Humour

Wearable computing show

T A Balasubramanian continues his report on fashion wear for borgs.

On the narrow ramp, a model in a silvery bikini strides up wearing four tiny sensory pads that track her vital signs. As people push in closer to see, Dr Peter Phinger, co-founder of Borgia, a company with the noble mission of bringing wearable computing to the world, seems oblivious. He sits at a table in the booth, holding a pair of display goggles and fiddling with a tiny antenna.

As the next model struts out, adorned with a device shaped like a necklace, cameras flash and a woman’s voice booms over loudspeakers: “‘The Roaming Radio, voice-activated and Internet-connected.”’

The model is followed by many more, each wearing slim, portable devices. Some are simply concept designs. A few are actual products, like the wrist-wrapped scanner being used by goods delivery workers on the job, the portable MP3 player and the waist-worn computer.

Visitors to the Techno Over-exposition of Geeks and Gizmos for Lazy Enterprises (TOGGLE), the gigantic IT trade show, watch the parade with a lot of smirking and discreet coughing. They have just been exposed to the latest in wearable computing at the Geek Streak show organized by Borgia.

“Is the public ready for wearable computers, for the augmented intelligence, multitasking and bombardment of information that comes from being constantly connected to a computer? Are people ready to become borgs?” says Dr Phinger, now talking from the back of the stage, seemingly into the air.

“I’m as ready as anyone can be,” says Danny DeVito, CTO of Baffle Corporation, waving his hand at the retreating models. “You might say I’m all buttoned up and ready to dress code.”

In the crowd, you, Papyrus Bytewala, CIO of Baffle, are keeping an eagle eye on DeVito, the first biped walking humanoid. He seems to be avidly absorbing the proceedings, and all this talk of fashion wear for borgs appears to be sparking off the showman in him—possibly due to a bias in the programming that has given him more of a Hollywood star’s disposition than you had imagined. You make a mental note to take this matter up with DeVito’s creator, Ironica Asimova and her design team. It would not be good for your reputation, you think, if your CTO were to start performing like the original character in whose image he has been cast.

“Excellent, Mr DeVito,” says Dr. Phinger. “It is encouraging to note that in the last decade,” he continues, lecturing to his rapt audience, “Borg attire has become less obtrusive. These computers with dress-sense are thinner and more discreet. Some of the first people researching the devices had to wear bulky display goggles that obstructed their vision, and they did have frightful effects on people passing by, as you can well imagine. Now they wear smaller, near-invisible devices that attach to one side of their eyeglasses. The new line of techno-rangers among the borgs wear displays made of tiny mirrors embedded in their eyeglass lenses. You know, with this latest version that I am wearing on my nose, tiny screens hover in the air just in front of my eyes.”

“You are definitely a sight to behold, a moving display,” DeVito applauds. “A kind of Gyro Gearloose with a modern twist.”

“Thank you,” beams Dr Phinger, philosophically, though you wonder if being compared to an anthropomorphic cartoon goose is all that hot as a compliment. “Being a borg means always being wired. I have constant access to my schedule, my to-do list, papers that I am writing, my e-mail. Inside my computerised jacket is a network of CPUs, hard drives, sensors and wireless cards, making it more powerful than most computers still sitting boringly on desktops—or even laps.”

“You should be doing this at Baffle, Papyrus,” says DeVito, turning to you. “You can have meetings where all the board members are punching and jabbing the air in front of them, instead of each other.”

“That’s a thought, Danny,” you say. “Dressing up for peace, eh?”

“Having continual access to a computer and keyboard also means that borgs are forever multitasking, even while having a face-to-face conversation,” says Dr Phinger. “While you are talking to them seriously, they might be running searches on the Internet or typing in pieces of the conversation for future reference. If two borgs are standing with a group, they may also be surreptitiously sending each other private messages about the other people in the group.”

“Well, Dr Phinger,” you say, thoughtfully, “In a conversation, that could be a little hard on the guy you are pretending to talk to. You may be considered downright rude, you know.”

“Ah, well, Mr Bytewala, we don’t think that is a grave issue. To compensate for the constant juggling, borgs have adopted new forms of social behaviour that may seem strange, or even rude, to non-borgs. Early today, for example, a reporter handed me a business card while I was in the middle of a face-to-face chat with a friend. Suddenly, I must have paused and looked as though I had lost control of my eyes, which appeared to be gazing at the ceiling.”

“Lost in profound thought, perhaps?”

“No, no, of course not. My left hand was hanging at my side, but the fingers of that hand were flittering over my Twiddler as I typed in information from the card I held in my other hand. My attention, it soon became clear to my dazed friend, was focused on the display screen in front of my right eye. Once I snapped back into the conversation, my friend recovered and said it was like watching people walk by wearing headphones and listening to a Walkman, oblivious to their surroundings. Cell phones are another example. People think nothing of it when a pocket starts to beep. Don’t you find people breaking off in mid-conversation when their cell phone rings? If that’s not considered impolite, then we borgs should be considered downright fashionable soon. Like my envious friend sometimes keep remarking, I am one of the chatterati who is almost never seen without his wearable wardrobe. Why, I even wear it to bed at night sometimes, checking my e-mail while my wife sleeps undisturbed. The keyboard is silent, and there is no sound to wake her up—not even a small click.”

“That’s impressive, Dr Phinger,” says DeVito, cheerfully. “But it seems safe to say that you’re still just a make-believe humanoid. You still have to go a long way though, before you actually become a walking biped machine, eh?”

At this point, you push your elbow firmly into DeVito’s side, glaring at him. He is getting dangerously close to revealing too much of Baffle’s great secret weapon, and it’s time you exercised a restraining influence, you decide.

Fortunately, the Borgia head laughs it off. “A walking biped machine? Ha, ha. Not me. Sure, I am literally wrapped up in my work, and the machine has become part of me, of course, but only when I wear it. I do not routinely sleep with it or shower with it, at least not on purpose.”

“That,” says DeVito, with a big grin, “is such a relief. We humanoids are miles ahead.”

But Dr Phinger is already lost in a screen refresh that makes him look right over DeVito’s head.