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The Age of the Gargoyle is soon here

Ever since Staffan got his Sony Glasstron goggles back when we were working together in Florida I have had wet dreams of a pair of glasses connected to a wearable computer, augmenting reality with information. Since then Sony has discontinued the Glasstrons (they were way too bulky anyway, and you looked pretty weird wearing them...) but now new products are popping up.

I would love to have a tiny screen glued to my glasses, making it possible to read email, browse web pages, google, get messages (and of course really nerdy stuff like checking temperature, getting GPS coordinates, tying GPS coordinates to information making little post-it notes showing layered on top of stuff I watch telling me what they are and what people who have been at a place before thought of it... ;) and so on while strolling around.

Products for wearing a screen on your head has been bulky and clumsy gadgets, really only usable when sitting still like when flying or going by train to far off places. Great for connecting to your portable DVD player, crap for augmenting reality.

A few years ago I scoured the net for parts to create my own gargoyle style wearable computer, inspired by Steve Mann. Of course I never had the financial resources to put the things I found together, but finding the stuff needed was pretty easy. Expensive though, complicated to assemble, and would make you look almost as weird as Mr Mann.

The boring part is really the cords needed to connect the glasses and a handheld control to the PDA/computer and the power supply. Someone needs to fix that. Power over wireless anyone...?

Lately the work on producing actually wearable screens seems to have gone in the right direction. Wearable computers just came a bit closer. Exciting stuff, really, the kind of stuff that will change the way we see and experience the world. And if having cameras in cellphones surrounding you at all times is scary to some people, this should really make their skin crawl.

I found these through Gizmodo:

* FOXNews.com: Cyborg Chic Shades Create Specialized Vision * Eyetop - believe what you see * Frog Design - Motorola wearables concept

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