Poma, the Wearable Computer
Another aughts abomination, the Poma was marketed as a PC you could wear. Finally, a convenient way to surf the web on the go! Just strap on a keyboard to your forearm, clip the processor (featuring a whole 32MB of RAM!) onto your belt, and slip on a head-mounted display that would make Google Glass look cool, and huzzah! You too can look like a bargain-bin Star Trek villain.
The Poma, which cost a whopping $1,499, came onto the scene in 2002, a time when companies were convinced we were but a few short years from a cybernetic utopia filled with flying cars and robot manservants. It was a joint venture between Xybernaut, an ill-fated hardware and software firm convinced that wearable tech would be the next big thing, and Hitachi, a Japanese industrial giant whose name has become synonymous with a vibrator.
