Hopeful Breakthroughs in Wearables & Connected Tech
Am a part of the Brilliant Labs Discord and occasionally there’s some neat branches hitting discussions. Wanting to preserve a recent exchange, am posting it here (aka, POSSE). This is how we make connectivity work towards our imaginations…
As usual, hit up our usual channels if you’ve got comments.
Brilliant Labs: Happy New Year to everyone in the community 🎉 As we step into a year where smart glasses, AI, and wearable tech are moving from novelty to everyday tools, what developments or breakthroughs are you most excited (or hopeful) to see in smart glasses, AI glasses, or wearables in general?
Well, since you asked and I’m just walking around a park and peeking in on things…
…interoperability between wearables and non-mobile/PC devices such as cycling computers, stand alone GPS devices, and even kiosks (similar to how accessibility devices tap into interfaces, just optional with the physical connection though).
…moving beyond indirect input devices for smaller interactions and seeing more use of multi-finger gestures.
…and pushing a tick harder into the types of integrations which can be done and audited by folks with limited programming knowledge. But, not to diminish programming, but to make it more valuable, risk tolerant, and in its craftsmanship to go back to being minimal with efficiency, not just “libraries of possibilities.”
BL: I like what you said about making integrations more accessible without losing craftsmanship. What do you think is the biggest thing holding that back right now?
What do I think are the biggest issues holding back craftsmanship… At least in regards to accessible integration?
Some of that has to do with mental models. Not all folks “think as a programmer” or “analyst” such to be able to bend tooling. A part of what some proponents of “vibe coding” tend to miss is simply that they think differently. So sharing “how one thinks” could be better than showing “how I get the thing I’m thinking about.”
Script and app sizes are too large IMO. Granted, much of this is me saying “ the abstraction layer on top of the abstraction layer on top of…“ Is not efficient enough. I don’t think we all need to be writing assembly… But it would be wonderful if the Renaissance in software craftsmanship did get us back to languages/methods which meet closer to assembly. Not sure how to do that in English though… It’s such a weird language. Mandarin, actually seems well suited to such things. As does Arabic.
Weirdly, I think the emphasis in “storytelling“ might actually hold this back. Much like people talk about “analog reading forces you to imagine the scenes the author wrote“ I think that some of our storytelling today replaces the imagination. And so if there were a way to invite imagination to be more part of an integration, that means a SDK’s functionality inviting imagination into the very thread of what’s being developed, then there could probably be some marvelous things that happen at the intersection of an individuals imagination and our collective want to use a tool/platform.
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Well, that’s where thinking landed not too long after the new year started. What about you? What kind of developments or breakthroughs are you excited or hopeful to see/here/sense with thee connected devices? Comment via your platform of choice and make sure to tv us so we can grow from the exchange.
