igargoyle

Wearaware and IGargoyle Do Maker Faire

Come meet Nym and I and bring your wearables! We're here to profile and promote the community's work on this site, so let's meet, get some media, and get it up here. Come out, come out, wherever you are!

I'll be exhibiting my latest in the Wearaware collection.

More roving telepresence hacks from the brothers!

More Soon!

Introducing: My Technomadism Hacks

I haven't been posting much, but I have been researching, developing, rapid prototyping, and hacking. I'm applying my love of desert camping, travel, wearable technology, and embedded computing to my urban flagship; a duosport motorcycle. Here's a first look:

solar-nav-storage:

This photo shows items I transformed into a top case and a tank bag.

While commuting, the top case can hold gear from errands. While touring, it can carry as much gas a my tank holds plus water. I can remove it anytime. This allows off-roading without extra fuel sloshing around in an enlarged tank. It is made from an LP case, and stability tests will determine if it's indeed more versatile than a top case and replacement gas tank; easily at a savings of at least $200.

The tank bag is made from a folding map case, magnets, and wiring. It's appropriate that it holds my phone with GPS, a non-networked highway infrastructure computer, compass and pencil pack, map, and a solar battery charger for my bike and auuxilliary device battery. I'm sure it'll still also hold an actual paper map or two. I can't find many tank bags with top map pockets that will fit my sloped gas tank. So, I made a form-fitting one that mostly multplies the functionality of the feature I wanted most anyway; a large map pocket.

BarCamp LA-5 is On and Open

http://barcamp.org/BarCampLA-5
Attendance cap has been decapitated, so come out if you're not quarantined by the LA Marathon.

GIS Jacket with Flexible Display

Due out late next year is O'Neill Europe's jacket with some kind of integral, flexible display in the sleeve and audio in the hood. Using embedded GIS, they would provide navigation, weather, and friend-location information as well as spoken directions down a mountain.

Here, I will focus on two approaches to systems integration quoting this article.

1) "Aleks Ristic, VP Marketing of MyGuide is convinced that GPS will play an important role in future wearable technology. 'The partnership with O’Neill allows us to leverage our GPS know-how into new market segments. We with co-development of the NavJacket, we are expanding our product range from car navigation into outdoor usage, where navigation is just one application of our technology.'

2) "Using your mobile phone connected to the GPS unit, 3D views of the resorts as well as points of interest throughout the resort will also be available." Which mobile phones do they mean, and how do they propose to connect them? Does this mean that the phone display will be required for such views? GPS does not provide graphics, so the wireless services available at a resort may certainly differ from those available at more remote locations where personal, real-time navigation might be more appreciated.

Does the engineering provide for the possibility to route your music to the sonic hood without hacking the jacket? This brings me to compare multi-use hand-held gadgets like graphics-capable mobile phones and apparel such as Burton's iPod jacket that is also designed for winter sports. If the O'Neill Jacket is being marketed with capabilities that can be added by a third-party mobile phone, why not just extend the multi-use capability of phones? This includes extending the controls, audio, and some kind of visual output; even if it's just LEDs driven by the phone's IR or BT transceiver. Rather, the choice was made to integrate some technology into the jacket in a proprietary sort of way.

While it makes sense to collaborate, proposed expandability via mobile phone acknowledges their power, modularity; not to mention their ubiquity. Although, since GIS is not a standard feature on mobile phones, this collaboration tries to assure GIS as the primary feature of the jacket. It would seem that expandability is tertiary to other navigation features. Again, depending on the systems integration, using the audio capability of the hood to play music would be an afterthought, if not impossible without some cutting, splicing, and sewing.

The flexible display seems cool, and I'd love to see it in action. There is still a difference between wearable technology and wearable computing. Since this design brings up the expandability that comes from incorporating a cellphone into the systems architecture, it supports the cellphone as a platform for mobile computing. My work includes hacking multi-function, expandable mobile devices to be more wearable, even if it means adding to the hand-held form-factor to reduce the reliance on the hands.

I've read many critiques that both wearable computers and wearable technologies have niche markets. I feel this effect is perpetuated by architectures with proprietary embedded technologies, and designs with only a few possible use scenarios.

[link via engadget]

BarCamp LA-4 Nov. 3-4

FooD, Friends, and Phun
related global events listing
[roll your own] 'Camp

Ranting on Mobile Social Software

I've been looking at social-network-with-cellphone-positioning services recently, and a really lame one recently popped up. At first I thought it was interesting, but the name was a bit daft - BEDD, and as it turns out it's technology is a bit lacking too. They alert you to your friends within range of your bluetooth, which is a bit like an alarm going off in your pants every time you start having a conversation with someone.

On the other hand, they're doing dating too, which is something I heard back in the days of the cybiko. WiFi dating, for the hipster crowd. What do they call that anyways? Toothing? Flirtexting? How far off are the "open access" vibrating panties?

Now that I think about it, there could be a whole new market for 'rubtones'.

Updated at 12:00 on June 10th with 2nd picture

[Link via gizmodo]