Open Projects

These project ideas range from a simple night worth of hacking to multi-semester long projects. As this page becomes more organized we'll try and give an indication of the scope of the work involved.

Software

• Secure email, instant messaging (using IPSec?) over unreliable links such as the Sprint Vision phones. (Dan)
• A wireless-sniffer type program to discover other wearable users nearby and automatically setup chat with them (Dan)
• A program to recover powerpoint slides. The idea would be to take a webcam or digital camera and set it on the table at a presentation and periodically take pictures of the slides. Then automatically de-warp the image and perhaps perform OCR and rebuild the original presentation
• A program that watches for pre-defined twiddler macros and reminds you of them if you're typing them longhand (Dan)
• A program that watches your twiddler typing and recommends new macros based on what you type (Dan)
• Speech recognition with Victor-Borge like sounds for programming (instead of "left bracket" make sound) (Dan)
• wearable networking for real (wireless, ether, radio, phone, fail over)
• applications to use gps data on a wearable
• GIS apps for wearables (Dan)
• permanent, versioning web cache
  Save every page you visit on the web so you can have access to it later on the wearable.
• ask applications (like a web browser) what region of a document is being displayed record what app has focus and if it is visible. Use this data to develop a model of how much a user might know the information presented
• model communication of a user (who they have talked to)
  email, instant messenger, cell phone, face-to-face, etc
  Use this to make a smart communications filter
• context based auto completion
• build (modify) palm type applications (todo, calendar, etc) so that they are suitable for use on a wearable
• setup instant messaging on wearables
• wearable picture taker
  make a system to allow the wearable user to take vacation style photos
• change wearable ui based on user's context.
  if user is walking make font big to increase readability
  if user is outside in bright sunlight switch to inverse video
  etc
• distributed content authoring tool
  make it easy for a community of wearable users to generate content. For example, a database of good places to eat.
• make a tool to annotate web pages, pdfs, etc.
• note taking power tool, maybe like Engelbart's NLS/Augment
• Reading systems for extremely small head-up displays
  • Take current implementations of RSVP (rapid serial visual presentation - presents one word at a time) and integrate into small displays
  • Investigate the use of this system for presenting information to a wearable user in a subtle fashion during a conversation
• language assistant
  select phrases on screen fast enough to hold conversation
  power tool for german translation while learning german
• There should be thermal cameras in the ceiling which watch the house-people wander around. When you lose something or want to remember where you have gone today a ceiling projector projects footprints of where you have gone today onto the floor so you can "trace your steps". (These are the footprints of where you went that day, which were obtained from the thermal cameras). Of course when you look at the floor projection there will be a large jumble of footprints, so the footprints need to be indexed by time of day and have some time-based colors associated with them (a fading color scheme based on time the footprints were made --more recent ones a darker color). Ideally this will help you locate your lost keys...
• Improve vision code behind Gesture Pendant, using light-flashing circuit (Dan)
• For the more advanced vision person, do 3D object reconstruction, a-la the perceptive workbench. You make a sheet of paper with a known pattern on it, put it on the table, put your object on it, then rotate the camera around. The intersection of your known pattern and the object lets you reconstruct the shape as you move the camera. (Dan)
• DGPS - use a wireless network to do differential GPS (Dan)
• play with toshiba "gesture pendant" (Dan)
• phidgets on wearable
• turn wearable into cell phone (maybe visor phone + wearable)
• experiment with TV streams sent to a wearable

Hardware

• make a Twiddler2 wireless (Dan)
• create a wireless thumb-operated keyboard (Dan)
• make an entirely new chording keyboard of some design (Dan)
• create a USB- or firewire- driven head mounted display with one of the Kopin microdisplay chips
• accelerometer vest
• capacitive sensors
  determine if wearable is on the user
  create new input sensors
• wearable & haptics - from simple pager motor on up
• a new pointing device suitable for wearables.
• Powering wearables for remote regions
  • build a foot pedal generator for a CharmIT and 802.11 system
  • Extend the range of an 802.11 PCMCIA card
  • Get a store and forward netnews/e-mail system working on multiple units of above
  • Investigate solar cells for above
• There's a gaming keyboard that has two rows of 5 keys, a jog dial, and a +-pad (like on a game controller). We could have someone make this into a chording keyboard with the help of Greg Priest-Dorman. It's only $35, as opposed to $200 for the twiddler.
• A battery meter (either with LEDs or reporting to serial or parallel or USB)
• simple IR networking / data transfer (using IrDA).
  stick the IR transmitter/receiver into/onto the twiddler.
• build an accelerometer to put in a shoe that sends data wirelessly up to the wearable
• head stillness sensor - determine how much the head is moving
• rebuild the IR eye gaze/stillness detector
• sonar and infrared range sensing on a wearable
• busboy - USB microcontroller platform
• figure out how to transmit serial wirelessly to a serial MicroOptical head mounted display

If there were not enough project ideas here, don't worry, we'll come up with more soon enough. :)