Gizmodo: wearable

Apple Patents Head-Tracking Auditorium-Effect Wearable Display

Kit Eaton — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 10:45:00 EST

Apple's patents are nothing if not copious, and occasionally confusing: this new one is in the latter category. It's for a goggle-like display system with an in-built head tracking system that changes the display from a somewhat boring "normal" static one into a dynamic view that recreates the feeling of being in an auditorium, baseball park or movie theater. It could even track the viewer's eye movements to calculate their intended gaze and overlay fake audiences in front of the "screen" with accompanying audio effects. You know, crumpling sweet packets and the like. Lovely. [Electronista]

Lisco USB Snake Combines Jewelry, USB Cable in One Wearable Device

Kit Eaton — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 11:20:00 EDT

Designer Laurent Hongisto has crafted the Lisco USB Snake as an attempt to solve that age-old (ok... decade-old) dilemma of never having a USB cable handy when you need one to charge/connect-up your device. So the design combines elements of those '90s "slap bracelets" with a USB A to mini-USB cable, wrapped up in colorful polyurethane and designed to be carried around on your wrist. Hmmm. Ok... so it looks kinda odd, and do you know anyone who'd want to wear this as jewelry, let alone anyone who's frequently that desperate for a USB cable? It doesn't have the geek-chic of the USB watch, and looks like it's aimed at the teen girl market. Sooo, this'll remain firmly in concept-land, methinks. [Yanko Design]

Precious Metal Cover Makes Jewelry of Apple Bluetooth Headset

Kit Eaton — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 06:14:00 EDT

Apple's Bluetooth headset is already small and stylish, but designer Andi Monn has come up with a way of adding to it that also improves its utility. His headset "sleds" slide over the device and turn it into techy jewelry, of a sort. Plus they let you carry the gizmo around without wearing it in your ear, and thus you avoid looking overly geeky. The headset is held inside magnetically, and the sleds come with a keyring so you can carry it around discretely, if that's your fancy. However, since they're available in high-grade brushed steel, .925 Sterling silver (or other precious metals, on request) and cost around $253, then hiding them in your pocket is probably the last thing you want to do. [Technabob]

Coming Soon: Invisibility Cloak

johnb — Fri, 26 May 2006 15:33:09 EDT

In 18 short months you'll be Lupus Yonderboy-ing all over creation in your brand new invisibility cloak. Actually, we seriously doubt this will fall into our hands any time soon—they have to create a new material for it to work—but the concept is pretty strange.

A cloak made of those materials, with a structure designed down to the submicroscopic scale, would neither reflect light nor cast a shadow.
Instead, like a river streaming around a smooth boulder, light and all other forms of electromagnetic radiation would strike the cloak and simply flow around it, continuing on as if it never bumped up against an obstacle. That would give an onlooker the apparent ability to peer right through the cloak, with everything tucked inside concealed from view.

The authors of the study that posits the cloak say that "[They] will have a cloak after not too long." – John Biggs

Early 'Invisibility Cloak' Could Be 18 Months Away [CBS]

Flava Flav, This DAP's For You

Travis Hudson — Tue, 03 Jan 2006 16:56:51 EST

Seriously Flava, wearing analog clocks around your neck is so 1995. With your new reality show coming up you need to get with modern technology and ditch the clock. Join the likes of Dog the Bounty Hunter by becoming a MP3 player-toting C-list celebrity. This is the mimi 721 MP3 player straight out of China. It has 128MB of flash memory and is worn pendant-style around the neck. Flava, with that much space you could easily fit all of your hit songs on it along with the entire Garth Brooks discography box set. This won't even break the bank at $23.

MP3 player iPod-Style [Akihabara]

Italian Wrist PC: Unfashionably Hardcore

Noah R — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 11:52:51 EDT

Eurotech snuck this wrist PC onto its slate a couple weeks back and forgot to tell anyone. The 2.8 x 2.1-inch touchscreen is a 65,000 color TFT, and there is an input pen attached to the strap. The WWPC has 32 MB system ROM-Flash, 64 MB system SDRAM, and expands up to 1 GB through the built-in SD memory slot. And check this out:

L1 16 channel GPS receiver with active helix antenna; wireless connectivity: IrDa (up to 4Mbps), Bluetooth v1.1 (up to 721 Kbps) wireless LAN 802.11b (up to 11Mbps) with hardware coexistence handshake; 2 specific internal antennas

So just about any host system can be connected to this wearable — wired or wirelessly. Plus it runs in full operational mode for six hours on a couple of rechargeable batteries. The "wrist-worn personal assistant" is meant for emergency, security, health care and other professional users. But even so, I expect something a bit more stylish from an Italian mega-wristwatch.

Wearable Computer WWPC [Product Page]

[Thanks Franco!]