December 10, 2002
Wearable Computers (Thesis publication)

"The digital road warrior’s kit - laptop, cell phone, PDA, and pager - is just capable enough to bother you everywhere without necessarily helping you anywhere. It’s absurd that each device is still on such poor speaking terms with the others. We walk around like pack horses saddled with information appliances. We should be in the saddle, not under it."

– Nicholas Negroponte, MIT Media Lab, Wired: December 1995

During the autumn of 1999 and the winter of 2000 I wrote my diploma thesis to complete my "sivilingeniør"-studies (degree comparable to Master of Science).

I was fortunate enough to get to work with a subject that was then and even still remains reasonably bleeding-edge; wearable computers.

Using the Mobile Assistant 4 version of the Xybernaut, I was allowed to play at the technology labs of a major technology consulting company in the south of France. A dream come true for a geeky technology student... :-)

The same company kindly paid my trip to and attendance at the International Conference on Wearable Computers in Stuttgart, Germany in 1999. There, I met wearable superstar Steve Mann, and many other knowledgeable and helpful persons. I thank you all, and should you read this today, please get in touch (business cards disappear over time :-/ )

If you want to have a read through the thesis, the URL is

http://www.jacobsen.no/anders/thesis/Diploma%20Thesis%20Anders%20Jacobsen%20(for%20publication).PDF [PDF]

If you actually take some time to read it in full or in part, I would greatly appreciate your feedback, one word or more, either through posting comments at this page or by any other means you prefer (AIM, ICQ, physical mail etc :-)

For the casual reader, I recommend a look at chapter 8 - Changing the rules of the game: Social Impact of Wearable computers, chapter 9 - Ubiquitous Computing and the conclusions of chapter 12-13, most of which should still be relevant...


© Anders Jacobsen
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