1st UK Wearable Computing Meeting* 
On Friday 14 of July 2000, following a very European style, the first meeting was held in a pub, The Opera Room in central London. The meeting started at about 13:00 BST and finished around 18:00. 
Neill Newman with his PC104-based Wearable. 
He is wearing his enhanced way to wear the M1 monocular display.
Chris Ball and Martin Ling disassembling a versatile Laptop to transform it onto a wearable. 
Martin, Neill and everybody inspecting the Neill's belt computer.

 

Jonny Farringdon wearing his USB mini camera and Libretto-based wearable.

Philip Tung Yep with his SBC wearable.
The stress detecting glove by Phillips Research-UK for the MIT (designed by Jonny Farringdon).
The beginning of an activity monitor based on an ADXL202 accelerometer by Neill Newman.		  
 

The Oxford-AVL collar-based Wearable Visual Robot (Walterio holds it at the hand).
Report (according to my one bit-size memory):

 Jonny Farringdon from Philips Research Lab-UK choose the place, a very nice pub which was *really* tolerant and allowed us to have the computer-dissection table filled with gadgets, fries and chips. Jonny also provided us with plenty beverages and snacks.

At about 14:00, Jonny showed his -onHand- wrist PDA, which has a very nice LCD display fitted with an IrD port and a very useful joystick.

Following,  Martin Ling explained in detail his plans to convert a Laptop into an useful wearable. He is looking for options to capture voice and he is in the developing of a "language of sounds" to provide feedback to the user, instead of the some times more pervasive and non-private open speech.

Fries, lemonades, hamburgers bombarded the table when Neill Newman from Essex University VASE-Lab showed his famous belt computer. It is a 486 PC104 computer.
He has several PC104 modules staked together for different things (VGA, GPS, Ports, CPU). The modules are contained in a box cleverly embedded in an leather belt.

Neill also showed his enhanced modification for wearing the M1 monocular display. He explained the problems on finding the appropriate cables, and the way to construct the speaker mounting. The design uses a pair of security glasses and we were told it is much more comfortable than the original mounting provided by the factory. Neill is also working with a wireless video transmitter for VR applications.

A WearClam keypad case was showed.

Then, Philip Tung Yep demonstrated his Single Board Computer-based wearable. He uses a Twidler chording keyboard and he explained how he modified a video camera viewfinder which together with a VGA-PAL converter is used as the computer's display.

Asher Hoskins from Philips Research  and  Chris Ball arrived.

Later, in a sudden but opportune movement, Martin Ling exhibit his black jaket and a discussion of best ways to wear things started.

Jonny Farringdon demonstrated his system for remembering previously known people. A Libretto computer running Windows take images from a mini USB camera and then using a software that he wrote, the image face is feed into FaceIt  face-recognition software so the system is designed to display the first face that Jonny saw and stored about you. 

The talk switched to discuss important advantages and deficiencies of head-mounted displays as well as the design styles of different countries. Jonny and Martin were discussing about microphones and earphones while Philip and Neill about how to recognize activities with an accelerometer.

Jonny finally decided to show his glove intended for stress detecting. The glove has a very simple circuit with a couple of transistors, a potentiometer and a LED. The circuit was designed at the MIT. Jonny and a colleague (Nancy Tilbury) designed one of the most important parts for a wearable device, the way to wear it. His design is cleaver and comfortable, the electrodes for the circuit touched the hand's palm with reduced obstruction.

The last presentation was performed by Ben Tordoff and me (Walterio). We demonstrated the collar-based Oxford-AVL Wearable Visual Robot. One of the first appearances in public for our Wearable Active Vision Platform prototype.

During the  meeting everybody was open, friendly and taking a lot of photographs.

Fortunately, the public in the pub was fairly interested in what was going on. However their reactions were a cocktail of emotions from panic to pity.

The meeting was a success and everybody wonders when is the next one.
 

From left to right: Philip with his SBC featured with a video camera viewfinder as display. Neil Newman (second from left) wearing his belt computer as well as his M1 display. Martin (middle) with his black jacket that soon will carry a wearable with audio I/O. Jonny (second from right) is wearing a mini USB camera at the chest that together with his own software based on FaceIt can serve as a prosthetic memory for remembering people. He is looking at his stress-glove. Far at the right is Walterio with the collar Oxford-AVL-Wearable Visual Robot (almost invisible because the photograph). 

Not shown in the photograph: Ben Tordoff, Cris Ball and the other participant from Philips UK. 
Participants (in Alphabetical Order):
 
  • Asher Hoskins, Philips Research Lab UK.
  • Ben Tordoff, Active Vision Lab. University of Oxford. HomePage.
  • Chris Ball. UK. email.
  • Jonny Farringdon, Philips Research Lab UK. email.
  • Martin Ling. UK. HomePage.
  • Neill Newman, VASE Lab University of Essex. HomePage.
  • Philip Tung Yep. UK. email.
  • Walterio Mayol, Active Vision Lab. University of Oxford. HomePage.

*This meeting was organized through the public wearable-computing mailing list maintained by the MIT Medialab as well as advertised publicly in the UK-wearables mailing list. Everybody interested in this issues is allowed to come. Next meetings are probably going to be advertised using the same channels. Enthusiasts and practitioners should therefore join such mailing lists.
 
Copyright W.Mayol University of Oxford 16 July 2000.
Note: All subjects in these photographs were aware that a camera was pointing to them.