Wearing your heart on your
sleeve Alejandro Zamudio www.alejandrozamudio.com A wearable technology primer (of sorts)

The contents of Steve Wozniak’s
bag. Do we humans really need to carry this much stuff around? (photo by Gizmodo blog)

I. Gambling

Ed Thorp, Co-creator of the
first Wearable computer in 1960. http://edwardothorp.com

The first wearable computer was
shoe worn and was devised to inconspicuously calculate the outcome of a casino roulette wheel.

Close-up of the shoe computer.

Post PC era?
Yes, but...

TheWeight of the past... Why
does the present have to be labeled based on the technology that is dead or dying out?

Computing Eras Mainframe PC Post-PC
1960s 1980s (Mobile?)

What will be next? What
will come after the mobile era? it can’t be the “post-mobile” era!

Place your bets... Wearable computing
could be an important ingredient in the next wave of computing, and a logical next step for mobile devices.

II. Landscapes

How a desktop computer sees
us... Diagram included in Physical Computing, the seminal Interaction design book by Dan O’Sullivan and Tom Igoe. (2004)

How a smartphone sees us...

How should a wearable computer
see us?

How our brains see us
Somatosensory homunculous, first formulated by Wilder Penfield in the 1950s. This model shows what a man's body would look like if each part grew in proportion to the area of the cortex of the brain concerned with its movement.

Where are our boundaries?

Personal Space Intimate Personal Social
Public In his work on proxemics, Edward T. Hall separated his theory into two overarching categories: personal space and territory. Personal space describes the immediate space surrounding a person, while territory refers to the area which a person may "lay claim to" and defend against others. Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Proxemics

What’s the largest organ in
the human body? Image credit: Furryscale (license:CC BY-SA 2.0)

Living Dynamic Rich Intimate Personal
Surface Social Image credit: Furryscale (license:CC BY-SA 2.0)

Fluid surfaces Everything has a
surface. Surfaces are usually changing, fluid, dynamic, adaptive. Image credit: lagohsep (license:CC BY-SA 2.0)

Interface Interface: meaningful surface, or
the space where 2 surfaces touch and exchange information.

Fabric Fabrics are interesting in
that they are almost nothing but surfaces in contact with our skin. Image credit: ecstaticist (license:CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

SIXTH SENSE Sixth Sense MIT’s
Sixth Sense projects takes a literal approach to the “every surface is a potential interface” concept. http://www.pranavmistry.com/projects/sixthsense/

III. Daemons

In Greek mythology, Daemons are
invisible creatures that guide and help mortals, without intervening directly.

Eudaemons The Eudaemons were a
group of UCSC students who created (another) gambling-oriented wearable computer in 1979. In his Nicomachean Ethics, (1095a15–22) Aristotle says that eudaimonia means ’doing and living well’. It is significant that synonyms for eudaimonia are living well and doing well. On the standard English translation, this would be to say that ‘happiness is doing well and living well’. (Wikipedia)

Steve Mann The father of
wearable computing. Inventor, teacher and researcher. Full-time cyborg. further references: http://www.interaction-design.org/encyclopedia/wearable_computing.html

Eudaemonic computing Inspired by the
Eudaemons, Eudaemonic computing is about helping people lead better lives. (Computers as good spirits)

1980 mid 1980s early 1990s
mid 1990s late 1990s Evolution of Steve Mann’s wearable computer

A more recent version of
Steve Mann’s wearable computer.

Operational modes Constancy Always on,
always accessible

Operational modes Constancy Left: Dome
computer continuously records the wearer’s life. Right: Microsoft Research’s SenseCam is based on the same concept. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SenseCam

Operational modes Augmentation Augment intelligence
and senses

Google’s project Glass is one
of the most highly publicized examples of wearable computing with augmentation as a focus.

“The Borgs” from MIT Media
Lab were wearable computing pioneers during the 1990s. Some of them are now working on Google’s Project Glass. http://articles.boston.com/2012-07-15/business/32664324_1_microoptical-wearable-head-mounted-displays

Operational modes Mediation Encapsulate, filtrate,
manage privacy

The walkman is one of
the first examples of mass-produced mediating wearable technology.

Attributes Unmonopolizing Unrestrictive Observable Controllable
Attentive Basically, wearable computers shouldn’t get in the way. Wearer shouldn’t have to worry about the computing part at all.

Self expression Wearable computing offers
many opportunities for dynamic self expression (Image: LED jackets by Cute Circuit) http://www.cutecircuit.com/category/videos/

Personal Wearable computers are the
real Personal computers, as intimate and close to people as underwear!

Quantify Computers are obviously good
at dealing with quantitative information. Wearable computers are already helping us quantify our daily activities.

Feedback loops Using quantitative information
to enable positive feedback loops is second nature to wearable computers. (Image: Nike fuel web interface)

What kind of (wearable)Daemons do
we want?

IV. Body

Prosthesis Prosthesis Enhancement, addition Enhancement,
addition Some rights reserved by subsetsum Prostheses aren’t just to replace missing limbs: Prescription eyeglasses are prosthesis too.

remixing senses RYOTA KUWAKUBO http://www.youtube.com
Ryota Kuwakubo: With Silifulin, the artist explores the feeling of limbs lost to evolution (tail) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ck5K0A6RZgM&feature=player_embedded

remixing senses Stelarc I think
metaphysically, in the past, we've considered the skin as surface, as interface. The skin has been a boundary for the soul, for the self, and simultaneously, a beginning to the world. Once technology stretches and pierces the skin, the skin as a barrier is erased." -Stelarc

“The Human body is obsolete”

remixing senses

Oscar Pistorius copyright Washington Post
In the future it won’t be unusual to see people with some kind of body modification/enhancement that surpasses our bodies’ natural abilities.

Territories Different parts of the
body have specific sensations, different possibilities and meanings. Wearable computer designers need to to know this territory.

Territories Really close to the
hand but unrestrictive, the wristwatch occupies a prime “real estate” in the human body.

Pioneering aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont famously
commissioned Cartier a wristwatch to make it easier to check time while piloting an airplane, at a time when wristwatches were only seen as a fashion accessory for wealthy women.

Several wearable computers (specially watches)
are in or about to hit the market. Is it a fad or the beginning of something bigger?

Ecosystems Currently most wearable devices
work as accessories or satellites to Smartphones. Will that change in the future?

V. Language

Superpowers As wearable computers can
enhance people’s senses, we need to understand what each sense can do.

Remix Eyesight is the prevalent
sense in contemporary culture, but other senses also offer lots of untapped possibilities...

Exploiting the brain’s plasticity Brainport
Brainport is a device for the blind that turns visual information into electrical pulses that can be sensed with the tongue. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNkw28fz9u0

New ways of reading -
RSVP Rapid serial visual presentation is a method to serially display visual content (images, text) that could be applied to small screens (e.g. wristwatches)

Networking Personal area network Body
area network We can use the notions of personal space and territory to create new forms of networking and data transmission.

BCI-BBI Brain-Computer interfaces or Brain-Brain
interfaces are a long term possibility.

Flexible electronics Our skin prefers
soft, flexible materials (like fabric). Technology is starting to catch up with this need. Image: http://2011.lope-c.com/en/picture_downloads/

Smart textiles copyright Rachel Winfield
Another long term possibility is that computer logic, sensing and actuation can be carried out by the fabric itself without the need of external components.

Wearable Computing: Uniforms, costumes or
bespoke garments? What is the most ethical choice? what do we want? we need to start thinking about this.

Thank you! 2012 Alejandro Zamudio
| www.alejandrozamudio.com Attribution Share-Alike CC BY-SA