Why my PDA is an iBook, and what the next one will be

[bnewman]

I had a Palm III for a while, but I didn't really use it. Today, I have an iBook, and I use it as a PDA more than I ever did the Palm, because it's a real computer and I don't have to worry about synching it (which never really worked right for me). The thing is, in most situations where I can afford to devote both hands to computing (one for the PDA, one for the stylus), I can afford to sit (or squat) and take out my iBook (I'm typing this on the bus right now). The Palm wasn't more portable in the sense of being more convenient to use, just in the sense of being smaller and lighter, and I have a nice, padded computer backpack and routinely pack my iBook when I'm going anywhere except shopping.

So, what would qualify as more portable than this iBook? A real wearable computer would. I'd like a dataglove (which, now that we have the Wiimote, should be well within reach) and a transparent, binocular heads-up display which places virtual objects at in an arms-length-radius sphere around my head, organizing data using a BumpTop-like spacial persistence model. An Exposé-like show-me-my-desktop gesture moves everything to the periphery so I can see the real world.

The thing is, this doesn't require a new computer — I'm already carrying a computer everywhere that's more than capable of all this. All I need is my bluetooth dataglove and HUD, and an appropriate desktop manager, and I'm good to go. So where are they? The dataglove should be easy after the Wiimote. The HUD will be harder.

Anyway, after we have these the possibilities open up a lot. To the sensor which locates the dataglove and HUD relative to my body, add another that locates them relative to the room. Now I can place objects at fixed locations in space, which would be great for someone like me who likes to pace while developing an idea. I can even save the arrangement of virtual objects and reopen it in another room of the same dimensions. And if any spam gets past my sentient AI secretary, I can crumple it up and throw it into the trash from across the room.

Another killer app would be location-based services — using GPS or, for greater precision, a neighborhood council's localizer grid, I could see Mapquest, Google maps, or Google Earth overlaid on reality. I could click on a restaurant and open a PDF of their menu. This should be enough of a gain for local businesses that it shouldn't be too advertizing-polluted. (I would expect the virtual world to have a bit more advertising density than the real one, but not by that much. This may be hopelessly naive.)

I'd pay $50-$100 for the dataglove and $200-$400 for the HUD, assuming both lived up to my expectations. It should be possible for these technologies to hit those price points within the next 5-10 years... here's hoping.

Comments

[mneme]

Actually, the I-Trek (from http://www.vrealities.com/hmd.html) is $200 now, for a 320/240 HUD. But better resolutions are more.

In some ways, most interesting on that site is the Nomad -- 7k, sure, but it's a monocular HUD that projects an 800x600 image ON YOUR RETINA -- having it float above the ambient view without blocking your eyesight! Talk about not interfereing...

That said, it's also monochrome -- which is presumably a function of the useful medium as well as the current tech. One wonders whether this is likely to be worked on long term -- as opposed to full-enclosure video that just digitally merges the delivered image with the ambient one. With fast enough digital processing, there wouldn't be much of a delay for the latter (vrealities does have a few applicatiosns of that; I noticed a nightsight/HUD hybrid), and with a bit of shrinkage, you could manage to inject data into your view without blocking that of the ambient environment at all (shrink it and stick 270 degrees of vision in a box, or put the displayed words on the most visible white surface (actually, you could manage that one with the eye projection tech), or whatever).

[orawnzva.livejournal.com]

Full enclosure video is likely to suffer from lag, eyestrain, be insufficiently wide, and have insufficient dynamic range, long past the point when a transparent HUD becomes feasible.

[orawnzva.livejournal.com]

Yeah, what I want is the next thing after the Nomad — transparent (although you could add a plain black/transparent LCD layer if you wanted to be able to make some virtual objects opaque), wide-angle (none of this 23" monitor nonsense, I want peripheral vision), binocular, and color. Oh, and it shouldn't weigh anything. I guess I might be waiting a while for that to come down to my price point.

[mneme]

heh. That's not so much the next thing as the next thing + N. But that sounds cool, yeah.