CyberMouse Wednesday, March 23, 2005: That big thing of glass,plastic and metal in front of you is a computer-that's going to change over the next few years and you will 'feel' the difference:INNOVATIONSWEARABLE COMPUTERS Wearable computers are coming down in price and taking aim at the mass market. A purse designed by MIT researcher Gauri Nanda is composed of a patchwork of fabrics containing tiny microchips linked together with Velcro that acts as an electricity conductor. Priced at $150, Nanda expects the sleek handbag to hit the shelves in a couple of years and eliminate the clunkiness associated with wearable computers. "Cyborg computing was very clunky, very bulky machines that people didn't want to carry around. Our bags feel and look like bags." Nanda's purse uses radio signals to communicate with a high-tech wallet to alert the owner if she forgets to take it along or replace it in her bag after a purchase. Analysts expect shipments of wearable computers -- purses, watches, shirts -- to skyrocket from 261,000 last year to 1.39 million in 2008, with "fun" devices accounting for 80% of the sales, says IDC analyst Kevin Burden. In addition, wearables are being adapted for health-related purposes, such as monitoring real-time calorie intake and expenditure and tracking patients' vital signs. For instance, VivoMetrics sells a shirt designed to collect and analyze the wearer's respiration flow, heart rate and other key metrics, and is planning to release a model designed for emergency-services workers, such as firefighters, that would alert commanders when a firefighter's core body temperature or stress levels are reaching critical levels. (BusinessWeek 8 Mar 2005) AND NEW-AGE BODY SURFING Advances in personal area networks mean that your body soon could be the backbone that provides broadband connectivity between your MP3 player and a cordless headset, or your digital camera and a PC or printer. RedTacton, a new technology from Japan's NTT, can send data over the surface of the skin at speeds of up to 2Mbps -- equivalent to a fast broadband data connection. According to The Guardian, RedTacton-enabled devices would enable music from an MP3 player to "pass through your clothing and shoot over your body to headphones in your ears And since data can pass from one body to another, you could also exchange electronic business cards by shaking hands, trade music files by dancing cheek to cheek, or swap phone numbers just by kissing." IBM and Microsoft have both explored personal area networking, but RedTacton is arguably the first practical system because unlike these other systems, it doesn't require transmitters to be in direct contact with skin. They can instead be incorporated into gadgets and carried in pockets or purses, as long as they stay close to the body. The system makes use of the minute electric field that occurs naturally on the surface of every human body, and because humans make very ineffective aerials, the electronic signals are difficult for outsiders to intercept. "This is good for security because even if you encrypt data it is still possible that it could be decoded, but if you can't pick it up it can't be cracked," says Tom Zimmerman, inventor of IBM's original body-based networking system. He notes that using Bluetooth technology generates signals that can be picked up by other Bluetooth devices in the area: "With Bluetooth, it is difficult to rein in the signal and restrict it to the device you are trying to connect to." (The Guardian 17 Mar 2005) Unknown // 2:40 PM ______________________ "A computer lets you make more mistakes faster thanany other invention in human history - with the possibleexceptions of handguns and tequila." - Mitch Ratclif Unknown // 1:57 PM ______________________
That big thing of glass,plastic and metal in front of you is a computer-that's going to change over the next few years and you will 'feel' the difference:INNOVATIONSWEARABLE COMPUTERS Wearable computers are coming down in price and taking aim at the mass market. A purse designed by MIT researcher Gauri Nanda is composed of a patchwork of fabrics containing tiny microchips linked together with Velcro that acts as an electricity conductor. Priced at $150, Nanda expects the sleek handbag to hit the shelves in a couple of years and eliminate the clunkiness associated with wearable computers. "Cyborg computing was very clunky, very bulky machines that people didn't want to carry around. Our bags feel and look like bags." Nanda's purse uses radio signals to communicate with a high-tech wallet to alert the owner if she forgets to take it along or replace it in her bag after a purchase. Analysts expect shipments of wearable computers -- purses, watches, shirts -- to skyrocket from 261,000 last year to 1.39 million in 2008, with "fun" devices accounting for 80% of the sales, says IDC analyst Kevin Burden. In addition, wearables are being adapted for health-related purposes, such as monitoring real-time calorie intake and expenditure and tracking patients' vital signs. For instance, VivoMetrics sells a shirt designed to collect and analyze the wearer's respiration flow, heart rate and other key metrics, and is planning to release a model designed for emergency-services workers, such as firefighters, that would alert commanders when a firefighter's core body temperature or stress levels are reaching critical levels. (BusinessWeek 8 Mar 2005) AND NEW-AGE BODY SURFING Advances in personal area networks mean that your body soon could be the backbone that provides broadband connectivity between your MP3 player and a cordless headset, or your digital camera and a PC or printer. RedTacton, a new technology from Japan's NTT, can send data over the surface of the skin at speeds of up to 2Mbps -- equivalent to a fast broadband data connection. According to The Guardian, RedTacton-enabled devices would enable music from an MP3 player to "pass through your clothing and shoot over your body to headphones in your ears And since data can pass from one body to another, you could also exchange electronic business cards by shaking hands, trade music files by dancing cheek to cheek, or swap phone numbers just by kissing." IBM and Microsoft have both explored personal area networking, but RedTacton is arguably the first practical system because unlike these other systems, it doesn't require transmitters to be in direct contact with skin. They can instead be incorporated into gadgets and carried in pockets or purses, as long as they stay close to the body. The system makes use of the minute electric field that occurs naturally on the surface of every human body, and because humans make very ineffective aerials, the electronic signals are difficult for outsiders to intercept. "This is good for security because even if you encrypt data it is still possible that it could be decoded, but if you can't pick it up it can't be cracked," says Tom Zimmerman, inventor of IBM's original body-based networking system. He notes that using Bluetooth technology generates signals that can be picked up by other Bluetooth devices in the area: "With Bluetooth, it is difficult to rein in the signal and restrict it to the device you are trying to connect to." (The Guardian 17 Mar 2005) Unknown // 2:40 PM
"A computer lets you make more mistakes faster thanany other invention in human history - with the possibleexceptions of handguns and tequila." - Mitch Ratclif Unknown // 1:57 PM
