Wearable technology
Futuristic products are exciting, as long as privacy is protected
I’M A FAN of science fiction, especially the kind that keeps one hand firmly grasped on real science. We live in an age that is bringing the amazing gadgets from the pages of a great fantasy novel into our homes. It’s an exciting time to be alive.
There are some very interesting things going on in the world of wearable technology. You’re probably familiar with cybernetics, especially if you’ve watched the Terminator movies. A cyborg is a human who has been implanted with bionic or robotic components. Wearable technologies don’t go as far as implanting things into your body. They are things you put on like a watch or some glasses.
The search giant Google has been in the news recently because of a product they’re starting to launch called “Google Glass.” This new product is essentially a small computer with a camera and microphone that is integrated into the frame of a pair of glasses. It can project an image onto the glass, “enhancing” your view of the world.
Google’s much stated mission to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” now extends to literally everything you see and hear.
There are some initial questions you need to ask yourself before endeavouring to bring Google onto your face.
First, is this a look you will be comfortable with? It comes in several colours: charcoal, tangerine, shale, cotton and sky. At least I’m told those are colours.
There is considerable debate going on about whether Google Glass is “geeky” (good) or “nerdy” (bad). I haven’t fully decided yet, but I don’t like seeing people walk around with Bluetooth headsets, so I’m probably leaning towards “nerdy.”
Before considering the other issues, I should point out what Google Glass can accomplish, at least in its first incarnation. It is a wifi-enabled mobile device that can respond to voice and gesture commands. You can instruct it to take pictures, record video or send a message to someone. You can pair it to your smartphone, too.
There are obvious benefits to this handsfree environment, and the professional video Google created that shows people skydiving, doing ballet, and even ice carving a tiger. Using voice recognition, you say things like “OK, Glass, google photos of tiger heads,” or “OK, Glass, take a picture.” It’s quite clever, as long as it works as advertised.
But there are some significant privacy and social issues raised by technology like this.
This technology has the potential ability to record everything you see, say and hear. Have you ever noticed that people change their behaviour when you point a camera at them? Now imagine sitting down at Starbucks to talk about your family with a friend who is wearing Google Glass. Would you be uncomfortable wondering if your conversation is being recorded?
There isn’t a flashing light to indicated recording is in progress. Today, Google Glass doesn’t do facial recognition. But what would this do to privacy if your face was being recognized by strangers on the street, and this information was stored “in the cloud.” This reminds me of the scene in the Tom Cruise film Minority Report, where the store recognizes and greets him through a scan of his eyes. In major cities, we expect and to a large extent accept that we are being surveilled on public streets by law enforcement. But this feels different. It’s more local.
I think having instant access to the world’s knowledge should be a basic human right. But I also believe we have a basic right to privacy until we intentionally waive it.
A different, and much smaller company is making some real waves in wearable technology. And it’s right in our own backyard. A Waterloo startup called Thalmic Labs (www.thalmic.com) has created an armband called MYO that enables you to control your digital world.
Thalmic Labs was founded by three University of Waterloo mechatronics engineering students who got their entrepreneurial start through UW’s Velocity program.
MYO measures the electrical activity in your muscles and accelerometers that measure motion to determine a user’s intent. The use of electrical muscle activity means you are able to very precisely and very quickly invoke an action. The bracelet is small and easy to wear.
MYO is a very clever technology, and Thalmic Labs is building it as a platform for use in all kinds of interesting markets. Obviously, the gaming market is a very large and popular one for this kind of device. Sony and Microsoft have each developed their own camera-based motioncontrol devices. But I think the Thalmic Labs approach is a much more useful one. And the ways a technology like this can be deployed are limited only by the imagination of the engineer.
More than 25,000 MYO units have already been ordered at $149. This is a technology and a company I’ll be watching closely, and cheering on.
In the years ahead, we may find ourselves wearing technology we will take for granted. It will be fun to watch how this magical world develops.
Mark McArdle lives in Conestogo and welcomes your ideas at mark@gadgetfan.ca.