Always Connected: A Wearable Computer For
The Rest Of Us
InternetWeek
internetwk.com
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BILL FREZZA
First there was the desk, Then the lap. After much
wandering in the wilderness came the palm. Now, the belt
has arrived-and the search for wearable computers is over.
No, I'm not talking about Borg-like headgear worn by geeky
aficionados. For a representative sample of what is
decidedly not going to happen, stop by the wearable
computer Web page at MIT's Media Lab, at
www.media.mit.edu/projects/wearables.
There you will find a collection of seriously weird-looking
nerds adorned with pounds of strap-on paraphernalia that
has zero chance of going mainstream.
Instead, contemplate the humble pager, a low-tech,
unobtrusive device that millions of people wear every day.
The challenge has been to build a multipurpose, connected,
personal information appliance in such a constrained form
factor. That challenge has been met.
The company that pulled it off is named Research In Motion
(www.rim.net). I've written about this outfit before, raving
about the wireless e-mail capabilities of its Inter@ctive
pager (see RIM Rekindles Passion For Remote
Connectivity. But the Inter@ctive pager, while a
breakthrough as a wireless data device, was just the tip of
the iceberg. I've been using RIM's second-generation
wearable computer, the BlackBerry, for the past two months
and have found it to be a transforming experience.
The BlackBerry has the same 5-ounce form factor as the
Inter@ctive Pager, but instead of a dedicated device, it's a
full-function PC with a unique operating system carefully
tailored for impoverished platforms. Unlike Windows CE,
which you couldn't cram into a pager if your life depended
on it, this new OS carries no baggage. In fact, it doesn't
even have a name-clearly a marketing mistake-but what do
you expect from a company run by engineers?
The LCD screen can display six or eight rows of 30
characters and graphics, which is just enough for e-mail,
note taking, an address book, a calendar and other
organizer applications. The
QWERTY keyboard looks absurdly small until you try it.
Typing is done with the thumbs; the tactile design and
click-wheel navigation is so good that you can comfortably
compose lengthy messages with very few errors and at
faster speeds than the groundbreaking Graffiti system
introduced by Palm Computing.
The processor is a 10-MHz 386 with 2 megabytes of flash
memory, which is used for both program storage and user
data. Don't scoff-10 MHz does the job, especially since the
processor spends 98 percent of its time sleeping anyway,
which is why you get three weeks of battery life out of a
single AA. Although 2 megabytes of memory is what
Windows leaks on a good day, I got 2,000 Rolodex entries
on the BlackBerry with room to spare.
The software that comes with the unit works best with
Microsoft Outlook and, much like the PalmPilot,
synchronizes with desktop applications through a drop-in
cradle. Wireless e-mail is configured to work with a Microsoft
Exchange Server and includes filtering software so that mail
sent to your standard e-mail address can be automatically
routed to the BlackBerry when specified conditions are met.
I have mine set up to forward mail with the word "urgent" in
the subject, but you can get as fancy as you'd like. The
wireless service is priced right-$39 per month for all the
e-mail you can eat including nationwide coverage with no
roaming or long distance charges.
Because the software developer's kit is so simple,
third-party applications for this OS-with-no-name are
proliferating like wildfire. I got a bootleg copy of Tetris, and
it's a killer. Fidelity Investments is using the BlackBerry for
its InstantBroker service, allowing high-end customers to
trade stocks wirelessly. Go America just launched a proxy
service called Go.Web that surfs the Web remotely, sending
requested information fields back to the BlackBerry in a
compressed format after scraping off the graphics.
People often come up to me at conferences and say,
"Haven't we met?" I've always been bad with names, but
now, instead of stumbling around in an information vacuum,
I say, "I don't know, let me check." With one hand, I click on
my BlackBerry and say, "Why, yes. Steve M. introduced us
back when you used to work for AT&T. How's your wife Sally
doing with that horse farm?"
Always connected, always on, and always there. My
BlackBerry has become an extension of me, which is exactly
what a wearable computer is supposed to be.
Bill Frezza is a general partner at Adams Capital
Management. He can be reached at frezza@alum.mit.edu or
www.acm.com.
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