Valve onderzoekt 'wearable computing'

In een blog post van Valve's Michael Abrash worden de ins en outs besproken over een 'Research and Development-concept' binnen het ontwikkelbedrijf wat Abrash beschrijft als "wearable computing". Het concept beschrijft een computer die zo klein is dat een persoon hem constant bij zich kan hebben.

Het computertje zou te integreren zijn in bijvoorbeeld kleding of brillen. Abrash vertelt het volgende:

"By wearable computing, I mean mobile computing where both computer-generated graphics and the real world are seamlessly overlaid in your view; there is no separate display that you hold in your hands (think Terminator vision). The underlying trend as we’ve gone from desktops through laptops and notebooks to tablets is one of having computing available in more places, more of the time."

"The logical endpoint is computing everywhere, all the time – that is, wearable computing – and I have no doubt that 20 years from now that will be standard, probably through glasses or contacts, but for all I know through some kind of more direct neural connection. And I’m pretty confident that platform shift will happen a lot sooner than 20 years – almost certainly within 10, but quite likely as little as 3-5, because the key areas – input, processing/power/size, and output – that need to evolve to enable wearable computing are shaping up nicely, although there’s a lot still to be figured out."

Het project zit nog in een zeer vroeg R&D-stadium. Abrash schrijft:

"The project doesn’t in any way involve a product at this point, and won’t for a long while, if even ever. Please, no rumors about Steam glasses being announced at E3. It’s an initial investigation into a very interesting and promising space, and falls more under the heading of research than development."

"The Valve approach is to do experiments and see what we learn – failure is fine, just so long as we can identify failure quickly, learn from it, and move on – and then apply it to the next experiment."

Meer informatie over het project én over Abrash zelf kun je lezen op de blog van Valve.