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13. How can I have my Wearable ?

13.1 Commercial Solutions.

Some companies sells Wearables ready to use out of the Box, hereafter is a list of them.

• Genesys Technology manufactures a Wearable that uses a HMD display.
• handsfreemobile sells the Mid Riff Brain, it is mostly an LCD touchpad based solution and the unit is in a pouch fixed on the waistband.
• Teltronics sells the Mentis. It is a modular wearable.
• Via sells the VIA II PC a Wearable that is worn on the waistband.
• Xybernaut sells the Mobile Assistant IV ( MA IV ) available with RedHat Linux 6.1, Suse Linux ,Windows 9x and Windows NT4

13.2 Do it yourself.

As wearable computing is in its very early beginning you should make various experiments and share them with your peers. Doing this with an open and versatile OS such as Linux should give you a lot of fun ( after all, desktop computer is just a plain vanilla computer), because you play with both the OS and the hardware. If you are unsure of the technical decisions you are going to make, you can start with a proven design. On the net you can find the specifications of some wearable systems thus you will not have to reinvent the wheel and you will avoid some pitfalls. ( the designs are sorted by alphabetical order ).

• The Lizzi ; it is the MIT's wearable design.
• In the UK you can find the Vase Lab Wearable it is from Neil Newman at the University of Essex.
• In Canada, the Wearcomp is a proven design, by Prof. Steve Mann at the University of Toronto.