Seriously, it’s real


Thad StarnerA wearable computer. Not a new concept, but today was the first time I had ever met anyone using one. Ga. Tech professor Thad Stamer, who’s been building these gizmos since the early 1990s, was explaining the technology. He can type 130 words a minute with a 12 key keyboard — seemingly while talking to you and not looking at the handheld keypad.

Nobody sells these things; they build them in the lab. The strange “eye part,” which is the “monitor,” is connected by a cable to a small computer running Linux.

Who’s Starner? He a runs a million dollar sandbox, I mean, lab at Ga. Tech. His Wikipedia entry says he is:

… one of the pioneers of wearable computing.

Starner received a PhD from the MIT Media Lab in 1999, where he was one of the first six cyborgs involved with the MIT Wearable Computing Project.

Starner is a strong advocate of continuous-access, everyday-use systems, and has worn his own customized wearable computer continuously since 1993. His work has touched on handwriting and sign-language analysis, intelligent agents and augmented realities. He also helped found Charmed Technology.

I think that means he is crazy smart. What this guy is up to is more than mildly fascinating. There’s more here.

And his “mad scientist” project … something about going straight from the brain to typed text.  It was over my head from there.