Valve is working on "wearable computing'

Valve tech guru Michael Abrash reveals interesting project

Valve's has revealed that it's working on a fascinating new project that may raise an eyebrow with the bods at Google - wearable computing.

Michael Abrash, a tech mastermind at Valve, has posted a lengthy blog post detailing the new project, which sounds a lot like the Google's recently-revealed 'Project Glass'

(the video through that link is embed below).

Abrash explains: "By 'wearable computing' I mean mobile computing where both computer-generated graphics and the real world are seamlessly overlaid in your view; there is no separate display that you hold in your hands (think Terminator vision)."

Abrash says the project "spun up almost overnight" as he "thought it was the most valuable thing I could do at Valve".

And he makes an exciting case for why Valve is exploring this tech. "The underlying trend as we've gone from desktops through laptops and notebooks to tablets is one of having computing available in more places, more of the time. The logical endpoint is computing everywhere, all the time - that is, wearable computing."

More than just a distant fantasy, Abrash reckon's we'll all be using this tech soon. "I have no doubt that 20 years from now that will be standard, probably through glasses or contacts, but for all I know through some kind of more direct neural connection. I'm pretty confident that platform shift will happen a lot sooner than 20 years - almost certainly within 10, but quite likely as little as 3-5, because the key areas - input, processing/power/size, and output - that need to evolve to enable wearable computing are shaping up nicely, although there's a lot still to be figured out."

Now, regular readers will no doubt note that this post comes at a time when Valve finds itself the subject of spiraling hardware development rumours, along with reports yesterday that Apple boss Tim Cook had paid Valve a visit for as yet undisclosed reasons. These events are likely to be entirely related, and Abrash seeks to pacify any potential for rumours.

"To be clear, this is R&D - it doesn't in any way involve a product at this point, and won't for a long while, if ever - so please, no rumors about Steam glasses being announced at E3," he says.

"It's an initial investigation into a very interesting and promising space, and falls more under the heading of research than development. The Valve approach is to do experiments and see what we learn - failure is fine, just so long as we can identify failure quickly, learn from it, and move on - and then apply it to the next experiment. The process is very fast-moving and iterative, and we're just at the start. How far and where the investigation goes depends on what we learn."

Exciting though, eh? And it you have the techie know-how to get involved it sounds like Abrash is looking to hire for help on the project, requesting those interested to email in (link in the full post). Hit the source link for the full and deeply fascinating write-up, and for those interested, below is the video for Google's recently revealed Project Glass, which appears rather similar to Valve's project:


Source:Valveblog