Seriously, it's real

Thad StarnerA wearable computer. Not a new concept, but today was the first time I had ever met anyone using one. Ga. Tech professor Thad Stamer, who's been building these gizmos since the early 1990s, was explaining the technology. He can type 130 words a minute with a 12 key keyboard -- seemingly while talking to you and not looking at the handheld keypad.

Nobody sells these things; they build them in the lab. The strange "eye part," which is the "monitor," is connected by a cable to a small computer running Linux.

Who's Starner? He a runs a million dollar sandbox, I mean, lab at Ga. Tech. His Wikipedia entry says he is:

... one of the pioneers of wearable computing.

Starner received a PhD from the MIT Media Lab in 1999, where he was one of the first six cyborgs involved with the MIT Wearable Computing Project.

Starner is a strong advocate of continuous-access, everyday-use systems, and has worn his own customized wearable computer continuously since 1993. His work has touched on handwriting and sign-language analysis, intelligent agents and augmented realities. He also helped found Charmed Technology.

I think that means he is crazy smart. What this guy is up to is more than mildly fascinating. There's more here.

And his "mad scientist" project ... something about going straight from the brain to typed text.  It was over my head from there.