MOBILE COMPUTING
Doug Sutherland, a staff engineer at Sun Microsystems, has come up with the ultimate mobile computing solution: the Java Jacket. What appears to be an ordinary leather coat is in fact a homemade wearable computer that lets Sutherland interact, via the Net, with everything from Sun's network to his home aquarium.
Sutherland's tailor-made device packs impressive features: a 166-MHz Pentium-powered motherboard, a GPS receiver and antenna, and a camera lens. The Java Jacket incorporates three wireless networking standards and operates distributed software across the Net. Using a six-button keypad located on the cuff, Sutherland can send and receive email messages, control the lights in his house, and even adjust his aquarium's water temperature from anywhere.
Sutherland began working on the jacket last year as "the mother of all demos" to stretch Java and Jini technology. "It started out as a bunch of embedded circuits laid out on a coffee table," says the Canadian-born Sutherland, who lives in a small cabin in California's Santa Cruz Mountains. "I wanted to embed Java and Jini in a small device that could operate on batteries, roam freely, and remain connected to the network."
Sutherland's jacket can already monitor pollution in the water that flows past his home, as well as relative humidity and wind speed. This summer, he's adding a keyboard, a graphics display (for grabbing camera stills), and a head-mounted apparatus that will let him view maps, GPS coordinates, and other info while he's in motion. In the future, the jacket may be able to measure carbon monoxide levels along roadways or record tremors beneath Sutherland's cabin, which is located near the San Andreas Fault.
For Sutherland, working on the Java Jacket isn't just a technological challenge; it's a way to reconnect with his surroundings.
"We kind of live in a world of paradoxes," says Sutherland. "We can't stand the concrete and pollution of Silicon Valley, but we love the technology."
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