Pen-enabled Wearable Computers

Augmented Reality is a recent development in computer technology which allows for the use of information technology in an integrated fashion. Instead of picking up a computer, booting it, finding an application etc., the computer is just there, activated and functional, and may give you additional information on the environment. A head-up display allows for projecting computer-generated graphics into the user's visual field. Speakers or earphones may present the user with audio. So much for the computer output. How about the input? The answer is that this issue has not really been solved yet.

One of the problems of wearable computers is that the QWERTY keyboard is virtually useless and speech recognition has its own problems (noise, privacy/security). When equipped with a touch-sensitive surface (for right-handed users, e.g. on the left forearm) the user may enter:

This can be done either with a normal pen or pencil, or with the the index finger. If the user writes with the nail of the index finger, a smaller pressure-sensitive touch surface is needed, as the size of the gestures may be smaller. The advantage of touch input over voice input is that the operation is silent and does not depend on environmental noise. The disadvantage is that it is a bimanual activity. However, a tool can still be held in the non-gesturing hand. In a mobile environment with vibrations or unexspected movements, there may be problems with the capturing of the correct shape of the movement trajectory, similar to the case of acoustical noise in voice input. However, the biomechanical damping properties of the fore-arm system may still allow for truthful movement recording within a limited range of mechanical noise. Other proposed solutions are based on automatic finger-tip tracking by the head-mounted camera, which is currently realised by means of a brightly colored thimble. However, finger movements are more coarse and unstable as compared to pen movement, especially if the movement is in the air, and a larger area is required. In many occasions it can be observed that small-systems users take a stylus (any ball-point pen or pencil) to manipulate the keyboards of their organizers, smart watches, or PDAs. This behaviour has been observed in users handling touch-sensitive LCDs with virtual (graphical) keys as well. In the wearable computer circles, pen bashing is fashionable. However, the apparent deficits of the late '80s design of Microsoft's Windows for Pen computing (WFP) and the usability problems of the early Newton PDA by Apple, should not lead to the conclusion that the pen is completely useless in computing. (Copyright © '96/'97 LS).

Existing implementations (which at least make mention of the pen)

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schomaker@nici.kun.nl

since Jan. '97