Wearable Tech is Coming to your Campus!

Emory Craig

Director of eLearning

The College of New Rochelle

Campus Technology

July 2014

Today . . .

Our first “Summer of Wearables”

Google Glass, Vuzix, Meta 3D Glasses,

Oculus Rift, Narrative Clip Lifelogging

Camera

Challenges – What’s holding us back?

Impact on our Learning Environments

Some insights (the foggy Crystal Ball)

What’s the Attraction?

Ubiquitous – yes, everywhere

Always on – Goodbye “off” switch

Connectivity – without picking up our

Smartphones (an average of 150 times a day)

Useful – Location aware, intention aware

Transformative – New data (body trackers) and

new experiences (AR and VR)

Hands-free – Please disappear (completely)!

History of Wearables – (Yes, a

Long Road Here)

Now the Tech Focus is Ending –

Wearables are Marketable

Five Wearable

Devices

Devices on the Market (or Close)

Google Dives in: Isabelle Olsson

with Early Glass Prototype

Google Glass

• High resolution display,

equivalent of 25” HD

screen 8’ away

• Camera: 5 MP

• Video – 720p

• But Google (or we?)

tripped over the social

acceptance issue

Vuzix M100 Smart Glasses

• Display equivalent to a

smartphone screen at

typical 14” distance

• 5MP Camera and 1080P

video

• Runs local but designed

to pair with an Android

device (we’ll get to

battery life in a minute)

Meta 3D Glasses – Now It Gets

Interesting

• True augmented, holographic reality glasses

• Available late 2014 for $3,000

• Wired to a small

pocket computer

to do the serious

work

And Oculus Rift Goes All In (and

so does Facebook)

• Virtual Reality head-

mounted display

• Expected 1920x1080

resolution

• Designed as an in-

expensive gaming

device

Smaller Devices - Huge Impact?

Narrative Clip

• Life logging Camera

• Size: 1.42“ X 1.42“ X 0.35"

• Time-stamped, geotagged photo

every 30 sec

• No on/off switch

• 2 day Battery life

• Wear it and forget it

Continuous Snapshots of Your Life

• Photos stored in

the cloud

• Organizes images

by “Moments”

• In one day you’ll

take 1,700 photos

or 12,000 a week

(not a typo)

Challenges

Glass is Surprisingly Simple

But They All Encounter Tech and

Design Challenges

Battery life – the Achilles Heel of Wearables

Attractiveness - Can they truly become

fashion accessories – seductive, worn “for

their own sake”?

Purpose Driven: Can they become “essential

wear” like a coat in winter?

Battery Life is a Problem of

Weight

Battery life obstacle –

Samsung’s 210mAh

battery

Compare Smartphones:

1500mAh – 2500mAh

• Look at Fast / Slow iPhone progress:

• Processor is 40 times faster in 7 years

• Battery life only 12% increase in 6 years

Patchwork Solutions Until

Problem is Solved

PWRGlass: an add-on developed for Google

Glass that increases battery life 3X (actually

quite creative)

Lenovo Toying With Wrapping a

Battery Around your Neck

Pivothead SMART Glasses: Modular

Power and Connectivity

Fashion: The Activity Tracker as

an Object of Beauty

Misfit Shine

Purpose Driven: Don’t Leave Home

Without Them

Lechal Shoes – that direct you to your destination

(using GPS on your phone)

Impact on Learning

The Glaringly Obvious: Wearables

and Learning

Easy first person video

Hands-free documentation

Full Social Media integration

Easy Collaboration (which was once so hard)

Virtual field trips – from a first-person

perspective

Hello outside experts!

Glassware – If the Ecosystem

System is Weak . . .

Virtual Field Trips - Andrew

Vanden Heuvel

Doing a virtual field trip for students into the Large Hadron Collider

Can we Reinvent “Experiential

Learning"?

Not just life experience – but actually

experience, or “see” history

HistoryPin Project – collaborative effort to

visualize the past

Smartphone App - overlay historical scenes on

the contemporary landscape

Now combine this with Wearables

StreetMuseum – Stroll Through

19th Century LondonAmazing even now as an iPhone App - think about the

possibilities with Wearables

Augmented Reality: Vuforia App –

Texts come alive with 3D Objects

The Future

Lecture Capture and Video

Conferencing – Headed to the Landfill?

Do classrooms Become Public Spaces?

Will all Interactions with Students

be Documented?

Does Social Media Become the

Baseline for Communication?

What will we do with Mountains

of Data on Learning?

Wearables? As Henry Ford Might Say:

The Future is not a Faster Horse!

Wearables will Bring a Tidal Wave

of Data and Images

Estimated that humans have taken 3.8 trillion

photographs since the invention of the camera –

10% of those were taken in the past year – 3.8 Billion

Do the Math: 1800 Images a Day,

12,000 a Week - One Narrative Clip

What Fence? Boundary Between Public and Private

Space – Fascinating and Contentious Issue

A Final Thought:

“Mobile phones are misnamed.

They should be called gateways

to human knowledge.”

—Ray

Kurzweil

Rephrased . . .

Wearables are misnamed.

They should be called gateways

to innovative learning