Word: xybernaut
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD Virginia Senator George Allen, the political gag gift that keeps on giving, is in the news again. This time it's over his alleged failure to disclose stock-option grants and other transactions in companies like Xybernaut, maker of, in the A.P.'s words, "a computer people can wear on their heads." Just what Allen needs: Dunce...
Problem No. 2 is price. The current model costs between $5,000 and $6,000, far too much for a personal computer no matter how high the cool factor. The thing is, the MA-IV isn't meant to replace your trusty iMac: it is an industrial tool. Xybernaut sells these machines - a few hundred, thus far - to companies that have a large, widely dispersed maintenance staff. Bell Canada's workers, for instance, climb up poles and down manholes to fix phone lines and maintain highly sophisticated equipment. Rather than carry a bagful of printed manuals, workers strap...
This, many computer experts think, will one day lead to cheap, easy-to-use wearables at your neighborhood electronics store. And chances are they will be based on Xybernaut technology. With the benefit of a 10-year head start and some valuable patents, the company is so far ahead in the field that even mighty IBM decided to join forces with it rather than try to build wearables from scratch...
...everybody thinks Xybernaut is on to a sure thing, though. Over at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, scientist Steven Schwartz and researcher Richard DeVaul scoff at the notion of wearables as a consumer product. "Why would you want to surf the Net or play a computer game while you walk around?" asks Schwartz, a genial 46-year-old who wears his skepticism lightly. "How would you survive crossing the street?" His argument against the MA-IV is that it simply takes a laptop computer and distributes its components around the body. The machine doesn't do anything...
When I talk with Xybernaut's founder and president Edward Newman, 56, another Palm analogy comes up. The small, wiry, onetime CIA operative - who looks like he may burst from enthusiasm - believes the upcoming sixth-generation MA will appeal to "prosumers," the professionals who embraced the first Palm handhelds. "Those guys will show the way for the rest of the consumers," he says. Newman doesn't know this, but he's talking about me: I still swear by my old Palm Pilot. Would I buy a wearable? Yes, if it weighs less than a kilo, costs less than...