1. SEMINAR ON
WEARABLE COMPUTING
BY:
Shradha Maheshwari
CS-08.

2. What is a “wearable computer”
 A small portable
computer that is
designed to be worn
on the body during
use.
 Wearable computers
are usually either
integrated into the
user's clothing or can
be attached to the
body through some
other means, like a
wristband

3. Aim Of Wearable Computing
 It should be able to adapt to the whims
and fancies of the user instead of the user
having to adapt its lifestyle for the
system.
 It should not interfere with user‟s
everyday tasks.
 The two key features of wearable
computers should be „always on
capability‟ and „continual accessibility‟.

4. Evolution of wearable computers

5. Components of wearable
computers
 Human interface system (HUMIONICS).
 Networks.
 Display systems.

6. HUMIONICS
 The user interface for a wearable computer is
fundamentally different to those of the
regular computers .
 It should satisfy the following criteria:
Shall be constantly available to the user – always on,
ready and accessible.
Shall not require constant user attention.
Shall be unobtrusive and unrestrictive.

7. Continued………
Always communicate with user with reasonable time
limits.
Shall be able to communicate with the user and the
outside world.
Provide the best use of 3D object space to scatter the
application windows.

8. Some new concepts………
Wearable computing introduces new concepts like
“mediated reality” and “augmented reality”.
Mediated reality refers to encapsulation of user’s
senses by incorporating the computer with the
user's perceptive mechanisms.
Augmented reality combines real world scenes and
virtual scenes, augmenting the real world with
additional information.

10. NETWORKS
There can be two kinds of networks:
 One way to connect the device to the external world
is through WAP, or Cellular Digital packet data. This
aspect is not specific and will evolve over time.
 The second issue of interconnecting the various parts
of the WC, may involve both wired and wireless
connections. CPU, storage unit and similar
peripherals will be connected with or without cables
to the wearable motherboard.

11. DISPLAY SYSTEMS
1. Input Devices
2. Output Devices

12. Input Devices
There can be in general four common kinds of
inputs for the wearable system:
Speech recognition which may appear as the
most suited input device, but is not preferred in
all kinds of applications & environments, due
to privacy and performance issues.

13. Handwriting and keyboard could be one of the
most efficient input device, provided the input
device is not too small.
The picture shown is called as the sense board
which is just worn on the hands or wrists and
senses the typing input or handwriting.

14. Gesture input devices are simple, compact, and
optimized for wearable use. Ubi-Finger is such
a device, but has not been tested for all types
of applications.
Thumb Typing - Carsten Mehring, a mechanical
engineer at the University of California, Irvine,
has come up with a device that turns your
hands into a keyboard.

15. Output Devices
 Could be either HMD with earpiece or only the
earpiece for some applications.
 There are two types of HMD:
The 1st one is generally intended for regular or
industrial use.
The 2nd type is the blocking type and requires full
attention of the user.

16. 1st type of HMD 2nd type of HMD

17. ADVANTAGES
 Enhanced communication.
 It can be used to recognize a person in a high
alerted area such as airport.
 Unlikely to be dropped or lost as they are
embedded to the clothes as opposed to the
handheld devices.
 Able to use for everyday tasks by tracking
movements and habits of the person.

18.  Work from anywhere.
 Convenience
 Makes tasks more easies such as these can be
used by surgeons which allow data to be
transferred to there computers.
 Freedom.

19. A special shirt designed by VivoMetrics

20. DISADVANTAGES
 Expensive
 Can cause irritation when it produces heat.
 Side effects such as headaches.
 It becomes easier to get data of an individual if
it gets stolen.

21. Challenges and Limitations
Software Challenges:
 Development of the software for wearable
computers is probably the most significant
challenge faced by wearable system designers.
 The other software challenges include
integration of information repositories that
augment limited device capabilities.

22. Hardware Challenges
The current limitations on hardware technology
involves four major problems- power, networking,
privacy and interface .
Adding more features to the wearable device
requires more power and generates more heat. This
imposes a restriction to design systems that take
little power and little space and last a long time.

23. Continued…….
The second limitation is with networking in
wearable devices. We need to understand that
networking may never be truly ubiquitous;
there will always be places where access to the
Internet will not be simply be available.
The inter-component communication using the
on-body wireless bus is still an area of
research.

24.  Privacy is not yet a limitation, but may be a
limitation in future. One can record conversations,
keep personal notes, schedule, and use diary on the
wearable.
 The first part of the privacy is to protect one's own
personal information and the second part is to
prevent the wearable user from stealing other's
information.

25.  The last problem is of interface. "How do we
communicate with the computer and how does it
communicate to us?". Which is the most effective
way of communicating to the device and back to
the human?
 The answer for these would only evolve along the
time, and there may not be any perfect answer to
this question.

26. APPLICATIONS
1. Emergency Services
2. Field Services
3. Health Care
4. Queue Busting
5. Warehousing
6. Shopping Jackets
7. Medical Establishment.
8. Mediated/Augmented reality

28. Designer Erik De Nijs has created a pair of jeans for computer geeks.
“Built into the knees are a pair of speakers, around the back you have
the added convenience of a back pocket for your mouse…”

29. FUTURE PROSPECTS
 Wearable Computers would dominate in the near future. We
can class our mobile phone as a mobile computer as we can
get phones that can be used take photos, surf the internet, msn
messenger, mp3 player, video recorder, video playback, create
documents, view documents, create games and many other
things mobile phones are now more powerful than computers
10 years ago.
 This does not mean that the mobile phone itself will be a
wearable computer in the future. It could also be used to track
people this could work as a good and bad thing as if the police
where tracking someone it could help but on the other hand if
a stalker/murderer was tracking movements to find out when
he can strike it could make it easier.

30. ANY QUERIES?????