Hardware, Ready to Wear

Hefty Price Tag

Yes, someone's already selling this stuff. At this point, Xybernaut aims its wares at the people who need it most--knowledge professionals who need technical expertise but can't spend their workday sitting at desks, such as technical inspectors and maintenance workers. If nothing else, the current $5000 to $6000 price range keeps Xybernaut's computers out of the hands of most users.

Xybernaut hopes to halve that price with its next generation of wearables (the ones with the IBM technology), appealing to a professional "near consumer" market in one to two years, and a consumer market after that.

A Stitch in Time

Before wearable computers become popular, they not only must get smaller, cheaper, and more powerful, but also more flexible. According to Maggie Orth, a Ph.D. candidate at MIT, much of the technology will have to change before computers can take the sort of bending and twisting that clothes are designed for. "Today, connectors are the first things to fall apart," she says. Orth is working on, among other things, conductive thread through which you can pass an electronic signal.

And, of course, there's social acceptance. Will people wearing computers just look too silly to be taken seriously? IBM Vice President Peter Hortensius doesn't think so. "Fifteen years ago no one thought that people would wear headphones and sing to themselves while jogging."

MIT's Orth thinks that acceptance will require a new paradigm, from practicality to play. "Computers are focused on making us better businessmen, helping us do our taxes, rather than having more fun. We'll have to create a computing fashion."