Intelligent watches

This year, mobile technologies got smaller and faster, and a new market for smart watches took off where the original Timex Datalink watch left off 5 years ago. You can now use a variety of cool electronic devices to get work done, stay informed, and find entertainment virtually anywhere on Earth.
The watch front saw two major developments this year, both involving PDA-like functionality. First up is the Fossil Wrist PDA ($275 to $300), which combines the functionality of a Palm OS-based PDA with an attractive—if somewhat large—Fossil watch. All three Wrist PDA models feature black-and-white screens; compatibility with Palm OS contacts, calendar, memo pad, and to-do list; and a wide variety of wristband types. If you're looking for something a little more intelligent and connected, consider the Fossil Wrist Net ($180 to $200) line, which features Microsoft MSN Direct's Smart Personal Objects Technology (SPOT) technologies. These intelligent watches connect to online services to provide up-to-date information of your choosing, including sports scores, news, weather, calendar, personal messages, and so on. Of course, the watches come with a range of configurable "At A Glance" watch faces. Three styles are available, including round, Dick Tracey, and square.

http://www.connectedhomemag.com/Mobile/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=41130

Multimodal

Multimodal browsers allow users to interact via a combination of modalities, for instance, speech recognition and synthesis, displays, keypads and pointing devices.

http://www.w3.org/TR/multimodal-reqs

Current Devices
Desktop systems have proven to be highly effective for accessing the World Wide Web. The high resolution displays, pointing devices and full size keyboards make it easy to interact efficiently with large amounts of information. When you are on the move, you need a small lightweight device that fits easily into your pocket or purse. Cell phones are extremely popular, but their small size limits the amount of information they can display, as well as the number and kinds of keys they can feature.

Mobile profiles have emerged for a number of W3C specifications: XHTML, CSS, SMIL and SVG. Mobile access to the Web is now becoming a reality. The small keypads make it difficult to enter search strings or Web addresses, especially for ideographic languages with many thousands of characters. Recent years have also seen a tremendous growth of interest in using speech as a means to interact with Web-based services over the telephone. W3C responded to this by establishing the Voice Browser Activity which is developing requirements and specifications for the W3C Speech Interface Framework.

Spoken interfaces based upon VoiceXML prompt users with pre-recorded or synthetic speech and understand simple words or phrases. As the technology improves we can look forward to richer natural language conversations. There is now an emerging interest in combining speech interaction with other modes of interaction. Multimodal interaction will enable the user to speak, write and type, as well as hear and see using a more natural user interface than today's single mode browsers.

Multimodal Access

The different modalities may be supported on a single device or on separate devices working in tandem, for example, you could be talking into your cellphone and seeing the results on a PDA. Voice may also be offered as an adjunct to browsers with high resolution graphical displays, providing an accessible alternative to using the keyboard or screen. This can be especially important in automobiles or other situations where hands and eyes free operation is essential. Voice interaction can escape the physical limitations on keypads and displays as mobile devices become ever smaller. It is much easier to say a few words than it is to thumb them in on a keypad where multiple key presses may be needed for each character. Complementing speech, ink entered with a stylus or imaging device can be used for handwriting, gestures, drawings, and specific notations for mathematics, music, chemistry and other fields. Ink is expected to be popular for instant messaging.

Mobile devices working in isolation generally lack the power to recognize more than a few hundred spoken commands. The storage limitations restrict the use of prerecorded speech prompts. Small speech synthesizers are possible, but tend to produce robotic sounding speech that many users find tiring to listen to. A solution is to process speech recognition and synthesis remotely on more powerful platforms. A similar case holds for complex voice dialogs with rich natural language understanding. Simple dialogs could be handled locally, but for richer interaction, it will be necessary to couple the device with a remote dialog engine.

Multimodal applications should be able to adapt to changing device capabilities, user preferences and environmental conditions. For instance, users should be able to disable speech input and output when this would be distracting to nearby people. It should be easy for developers to tailor applications to dynamically adapt to such changes, making best use of the available modes of interaction at any given time. In addition, developers should be able to create applications involving multiple devices and multiple users, augmenting human to computer and human to human interaction.

http://www.w3.org/2002/mmi/#status

“Smart skin”

“Smart skin” holds promise for morphing wings and wearable computers.

by Laura Allen

August 2004

Terrible, horrible things can be done to this millimeters-thick patch of shimmering material crafted by chemists at NanoSonic in Blacksburg, Virginia. Twist it, stretch it double, fry it to 200°C, douse it with jet fuel—the stuff survives. After the torment, it snaps like rubber back to its original shape, all the while conducting electricity like solid metal. “Any other material would lose its conductivity,” says Jennifer Hoyt Lalli, NanoSonic’s director of nanocomposites.

The abused substance is called Metal Rubber, and, according to NanoSonic, its particular properties make it unique in the world of material chemistry. As a result, the company’s small office has been flooded with calls from Fortune 500 companies and government agencies eager to test Metal Rubber’s use in everything from artificial muscles to smart clothes to shape-shifting airplane wings.

At this stage, however, NanoSonic is busy meeting the demand for its 12-inch-by-12-inch samples, which take custom-built robots up to three days to create. That’s speedy, if you consider that Metal Rubber, a product of nanotechnology, must be fabricated molecule by molecule.

The manufacturing process, called electrostatic self-assembly, starts with two buckets of water-based solutions—one filled with positively charged metallic ions, the other with oppositely charged elastic polymers. The robot dips a charged substrate (glass, for example) alternately from one bucket to the next. The dipping slowly builds up tight, organized layers of molecules, bonded firmly by opposing charges. Afterward the substrate is removed, leaving a freestanding sheet of Metal Rubber.

With investor interest booming, Metal Rubber could make its commercial debut within a year or so. Although shape-shifting aircraft wings and sensory robotic gloves are on the horizon, Metal Rubber will probably appear first in more humble, practical roles. Abuse-resistant flexible circuits and wires, for instance, could allow you to do terrible, horrible things to your portable electronics—consequence-free.

http://www.popsci.com/popsci/science/article/0%2C12543%2C676853%2C00.html