this run on XP?

    • Re:platform? (Score:2, Funny)

      by glib909 ( 623480 )
      Games, perhaps?

    • Re:platform? (Score:5, Funny)

      by hozozco ( 856621 ) on Saturday February 19, 2005 @10:32PM (#11726205)
      Having XP in the background gives you something to blame for all the 'friendly fire'. Hey, I'd believe it!

    • Re:platform? (Score:5, Funny)

      by nuclear305 ( 674185 ) * on Saturday February 19, 2005 @10:38PM (#11726246)
      "Ok, I'm not as religous a microsoft hater as many here, but is there ANY good reason to have this run on XP?"

      Since TFA wasn't all that informational I'm going to take a guess and say:

      1) The military primarly uses Windows (Yes, I know there are exceptions....)

      2) On a system like this I'd imagine a GUI-centric OS is essential, and face it...Windows does this better than Linux. (Note: don't confuse this statement with anything even close to the word 'stability')

      3) In the event of a crash, I suspect on a system like this it's easier to hit the reboot button; rather than dumping the user to a Linux CLI where they have to have some access to a keyboard to restart whatever failed; whereas with Windows it's point-and-click.

      Of course...these are entirely my opinions and I'm sure there are going to be plenty of Linux users to come along and attempt to shoot holes through them.

      • Re:platform? (Score:5, Informative)

        by Greyfox ( 87712 ) on Saturday February 19, 2005 @10:53PM (#11726331) Homepage Journal
        The Military uses Windows because the 3 companies on the planet that can stand to do government contracts use Windows and are Microsoft partners. They get all the bids because no one else wants to do the paperwork necessary to do Military contracts. If you look at, say, EDS, it really appears that even for those companies military contracts are more trouble than they're actually worth.

        Windows might have an edge over Linux for an immersive 3D environment simply because more video cards support it. Doing a good 3D environment with information overlays is a complex problem and most of the work that I've seen done has been UNIX/OpenGL based.

        In the event of a crash you'll know you're running Windows. If your crappy linux video driver causes a kernel panic, it's just as easy to hit reset on Linux as it is on Windows. Especially if you use one of the journaled filesystems that have been built into the OS for the past 5 years or so now.

        Anyway, I'd be surprised if the entire reason Windows was chosen over any other OS was due to the contractor's familiarity with it and possibly because they're a "Microsoft Partner." Whether it's the best, cheapest or most secure option they could have chosen probably didn't even enter the equasion.

        The military's not as fickle as the public. If you build a Windows based PVR that has to cost $30 more than a Linux based PVR due to the Windows license, most people will go for the linux based one, all other features being equal. The military will choose and pay for whatever their contractor bids out for them, no questions asked.

      • Point #3 isn't valid. Linux can be set up so it boots directly into a GUI without the need to type anything, even login info. I don't know about point #2. I find the Windows GUI presents a better mouse interface but I doubt that any of that is applicable in this case because this project will probably need a new custom user interface. Things that work well at a desk might not be convenient here.

      • Re:platform? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by coaxial ( 28297 )
        Wearable and ubiquitous computing is an academic interest of mine.

        2) On a system like this I'd imagine a GUI-centric OS is essential, and face it...Windows does this better than Linux. (Note: don't confuse this statement with anything even close to the word 'stability')

        The main thing wearable computing provides is augmented reality. These devices are not general purpose machines, and therefore do not feature a traditional WIMP interface. The user doesn't have a mouse, nor a keyboard. He may have a jo

    • Clippy! (Score:4, Funny)

      by Man in Spandex ( 775950 ) <prsn DOT kev AT gmail DOT com> on Saturday February 19, 2005 @10:55PM (#11726346)
      "Hello I'm Clippy. You'll go where I go, eat who I eat and bother who I bother" =)

    • Ok, I'm not as religous a microsoft hater as many here, but is there ANY good reason to have this run on XP?

      You'll find a lot of exotic computer gadgets you find on the net tend to use Windows. I presume it's simply because it's probably cheaper to develop for just one platform, and they choose to use the most common one. Here are some examples of fancy displays and input devices I've found on the net...

  • Mod Article (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 19, 2005 @10:28PM (#11726183)
    -1, Roland

    • Anti AD Revenue below; (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      A Man-Wearable PC with an Artificial-Reality Helmet

      In this short article, InformationWeek writes that "two sexy technologies that flamed out five years ago -- wearable computers and artificial reality -- are combined in a new training-development system" for the military. This system, developed by Quantum3D, includes a binocular head-mounted OLED display and head-leg-weapon motion-tracking systems, integrated with a vest-worn tactical visual computer. It runs under Windows XP and is compatible with the 802

  • XP, and wireless (Score:4, Funny)

    by Squigley ( 213068 ) on Saturday February 19, 2005 @10:28PM (#11726184) Homepage
    From the article:

    It runs under Windows XP and is compatible with the 802.11 a/b/g wireless networking standards.

    Let the flaming begin.

  • Too bulky (Score:5, Informative)

    by metlin ( 258108 ) on Saturday February 19, 2005 @10:29PM (#11726193) Journal
    After having worked with ubiquitous computing for a while, I can tell you one thing -- that thing is too big and has very bad affordances for it to take off big time.

    On the other hand, look at something that folks like Thad Starner [gatech.edu] or Steve Mann [toronto.edu] come up with - better affordances.

    (Mann actually had a different helmet design and changed to the Eye-tap design)
    • I think somebody should upload this picture [wearcam.org] to Wikipedia for the "nerd" article. Especially the helmet on the left; that picture is priceless.
      • Yup! :-)

        Which is what I was pointing out -- he started out with that design and moved on to the Eye-tap [eyetap.org] design that he has now.

        Using helmets now is almost going backwards.
        • That's fine for providing information overlays (actually it looks really cool, if the mirror can be made smaller and less obvious, and you use one of those phone microphones that hangs at your throat instead of that obvious one he has), but it looks like that's all his current system can do. The system in the article is supposed to be an "immersive" type system, where the entire field of view is replaced by virtual reality. You'd need two large mirrors to do that with his system, pretty much necessitating
      • Certainly. If you can obtain permission for the picture to be released under the GNU Free Documentation License [gnu.org].
    • this isn't for a soccer mom or surfing the net in the food court while the wife is shopping. Its for soldiers, people who are used to carrying around 100 pounds of equipment. I don't think this is going to be that much of a bother for them.

    • Re:Too bulky (Score:3, Informative)

      by MoneyMan ( 234776 )
      I think you're missing the point.

      This isn't meant to "take off big time".

      It's meant as a training device, specifically designed for military use. The military leads a VERY different life from you and I.

      From the limited information (image) provided, the equipment used here is not significantly, if any, larger or heavier than standard equipment carried in the field by our military on a daily basis. In fact, it looks right inline with what is "humped" on any given day.

      Also, this is meant as a training de
      • I think you have absolutely no idea of what I was talking about.

        Affordances have nothing to do with skills, it about how intuitive the product is to use - usability at a very intuitive level (you see a glass mug and you realize that the hold is for gripping the mug).

        In fact, especially since it would be used for military applications (training or not), the affordance becomes even more important - because your reactions would be stifled by what is around you.

        And by taking off big time, I was referring to
    • Yes, the weight is conspicuously absent in the entire article. Troops currently carry too much weight; how much ammuniton of food should they leave behind so they can carry this?

      Who was it who said that a standard test for these systems would be to make the General who comissioned them run 5 miles wearing it?

  • BSOLD (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Blue screen of literal death.

  • A crutch (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Staplerh ( 806722 ) on Saturday February 19, 2005 @10:32PM (#11726206) Homepage
    This sounds like a crutch for good, realistic training. From the short article, which leaves a lot of questions in my head:

    Quantum3D Inc., which bills itself as a visual-computing vendor, has announced the availability of the Expedition, a combination wearable computer and artificial-reality gear. The Expedition's target market is developers of so-called immersive training. Their products, in turn, are used to train armed services personnel and emergency-response workers.

    Hmm.. it sounds bulky and cumbersome. Are soldiers really running around with a wearable VR gear - no, they aren't (at least not the line troops).

    Now, I have limited military experience (some basic training and basic courses), but I happen to know that these troops are going to have a crapload of equipment and this will just add an extremely unrealistic element to their training exercise.

    Besides, it will be unreliable and probably add a lot of time to various training exercises. I'm not saying it'll be unreliable just because of Windows XP (although it won't help matters.. BSOD in the middle of an exercise?), but because soldiers tend to crash around heavily with their equipment - and equipment, however sensitive, tends to be broken by technically inept people.

    Looks cool, but I'm sure it will take a few million tax dollars to do an evaluation of this machine by Quantum3D and discover the flaws.

    • Re:A crutch (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Being a retired Marine with 20 years experience. The biggest problem I see will be getting them to wear it as My troops as well as myself would take stuff off strip the plates out of our flak jackets, any thing we could do to lighten our load as speed of movement was more important to us than what minute protection the gear provided. Not to mention the lack of being able to hear with a bell on your head and and now they want to further limit your vision. Can't see that as being good. A heads up display on a

  • Insert Another Quarter (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Saturday February 19, 2005 @10:36PM (#11726228) Homepage Journal
    Aren't our soldiers already getting too much "virtual" training before we send them to places like Iraq, so huge percentages are coming back with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder?
    • hmm? so you'd rather kill them during training before sending them somewhere? then they'd have crushing stress right there, but they'd still have crushing stress at the warzone..

      or would you like them to get therapy BEFORE going there? might be a good idea but what the hell does it have to do with combat situation training?

      of course it's traumatic. difference with earlier wars is that now it's less of a tabu if you went cuckoo in the head because of the pressure.
      • No, I'd rather we didn't send them. And when we send them, I'd rather they get real training, whose results are understood. Any training - these soldiers are regularly thrown into situations for which they're not trained. Sometimes because the situation is a new kind of situation, unique to this "counterinsurgency" war, sometimes because we just skipped the training to get more bodies in the field - especially national guard.

        Right - our troops are sissies now, more weakminded. No, it's because the whole ca
        • no, i'm not american. but i know the situation is not really unique in world history, at all, not even in the last 20 years.

          the modern technology does give advantages into military training, especially training which was impossible before(mock wars and such, in which this tech comes handy). 'virtual' training is every bit real training as any, if you can show the situations from first person perspective while giving a lecture about some tactics and maneuvers it helps a lot, it's not like they're going to d
          • "preferably trained before sending them to the frontline"

            These helmets are as useful in training an Iowa kid in house-to-house Baghdad counterinsurgency, and ignoring torture at HQ, as Grand Theft Auto is in driving crosstown in LA. The traditional training methods are immersive of both the body and mind, in the overwhelming, unpredictable, unsafe environment in which soldiers operate against guerillas. These helmets are going to get more people killed (soldiers and otherwise), and their surviving lives ru
        • "And when we send them, I'd rather they get real training, whose results are understood."

          It can be really easy to totally screw someone up with poorly understood training.

          I remember reading about some US special forces outfit (Rangers IIRC?) who as part of their training would undergo regular and extended immersion in cold water. The theory being that they were getting hardened against hypothermia.

          If I recall correctly, it actually had completely the opposite effect so they wound up with a couple of gene
        • Moderation 0
          50% Flamebait
          50% Insightful

          TrollMods love the Iraq War. Can't win it, can't lie about it anymore, so the only option is to supress people talking about it.
    • I would think that improvments to our medical system over the years probably makes PTS easier to spot. Soldiers have always had it rough with the amount of mental anquish they face. I would think that WWI soldiers would have had it the worst with trench warfare and cases of shell and chemical shock. However, Iraq is a much different situation as there are no front lines and the enemy is hard to distinquish. This is similar to Vietnam. One would think our soldiers would have a similar ratio to th
    • You can produce the next version of America's Army, productise the headset and sell it to 'trainees' who you don't even have to pay to train.

      Then implement the draft! It's genius!
    • Was reading this interesting article [counterpunch.org] today on the extent to which military recruiters are invading high schools and community colleges.

      Anyone still in school who can confirm this is what's its like today?

      - Military recruiters in the lunch room on a daily basis
      - Guest military speakers in classrooms
      - Army and Marine recruiting ads mandatory viewing in classrooms
      - Recruiters telling kids to stay out of college and go in to the military instead because then college is free and you will be able to get jobs on
      • Uh yeah, that pretty much sums up military recruiting. They focus on the poorer schools (high schools and community colleges) because those people are more likely desperate enough to give uncle sam their permission to get their ass shot off for, you know, any old reason he feels like it.

        Hopefully our species will get on the same page before we wipe ourselves out. Hopefully the agreement we come to in order to coexist has room for some freedom in it...

  • Games? (Score:3, Funny)

    by digidave ( 259925 ) on Saturday February 19, 2005 @10:37PM (#11726236)
    Counter-Strike? Oh yeah.

    Wasn't there recently a Slashdot story about people confusing reality with games? Nearly every comment suggested that gamers had that experience at least once... even with Tetris! I think this technology will can that to a whole new level.

    Maybe we ought to have a game where you hunt for Osama Bin Laden and then let loose an army of 17 year olds into Tora Bora.

  • Ctrl+Alt+Del = ..... (Score:4, Funny)

    by LoverOfJoy ( 820058 ) on Saturday February 19, 2005 @10:37PM (#11726241) Homepage
    They are training the soldiers to pat their head, rub their tummies and wiggle their toes simultaneously to reboot.

  • It runs Windows? (Score:4, Funny)

    by flyingsquid ( 813711 ) on Saturday February 19, 2005 @10:38PM (#11726242)
    Great, now instead of shooting at our troops, our enemies can simply attack them with viruses and spyware!

  • Do they seriously use Win XP in war situations ? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 19, 2005 @10:43PM (#11726274)
    God help us

  • Battlefield VR and the Quantum Gate (Score:5, Interesting)

    by D4C5CE ( 578304 ) on Saturday February 19, 2005 @10:47PM (#11726298)
    Looking at the description and the name of the manufacturer, it is interesting to recall that in the history of early CD-ROM videogames, "Quantum Gate" was a "season" of so-called "interactive movies" (VirtualCinema by HyperBole Studios) featuring the idea of VR overlay being (ab)used to turn the actual "soft" targets into something ugly the soldiers would no longer hesitate to shoot.

  • Prior Art (Score:4, Funny)

    by kajoob ( 62237 ) on Saturday February 19, 2005 @10:58PM (#11726358)
    I think the patent office may have something to say about this; Steve Jobs has had an Artificial-Reality Helmet for some years now.

  • Screw the military! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by __aailob1448 ( 541069 ) on Saturday February 19, 2005 @11:05PM (#11726387) Journal
    Why don't WE have VR helmets yet? It's been almost 15 years since the primitive arcade ones appeared and yet here we are in 2005 and still nothing.

    This sucks!

    • Why we don't use VR helmets today. (Score:5, Informative)

      by mpesce ( 146930 ) on Saturday February 19, 2005 @11:52PM (#11726570) Homepage
      Back in the early 1990s I started a company designing consumer VR ware for video games. We did lots of design work, got a few patents (hardware) on our work, then got a big contract from Sega to design key portions of their Virtua VR system - which was an HMD (head-mounted display, the real name for these things) that would plug into the Sega Genesis system to give you full immersion into the game playing world. We worked out all of the technical details, got the prices on the parts down to where it could sell for about $199 retail, and sat back and waited, and waited, and waited. Then Sega killed the project. We never heard from Sega why they killed the project. But, a year later, I heard a lecture from some researchers at SRI, who had done the testing for this helmet on Sega's behalf. Sega wouldn't allow them to release the results, so they did the tests again - on their own dime - and released them. And here's why you won't be wearing an HMD anytime soon:

      1) Binocular dysphoria: when you wear a stereo HMD, your eyes/brain are getting one clue for depth perception (parallax) whereas in reality, there are six different cues for depth perception (focus plane, shadowing, etc) which your eye/brain uses to sort out what's going on in the z-plane of reality. While you're in the HMD, the brain adapts to this. Trouble is, when you take the HMD off, your brain is _still_ adapted to this. Now your brain eventually goes back to normal, but this takes some time, and it varies from individual to individual along a bell-curve distribution. Some people come back almost immediately. Others come back very slowly. That is an enormous problem if you go out and get into a car right away, or - as would be the case with the kids using the Virtua VR - getting onto a bike, walking down stairs, etc.

      2) Torque: The Virtua VR was, like most early VR HMDs, closer to Darth Vader's helmet than to a pair of eyeglasses. That puts pressure onto the neck, and the neck can't really handle more weight than the head's already putting on it. Adding weight adds a lot of torque to the neck's movements, resulting in much more frequent neck strain.

      3) Barfogenics: Although computers are more than fast enough to update images at 30 fps (even the Genesis could do this), the sensors which are used to calculate the yaw/pitch/roll of the head - in order to keep the image aligned with your proprioceptive sense of where your head is - generally don't work nearly as quickly. Most cheaper tracking systems, the kinds you'd find in consumer electronics, have some hysteresis associated with them. And that's bad, because if the image lags the movement by more than 50 msec, almost everyone will end up getting motion sickness. (Technically, this is known as "simulator sickness".) But the sensitivity of people to simulator sickness is also distributed on a bell-curve. Some folks get it very quickly, others don't get it at all.

      So there you have it: Sega was told that they'd be selling a device that would cause kids to ruin their depth perception, would give them neck sprains, and would make them puke. Sega didn't even want to think about those kinds of lawsuits...

      Today HMDs are lighter, but these fundamental issues remain, and remain unresolved. Yes, you can use optical tracking these days, because comupters are much faster with optical processing, but it's difficult to set up. HMDs are lighter, but they're still bad for your eye/brain. And until those problems get resolved, don't expect to be putting your head into an HMD.

      • That's such a shame. Means that the only HMDs available will be the $999 ones from tekgear [tekgear.com], bought by enthusiasts who say "Damn the risks!" much like early proponants of the aeroplane and motorcar.

        Gah. Rich people. I wish I could afford their toys.

        Are you allowed to tell us more about the specs of your HMD and how you got the price so low? Maybe somebody on slashdot would jump at the chance to resurect your project...

        • how to build an HMD (Score:4, Insightful)

          by mpesce ( 146930 ) on Sunday February 20, 2005 @01:23AM (#11726933) Homepage
          Building HMDs is not rocket science. Back in the early 90s (when I did this kind of research) we used LCD displays purloined from the new portable TVs that were coming on to the market. Sega used 2 320x240 displays (left and right). The focusing system for the eyes (so you don't need to wear glasses, which you can't with most HMDs) is very similar to what you might find in a pair of binoculars. Add an orientation sensor (yaw pitch roll) and that's really just about it. Oh, and you may want a pair of headphones.

          Seriously, this isn't rocket science. We manufactured test HMDs in my garage for a year and a half, using off-the-shelf components. That said, my focal plane can now do things that are downright unnatural - because we used some very odd lensing stages which, well, didn't always work perfectly. ;-)

          But again, these things really aren't safe for any sort of extended use. 20 minutes, a few times a week, is all that anyone could really hope to tolerate without producing unpleasant side-effects.

          All things considered, I think that heads-up displays are far better, because they only add to the real world, rather than substituting something for it. That's where I'd like to see this sort of development go.
      • Why you got modded Redundant is beond me.

        Intersting, insightfull - thanks. Thats the stuff that I read slashdot for and it was hiding at -1.

        Maybe Sega has mod points here and, no, why would they use Redundant?
      • and because Virtual Reality is out Argumented Reality is out too? That's pretty pathetic.

      • difference (Score:3, Interesting)

        by goon ( 2774 )

        What is the difference in approach with your kit and say Steve Manns [toronto.edu]? Admittantly your system is commercial consumer grade where constraints of market and production play a big part in releasing product. But Manns research [eyetap.org] and production into wearable computers (wearcomp [eyetap.org]: tapping into his right eye) has been around for ages.

        • Re:difference (Score:2, Interesting)

          by mpesce ( 146930 )
          A single-eye system will produce eyestrain, but I don't know that it will necessarily produce binocular dysphoria. I doubt any studies have been done on this - and quite probably, they should be. Although VR is all fun and games, it's quite closely coupled to our biology, and that makes it very potent.
    • No kidding. We have the technology, and it would add a whole new layer to games out there now.

      Example: All I've ever wanted for Battlefield 1942 was the ability to have VR goggles so when I fly I can turn my head and see around in the cockpit as kind of a free mouselook while I can still steer with the joystick.

    • You CAN get them, then are simply a little too expensive for general use. You can get VR goggles (circa $600 for 800x600) and head motion trackers for around $100. To make playing an FPS workable you'd also need a wireless gamepad (to avoid getting wrapped up in the cables when in the virtual world) and voice activation software (e.g. Voice Buddy) for all those additional commands that you can't map to a gamepad.
  • If you read the small print on the bottom of Q3D's picture of the Explorer you will see "Soldier not included". You need someone else to operate it after you pay an arm and a leg for it.
  • Imagine playing at a laser tag arena with this set up. You don't need the laser tag arena to has props any more. Just use this to superimpose Doom 3 characters over your friends and populate the arena with "ghost bots" (bots in the game without a real physical counterpart in the laser tag arena). Now THAT would be an awesome experience. I've played laser tag once and it was a lot of fun, but it really needed more atmosphere than the arena actually presented (ie. Needed to be more the like the excellent
  • Will take the place of Friendly Fire as cause of Death of soldiers.

    When will people learn?

  • Uh oh... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Windows XP, AND 802.11* networking? How long until the first soldiers are scarred for life by goatse beamed directly into their helmet?

  • The Helmet is a good thing ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by EnronHaliburton2004 ( 815366 ) on Saturday February 19, 2005 @11:29PM (#11726469) Homepage Journal
    The Helmet is a VERY good thing, IMHO.

    After all, something needs to protect your head when you keep walking into things because you're staring at a COMPUTER SCREEN instead of the sidewalk.
    • I would rather have a clear plastic panel that covers my eye, and have a projected image hit it. So that the display was transparent, and when not in use, could be looked through with ease... This would also go well when you start writing the display software to overlay map information with what your eye see, so looking with your left eye, you see all real world terrain as you normally would, through your right eye, you see the real world terrain, with computer generated graphics laid on top of that terrain

  • I don't know what's funnier.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Laebshade ( 643478 ) <laebshade@gmail.com> on Saturday February 19, 2005 @11:48PM (#11726546)
    The fact that he has 'accessories' kit [quantum3d.com] or the fact that the caption says "Soldier not included" [quantum3d.com].

  • Hardware behind it all... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Doppleganger ( 66109 ) on Saturday February 19, 2005 @11:55PM (#11726589) Journal
    It's interesting to that a number [nvidia.com] of [quantum3d.com] manufacturers are putting out glowing press releases about their involvement with this, including Transmeta [transmeta.com]. There's a bit more information on Transmeta's site about the actual specs of the wearable system itself.

    And, yes, it can run Linux.
  • whenever you encounter a company with the word "quantum" in its name, and you ask yourself why, you should always keep in mind one thing
    Nobody would surrender to the dread pirate Westley
  • Wake me when they've got a wearable PC with artificial-reality underwear.
  • Flamed out?

    I'm sorry, but there is a piece of wearable computing equipment in my pocket at all times. I mostly use it for music, as an adress book, and occasionally for a good game of brickout... it's the kind of things a computer can do that are convenient on the go.

    In fact, most people I know have a sofisticated piece of telecommunication computing technology on them most of the time, some of those can even take pictures! We ask them to turn them off in theatres and in class, but you see people outdoors
  • Nice system, but using Nvidia FX5200 Mobile for its real-time 3d graphics support is a little weird in this day.

  • 800x600 hmd (Score:3, Interesting)

    by edward.virtually@pob ( 6854 ) on Sunday February 20, 2005 @03:09AM (#11727321)
    i thought the most interesting thing is that 800x600 oled [emagin.com] hmd displays are coming (finally) vs. the currently on market 640x480 [microopticalcorp.com]. of course, how long it takes for the emagin unit to make it into consumer-available (and affordable) technology remains to be seen.

    • Actually... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by cr0sh ( 43134 )
      800x600 resolution HMDs have been around for quite a while - for example, I own a CyberEye CE-200M HMD which uses 800x600 LCDs - very crisp output I might add (though the FOV isn't great). In fact, a ton of money will get you XGA and beyond HMDs. Most consumer and prosumer level HMDs have been *maximum* 640x480, often with very crappy FOVs.

      I think the real nice thing is that this is a recent instance of an HMD using OLEDs instead of LCD or CRT devices. That is the real story on it...

  • What the heck's going on (Score:3, Insightful)

    by advocate_one ( 662832 ) on Sunday February 20, 2005 @04:03AM (#11727454)
    I mean... submitted by Roland Piquepaille and the banner strip across the top of that page has " Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends"

    This is ridiculous... why aren't the editors kicking this guy out??? but then again, at least he's honest sorta about himself... other sneaky types probably are pushing their own ad revenue by making their submissions with a pseudonym slashdot account

  • Built-in wireless networking? I guess that gives a whole new meaning to wardriving, then.

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