A Cheap Papercraft Future

This first of my cheaply wrought photographs shows me with something on my left forearm. You see with some of the flexible, paper thick computer hype, the obvious has been thrown about: the prediction of wearable computers. That is my wearable computer around my left forearm. I chose the forearm because it is simultaneously the most useful spot while also being the most out of the way.

Next we see the obvious flexible screen. I recommend that instead of having to reflatten it every time and angle it properly, it should somehow have a memory of the flattened position and either go there naturally after having been curled around your forearm or have an electronic way of doing that.

The rest of this piece assumes talking to your computer will not work in all instances. Look at hearing aids. They still struggle to bring out important info while diminishing background noise. And we’ve all had bad experiences with voice recognition software in unexpected places. And there are accents and speech impediments, no matter how slight. Thus, I assume keyboards would still be needed for at least the nearer future. There is a pivot on the one strap that the keyboard can turn toward a usable position.

A full keyboard is too long to fit neatly along the forearm. It needs to be bent in half. Because the QWERTY keyboard has its keys in non grid format, to fold it neatly in half is impossible. I fixed this by cutting in a staircase manner, thus not losing the integrity of even one key.

For maximum screen size, it would be best if the wearable computer was sized for different people. Oh no, more sizes to measure – length of forearm and strap length around the forearm in two places. Well I can’t think of a way to ease the strap length around the forearm in two places. However the length of the inner part of the bent forearm is the same length as your foot. Try it and see, I’ll still be here. So for that you already have your shoe size memorized.

I’m sorry about the cheap papercraft used to explain myself. I sometimes just think very aloud on my blog posts. I don’t expect any computer or tablet maker to steal my designs. Why? Because the ideas should be obvious enough to come up with on their own. It all depends on the technology. I just wanted to see how it might play out.