Introduction
Friends who are reading this article on the computer today, please be kind to your mouse. Because today is the birthday of the mouse. Fifty-eight years ago today, Dr. douglas engelbart from Stanford Research Institute in the United States showed the world's first mouse at the meeting of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and put forward the concept of "graphical user interface" (GUI). Fifty-eight years later, the development of computers has far exceeded people's imagination at that time. So in the future, what are the possibilities for the development of computers? Let's imagine what computers will look like in the future today.
Although all kinds of smart phones, tablets and laptops can be carried around now, and people's lives and work are much more convenient because of their existence, we often think that it would be nice to wear a microcomputer on our body like in science fiction movies.
dreams are the driving force for progress. Today, there have been some scattered small devices in the laboratory. In the next ten years, wearing a computer on your body may be as natural as wearing a dress.
according to von Neumann, one of the founders of modern computer theory, computers can be divided into processing units, input units, output units and storage units. But from the perspective of use, people may prefer another classification: host, output device and input device. When these parts are small enough and convenient enough, it is possible for us to wear computers on our bodies.
portable output devices related to hearing are very mature-everyone has used headphones or earplugs. Vision-related output devices have also made good progress: as early as 25, some manufacturers began to try to combine glasses with monitors. A product developed by a Japanese company can project an image directly onto the user's retina with a laser-don't worry, the intensity of the laser is very low and it will not affect the vision. Based on the principle of human visual persistence, it makes the laser scan in the horizontal and vertical directions in a specified order quickly, hitting a small area of the retina to make it feel light, so that people can feel the existence of the image. At present, this technology can not provide very fine images, but it is only a matter of time before the performance is improved. Smart glasses, which came out in 213, also adopt a similar principle, so that people can receive information directly on the glasses without worrying about not seeing the scenery in front of them.
Several researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle, USA, simply plan to make the monitor on contact lenses. They integrate LED components, control circuit, antenna and data communication module into a soft contact lens, which users can see simple graphics when wearing. Although the number of pixels it can provide is not enough now, it is conceivable that it will present a very broad scene in the field of vision-after all, it is the display system that has the closest contact with people's eyes and the most privacy protection in history.
The display system that can be worn on eyes is only a part of wearable computers. People may pay more attention to the way of talking with computers. After all, neither keyboard nor mouse is suitable for walking. In this regard, researchers have developed a tool that can give instructions to electronic devices just by touching your fingers. The name of this tool is Skinput, which is a combination of "skin" and "input". It consists of an armband, a mini-projector and a computing device, in which a projector is not necessary. Inside the armband, there are two rows of sensor arrays shaped like miniature stethoscopes. The five piezoelectric sensors in each array will collect vibrations of different frequencies, and the vibration generated by knocking on the arm will be converted into signals that can be recognized by the computer by the computing device. When a person hits his arm, the transverse wave directly transmitted through the skin surface will reach the sensor first, while the vibration transmitted through the bone will form a longitudinal wave with a later arrival time when it is transmitted to the skin from the inside out. The location of the source of the vibration can be calculated by the intensity and time difference of the vibration-this is very similar to the method we use in seismic measurement. This technology allows people to tell the computer what to do by tapping in the palm. Our palm is like a keyboard. But now its accuracy is not very high, and it needs to be further improved.
Of course, we can also talk to the computer directly. Speech recognition software has appeared on smart phones, which can convert our words into words, and then let mobile phones perform specific functions. This technology has a history of more than 4 years and is still developing rapidly. Maybe in another 1 years, computers will be able to understand everything we say like our friends.
It seems that the input and output devices of wearable computers have made good progress, and the host can be completely replaced by smart phones-according to the current speed of technological development, the computing power of smart phones should reach at least 1 times that of today's home computers in 1 years. So, how should these devices be connected together?
wireless network should be a good choice. Bluetooth technology can connect devices within 1 meters, which is enough for wearable computers, but there may be a better choice: personal area network. This research field has been developing since 199s, and now there are many experimental products. Researchers in some universities in South Korea have achieved data transmission speed comparable to that of home broadband, and can transmit a song in 3 seconds. Essentially, this is a wireless communication system. It will transmit a weak electric field on the surface of human skin and carry data through appropriate modulation. Compared with Bluetooth communication technology, this technology is not easy to be intercepted and eavesdropped, nor will it be disturbed, and the energy consumption is much lower.
by the way, there is a battery problem. Computers always need electricity, and battery charging is always a bit troublesome. Human power generation technology can solve this problem and make wearable computers full of power forever. As early as 27, some researchers in Britain developed a vibrating power generation device the size of a cube of sugar, and hoped that it could have more uses, such as supplying power to small devices through the natural vibration source in the human body-the heart.
of course, not everyone wants to implant a small generator in the body. In this regard, disposable lighters may help. There is a small piece of piezoelectric ceramics in lighters, which will generate electricity when its shape changes. The National University of Singapore has developed piezoelectric shoes, which can generate electricity at every step. Later, scientists at Princeton University in the United States improved this design, made the piezoelectric material into filaments, and then encapsulated them in soft silicone rubber, making a power insole with good flexibility and amazing power generation efficiency. Scientists in China have pioneered a new field, reducing the size of piezoelectric materials to the extent that they can only be seen through an electron microscope. Using this technology, scientists have made a jacket that can generate electricity, and this jacket will generate electricity with every tiny move we make.
maybe in the near future, all these technologies will be mature enough to be commercialized. By then, our dream of putting computers on our bodies will come true.