#wearable tech

So seeing this I had a thought:

Thinking of Sampson Lee's neat keyboard in Cowboy Bebop the Movie, I tried threading an N52 Speedpad into a belt assembly to see how it might look and feel to type on with chording and yeah this is actually pretty great actually?

This absoloutely feels like something a mecha pilot would wear, that would allow for robust access in the field, or make the pilot suit part of the interface of the robot to do all the startup checklists on before using the HOSAS inceptor grips.

Note the same throughhole in the N52 which lets me thread it into a belt also lets you put your fingers in, akin to gripping a joystick.

I think with some refinement you could fit an analogue trigger and a bumper in here, and the thumb-cluster could be expanded slightly to include some other inputs.

Its begging for a trackball or an analogue stick in truth.

Genuinely surprised by how comfortable this is from a Human Factors Engineering standpoint???? Like, "putting your hands in your pockets" level comfortable, and it would be even better with a wrist-loop or something.

It beats the pants off of any cyberdeck esque project I've ever tried in terms of usability so I think this is something which needs to be iterated upon actually???

It hangs very naturally and you can vary the angle by adjusting it against the rubbedr of the quick-release strap. My one complaint is the base is designed for a desk and I think it could stand to be curved to better conform to the hip or leg which I think could cut the total size down considerably.

Even sat in a chair this feels surprisingly comfortable, with my only complaint being that its conflicting with the strap of my repurposed shoulder-bag, which is its own entirely different issue and that the default switches kind of suck.

The interior has a ton of room so you could absoloutely squeeze a decent battery and a Rasberry Pi in this thing, or use it as a pure input device that doubles as a USB hub/storage (SD card) and uses the spare room to charge a phone.

Two of these would give you a pretty bonkers battery life if you had one on either hip.

I think with ultra low profiles, a curved form, a slightly more robust strapping mechanism and a means to plug this into a smartphone as the middle computer (with something like a pair of smart-glasses as the display) you could have really really robust wearable computer and if you add a second one on the other hip, you've solved the wpm problem.

btw I typed this entire post on it, only lifting my hands off to use my trackball.

a zine about this article I read! I habitually click through on pinterest links you see, even if the title is cringe

🇺🇲 Dive into the past with the IBM WatchPad, an early glimpse into the future of smartwatches!

⌚️ Back in June 2000, IBM unveiled a groundbreaking prototype—a wristwatch powered by Linux. Initially boasting just 6 hours of battery life, this tech marvel was later upgraded to a respectable 12 hours, featuring 8 MB of RAM and running on Linux 2.2.

⚙️ As innovation surged, so did the WatchPad's capabilities. With additions like an accelerometer, vibrating mechanism, and fingerprint sensor, IBM teamed up with Citizen Watch Co. to unleash the ultimate wearable tech—the "WatchPad 1.5". Sporting a 320 × 240 QVGA monochrome touch-sensitive display and running Linux 2.4, it also packed calendar software, Bluetooth, 8 MB of RAM, and 16 MB of flash memory.