Wearable assistant manifesto
- I love Fallout game series. I wish I was playing Fallout 4 now, but there's hacking to do. Eh. Maybe I'll get to it later.
- I love the Pip-Boy idea. It manages your resources, ammunition, tasks to be completed, plays radio broadcasts, has something like GPS inside and generally is a nice thing. Of course, the idea of a wearable personal assistant predates the Pip-Boy idea - but it's so far the most popular comparison to my project.
- Thus, my dream was born. I always need something to manage my task lists to stop forgetting about my assignments. GPS would be very nice given that I often need to get to places I've never visited even though our city is comparably small. I need something to playback music because I just love listening to music while I'm doing things. I also would like something to help me with my hacking. On top of that, if it tracks my sleep schedules, I'm golden. So far, nothing you couldn't do with a Raspberry Pi =)
- I love Raspberry Pi boards. The community is huge, main distros are well-polished and even though there are some quirks, it's an excellent base for my projects. Moreover, it makes them much more repeatable! So, I'll start with one. A Raspberry Pi B+ - I don't need too much processing power, but improved power management and 4 USB ports is a nice touch.
- I'm developing #pyLCI and it's one more thing for me to love. Connect a character screen, some buttons and you've got an interface which incidentally is quite good for Linux-based wearables capable of running Python. So, I'm using pyLCI with a character screen and a wearable glove-like input device which is currently in the "concept" stage. The screen isn't going to show me any graphics or GPS maps, though, but I think I can solve it with a web interface on an Android phone or something. Later, I can attach a HDMI/SPI screen and deal with the "graphics" part.
- I don't like modern phones. They're not hackable, and it very much sucks for me. The main reason - they're mainly not open-source. Not only it's a privacy/security concern, it's hard for me to change stock apps on phones, making them act however I want them to act. Moreover, hardware is not hackable either. Want to add a FM/IR transmitter to your phone? "Screw you, buy the newer one which may or may not have good support of this functionality, it might suck in many different ways and we'll stop releasing updates anyway." Or "Yeah, buy this FM transmitter, it might not work with your next phone though, we ain't giving you an API, just a limited app we made in a couple of hours". Battery life sucks, and extra-capacity batteries ain't that great of an experience. So, if I can put together a wearable personal assistant - it's going to be my phone, too.
- I don't mind if this bracelet is kinda bulky. I'll work on making it more slim and it *is going to* become smaller, but so far a working bracelet is much better than a slim one. Besides, have you ever noticed how huge PipBoys are? Besides, initially, I'll add at least 4 18650 cells to it, so that battery life doesn't suck. Optimising power is a complicated thing, and not yet what I'm skilled at, so I'll just fix it by adding more batteries than a smartphone could spend in a couple of days.
- I like the idea of lifelogging. I often forget some details about things I just talked with somebody about, and wish I could replay our chat just to recall it. As I'm all about documenting my hacking, I take plenty of photos, I even have a separate phone for that but sometimes it feels like it just doesn't cut it. I also like the "lifelogging for safety" - the idea of having a photo of person following you on the street posted to your Dropbox as soon as he starts looking threatening is quite comforting.
- I hate apps which can access every aspect of my life because they have access to my phone. For example, Android doesn't make open-sourcing code necessary (neither it should, of course), and you never know what an app could do - you might never know if it sends your call or message history to third parties, especially with all the long permission lists most apps have. I also know that there's a ton of open-source software for Linux, and the only way they can send my data somewhere else is through a third-party attacker targeting specifically my device. That's much, much better and about as much security for my money as I can get.
- This whole "bracelet" idea looks like an idea with big potential to me. Not only in a "I'd wear that" form - it's a freaking open-source portable computer you control and you can modify. Your imagination, skills and the scientific laws is just about your limit in making it do what you want to do. Besides, nothing says "a creative engineer" more than a huge electronic device on your arm.
