Military gets magic gauntletThe gloves are off... er, onBy Sylvie Barak: Tuesday, 29 April 2008, 2:10 PMWEARABLE COMPUTER SYSTEMS are not a new thing, neither in the civilian nor the military world, but they have only really been practical to use in relatively secure environments, where a person has at least one hand free to type commands or use a mouse attached to his person. Now, however, a company says that it has come up with a computerised combat glove which will allow soldiers to control a wearable computer, without even having to drop their weapon.The clever sensor-packed glove, created by a startup called Rallypoint, lets soldiers pull up digital maps and send radio communications and commands to fellow troops, all while still wielding a weapon in the midst of combat.According to Technology Review, boffins from MIT and several other prominent universities have, in the past, worked on all kinds of systems to help make wearable computers more practical, including the use of accelerometers for determining hand and arm movements.Even the Mighty Vole and Japanese firm Sony have tried to do their bit to make the wearable computer more user friendly with gizmos that supposedly recognises gestures but, apparently, their attempts have thus far been in vain.By focusing on a very specific market, the military, Rallypoint seem to have cracked it with a system perfectly matched to a battlefield soldier’s needs. President and cofounder of the company, Forrest Liau, told TR, "we wanted to make a device that would have all the necessary components in a combat-ready way".The glove, which has been dubbed the Handwear Computer Input Device (HCID), is being tested out by Natick Soldier Systems Center. It works together with a screen mounted inside a soldier’s helmet, and allows the wearer to control it through four tactile buttons in the glove’s fingertips. There are also additional sensors on the glove which control the radio and which can switch from "map mode" to "mouse mode".The glove also uses accelerometers so that it can tell where it is and recognise hand signals, which can then be sent as text commands to other soldiers. There is also an "anywhere mouse" which means that if a soldier presses it against a hard surface (even the side of his weapon, for instance), and rolls his finger around, it acts as a mouse and allows him to control what he sees on his screen.Sounds like a case of life imitating video games to us.
