Move over smartphone, wearable computer is here

Not so long ago I was skiiing down a slope in France, wearing a pair of ski goggles which, when I looked down and to my right, showed me my precise location, how fast I was going, where the ski run went. "Wearable computing" is the new buzzword in how we're going to live our lives. It might even free us from what Charlie Brooker called the "black mirror" of our smartphone screens, the ones that seem to obsess us to the exclusion of all else when we're walking down streets, waiting for transport, or even hanging out with friends. It's only recently, however, that phones have acquired enough computing power, data connectivity has become pervasive, Bluetooth connections low-powered enough and screens cheap enough, for us to start thinking of adopting it. Witness the case of Steve Mann, a pioneer in the use of wearable computing, who has been wearing devices just like Google Glass for years.