ABSTRACT

Mobile computing is beginning to break the chains that tie us to our desks, but
many of today's mobile devices can still be a bit awkward to carry around. In the next age
of computing, there will be an explosion of computer parts across our bodies, rather than
across our desktops.

Basically, jewellery adorns the body, and has very little practical purpose.
However, researchers are looking to change the way we think about the beads and
bobbles we wear. The combination of microcomputer devices and increasing computer
power has allowed several companies to begin producing fashion jewellery with
embedded intelligence i.e., Digital jewellery. Digital jewellery can best be defined as
wireless, wearable computers that allow you to communicate by ways of e-mail,
voicemail, and voice communication. This paper enlightens on how various computerized
jewellery (like ear-rings, necklace, ring, bracelet, etc.,) will work with mobile embedded
intelligence.

It seems that everything we access today is under lock and key. Even the devices
we use are protected by passwords. It can be frustrating trying to keep with all of the
passwords and keys needed to access any door or computer program. This paper
discusses about a new Java-based, computerized ring that will automatically unlock doors
and log on to computers.

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 CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION 4

2. WHAT IS DIGITAL JEWELLERY? 5

2.1 Historical context 5
2.2 Digital jewellery and its components 6
.
2.3 Technical specifications of digital jewellery 8
.
2.4 Display technologies 8
.

3. ELECTROMAGNETIC BEADS 10

4. PROTOTYPES OF DIGITAL JEWELLERY 11

4.1 HIOX Necklace 11
4.2 HIOX Ring 11
4.3 IBM’s Bracelet Display 12

5. JAVA RING 13
5.1 Introduction 13
5.2 Features 13
5.3 Working 14

6. CURRENT AND ONGOING ACHIEVEMENTS 16

6.1 CharmBadge 16
6.2 Intelligent Spectacles 16
6.3 Smart Wristwatch 17
6.4 Magic Decoder Ring 17
6.5 Charmed Communicator Eyepiece 18
6.6 Mouse-Ring 18

7. CONCLUSION 20

8. REFERENCES 21

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 1. INTRODUCTION

Recent technological advancements have resulted in a climate where technology is

too intrusive the increased miniaturisation and mobility of digital technologies has led to
a number of proposals for digital objects which use jewellery as a way to locate
communication and information devices on the body. However, these developments are
emerging from outside the field of contemporary jewellery. Consequently digital
jewellery is significantly under-explored within contemporary jewellery practice and the
emerging developments from other fields present a narrow interpretation of both
jewellery and digital technologies. In terms of aesthetics there is a distinct naivety
regarding the form, material, connection with the body and scope of interaction of a
digital jewellery object. Moreover there is a paucity of approaches that consider
emotional and intimate attachments people form with and around objects. These
limitations are evident in both physical and conceptual constraints. Beyond this, the
qualities that we have come to associate with the digital are born from a predominantly
consumer electronics field and are both narrow and hindering if we wish to consider
digital technologies having wider, more emotional scope in our lives. Therefore an
exploration of digital jewellery that addresses these issues and seeks to escape the
limiting assumptions we have of the digital is needed.

The latest computer craze has been to be able to wear wireless computers. The
Computer Fashion Wave, "Digital Jewellery" looks to be the next sizzling fashion trend
of the technological wave. The combination of shrinking computer devices and
increasing computer power has allowed several companies to begin producing fashion
jewellery with embedded intelligence. Today’s, manufacturers place millions of
transistors on a microchip, which can be used to make small devices that store tons of
digital data.. The whole concept behind this is to be able to communicate to others by

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means of wireless appliances. The other key factor of this concept market is to stay
fashionable at the same time. Researchers have already created an array of digital-
jewellery prototypes.

2. WHAT IS DIGITAL JEWELLERY?

Digital jewellery is the fashion jewellery with embedded intelligence. “Digital

jewellery” can help you solve problems like forgotten passwords and security badges.
“Digital jewellery” is a nascent catchphrase for wearable ID devices that contain personal
information like passwords, identification, and account information. They have the
potential to be all-in-one replacements for your driver’s license, key chain, business
cards, credit cards, health insurance card, corporate security badge, and loose cash. They
can also solve a common dilemma of today’s wired world – the forgotten password.

Digital jewellery can come in other forms as well. Innovators at IBM and the MIT
Media Laboratory have developed “personal area networks” (PANs) that transfer simple
information via human touch, by “capacitively coupling picoamp currents through the
body.” A low-level electric current carries the information from transmitter to receiver,
passing simple identifying information like name, title, and phone number. As digital
jewellery matures, this kind of function is a natural inclusion to the feature set. Other
possible inclusions are memory aids, PDA functions, and environmental augmentation.

2.1. OVERVIEW

The phenomenon of the wearable computer has arisen from the desire to create a
mobile, personal computer system. The makers of wearables aim to house the personal
computer on the body maintaining the convention of screen, keyboard and mouse.
Wearables have been worn (by their originators) despite their bulky size and weight, and
it is readily apparent that considerations of the aesthetic possibilities or the intimate
nature of the relationship between the body and the object remains under-explored.
Technological innovation has to date been the dominant concern for wearables research.

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Thad Starner (2001) outlined the challenges facing the development of wearables as
power use, heat dissipation, networking, interface design and privacy; with no mention of
the user’s emotional experiences of such devices.

Bubblebadge (Fig 2.1.1) and Body Coupled FingeRing (Fig 2.1.2) are examples of
early human-computer interaction outputs. Each example posits jewellery as a vehicle for
digital communication, and the body as a mobile location for such devices.

Fig 2.1.1: The Bubblebadge: A wearable Fig 2.1.2: Body Coupled FingeRing:
Public Display Wireless Wearable Keyboard

The Bubblebadge houses a digital display, to display text generated by the wearer, by a
specific environment or by the viewer. In one scenario the brooch could show the viewer
if they had received any new emails, at which point the viewer may end the conversation
with the wearer and go and check her or his emails. FingeRing similarly focuses on
usability and treats the body as a convenient location to situate an electronic device.
Sensors are attached to each finger in the form of rings to facilitate the input of data into a
portable or wearable personal digital assistant (PDA).

IBM Research has been exploring digital jewellery through the work of Denise
Chan, a mechanical engineering graduate . Chan’s concept was a set of jewellery objects,
which together functioned as a wearable mobile phone.

2.2. DIGITAL JEWELLERY AND ITS COMPONENTS

Soon, cell phones will take a totally new form, appearing to have no form at all.
Instead of one single device, cell phones will be broken up into their basic components

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and packaged as various pieces of digital jewellery. Each piece of jewellery will contain a
fraction of the components found in a conventional mobile phone. Together, the digital-
jewellery cell phone should work just like a conventional cell phone.

The various components that are inside a cell phone: Microphone, Receiver,
Touch pad, Display, Circuit board, Antenna, and Battery. IBM has developed a prototype
of a cell phone that consists of several pieces of digital jewellery that will work together
wirelessly, possibly with Blue tooth wireless technology, to perform the functions of the
above components.

Fig 2.2: Cell phones may one day be comprised of digital accessories that
work together through wireless connections.

Here are the pieces of computerized-jewellery phone (Fig 2.2) and their functions:

• Earrings : Speakers embedded into these earrings will be the phone's receiver.
• Necklace : Users will talk into the necklace's embedded microphone.
• Ring : Perhaps the most interesting piece of the phone, this "magic decoder ring” is
equipped with light-emitting diodes (LEDs) that flash to indicate an incoming call. It
can also be programmed to flash different colors to identify a particular caller or
indicate the importance of a call.
• Bracelet : Equipped with a video graphics array (VGA) display, this wrist display
could also be used as a caller identifier that flashes the name and phone number of the
caller.

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 With a jewellery phone, the keypad and dialing function could be integrated into
the bracelet, or else dumped altogether ; it's likely that voice-recognition software will be
used to make calls, a capability that is already commonplace in many of today's cell
phones. Simply say the name of the person you want to call and the phone will dial that
person. IBM is also working on a miniature rechargeable battery to power these
components.

2.3. TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS OF DIGITAL JEWELLERY

Digital jewellery devices consist of a screen or display for information, most likely
consisting of 7-16-segment, or dot matrix LEDs, LCDs, or other technologies such as
electroluminescent material (EL) or others, which could become an optional display . So
too, an audiovisual or other 'display' could consist of a speaker, a single flashing light, a
sensor of some kind (such as a temperature driven EL display), or other informational
aesthetic. The display layer sits on a face of the device, which is enclosed in some
material such as plastic, metal, crystal, or other material. It has external switches and
buttons on its side and a data-port for accessing the programmable electronic circuit
inside. A micro controller that is a surface mounted device (SMD) on a printed circuit
board (PCB) with resistors (R) and capacitors (C) are the internal 'guts' of the jewellery.

2.4. DISPLAY TECHNOLOGIES

The digital jewellery display, for instance, every alphabet and number system has
found representation within the electronics realm and 'dot-matrix' (a matrix of single
LEDs) is used to display Chinese and Japanese and other character sets, as can the
alternative display for LCDs (liquid-crystal-displays) also be used, as often found in
watches.

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 Fig 2.3: Alphanumeric or Graphic Display types

Digital Jewellery can be made in many different sizes and shapes with a variety of
materials ranging from plastic and metal to rubber and glass. They utilize electromagnetic
properties and electronics to display information through a screen or display of some
kind. This could range from LED 7-segment, 16-segment, dot matrix, and other
programmable LEDs devices to LCDs, OLEDs, and other displays (Fig 2.3 ), which are
all driven by the self-contained jewellery devices themselves.

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 3. ELECTROMAGNETIC BEADS

The closest comparison to Electromagnetic Beads (Fig 3) is that of 'beads' which

are strung together to make a custom necklace or bracelet, with interchangeable
electromagnetic component systems or devices. One bead may be a capacitor on the
inside, and a solar panel on the outside. Another bead may have an internal resistor which
feed power into a programmed microcontroller bead which drives an external screen,
with other options available in a variety of bead configurations which compose a circuit,
including beads with a piezo element, voltage regulator, crystal, or rechargeable battery
as part of the modular jewel circuit. The number of data pins on the microcontroller needs
to be enough to easily program the display layer plus the switches without overly
complex and advanced coding methods

Fig 3: Electromagnetic Beads

The key to the device's ability to work effectively is a balancing of electronic

components within the circuit with a light-duty processing and limited power consumption
required for the display layer.

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 6. CURRENT AND ONGOING ACHIEVEMENTS

6.1 CharmBadge

Fig 6.1: CharmBadge

CharmBadge was developed by Charmed Technologies. Fig 6.1 shows the

CharmBadge placed in front of an IR transmitter/receiver dongle connected to one of
THE laptops. CharmBadge management software allowed to change many of the
CharmBadge settings using the IR dongle such as: activate, deactivate, assignment to
attendees, affinity score, download interactions, etc.

6.2. Intelligent Spectacles

Fig 6.2: Intelligent Spectacles

This could be the shape of designer glasses to come. These intelligent spectacles
(Fig 6.2) let you surf the web or check your e-mail, whenever and wherever you want.

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Your eye would serve as a mouse, with menu items selected by focusing your attention
on an item on screen.

6.3. Smart WristWatch

Fig 6.3: Smart WristWatch

Having the power of a computer on your wrist may sound like science fiction. But
this is the idea behind the wristwatch PDA (Fig 6.3). It would have a widescreen display
to watch video, and voice recognition technology so that you can use it by simply talking
to your wrist. And of course, it also tells you the time.

6.4. Magic decoder ring

Fig 6.4: IBM's magic decoder rings will flash when you get a call.

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IBM’s magic decoder ring (Fig 6.4) that flashes for phone calls could also inform you
that e-mail is piling up in your inbox. This flashing alert could also indicate the urgency
of the e-mail.

6.5. Charmed Communicator Eyepiece

Fig 6.5: Charmed Communicator Eyepiece

Charmed Technology is already marketing its digital jewellery, including a

futuristic-looking eyepiece display (Fig 6.5). The eyepiece is the display component of
the company's Charmed Communicator, a wearable, wireless, broadband-Internet device
that can be controlled by voice, pen or handheld keypad. The Communicator can be used
as an MP3 player, video player and cell phone. The Communicator runs on the
company's Linux-based Nanix operating system. The eyepiece above displays images and
data received wirelessly from the Communicator's belt module.

6.6. Mouse-Ring

The mouse-ring that IBM is developing will use the company's Track Point
technology to wirelessly move the cursor on a computer-monitor display. (Track Point is
the little button embedded in the keyboard of some laptops). IBM Researchers have
transferred TrackPoint technology to a ring, which looks something like a black-pearl
ring. On top of the ring is a little black ball that users will swivel to move the cursor, in
the same way that the TrackPoint button on a laptop is used.

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 This Track Point ring will be very valuable when monitors shrink to the size of
watch face. In the coming age of ubiquitous computing, displays will no longer be tied to
desktops or wall screens. Instead, you'll wear the display like a pair of sunglasses or a
bracelet. Researchers are overcoming several obstacles facing these new wearable
displays, the most important of which is the readability of information displayed on these
tiny devices.

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 7. CONCLUSION

The basic idea behind the digital jewellery concept is to have the convenience of
wireless, wearable computers while remaining fashionably sound. It is hoped to be
marketable soon, however, several bugs remain such as charging capabilities and cost.

By the end of the decade, we could be wearing our computers instead of sitting in
front of them.

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 8. REFERENCES

[1]. www.IBM.com

[2]. www.howstuffworks.com

[3]. www.infoworld.com

[4]. www.ibutton.com

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