Apple Hires Wearable Computing Engineer

by Nick Bilton NYTimes

Apple has hired Richard DeVaul, a veteran of the wearable computing field and co-founder of AWare Technologies, a technology company focused on creating products for the fitness and “wellness” markets.

According to Computerworld, Mr. DeVaul will be a senior prototype scientist at Apple, presumably working on some of the technologies he discusses on his blog:

I’m an expert in signal processing and real-time statistical classification techniques. This means that I know how to make tiny computers do “thin slicing,” as popularized in Malcolm Gladwell’s “Blink.” It’s all about extracting the small pieces of information that are most meaningful.

What does this work mean for us mere mortals? According to Mr. DeVaul’sLinkedIn page, he received a Ph.D. in media arts and sciences from theMassachusetts Institute of Technology and while there worked on a project called “The Memory Glasses,” which offered real-time memory support that could “improve your performance on a memory recall task by a factor of about 63 percent without distracting you.”

In other words, these fancy glasses could probably help you remember where you left your car keys.

While at M.I.T. he also worked directly with Professor Alex Pentland in theHuman Dyanmics group. This group works on the intersection of humans and technology, and using sensors and the data that these wearable devices can share, to try to predict human behavior.

Although wearable computers are not necessarily a new idea, Apple helped push the concept further into the mainstream in 2006 when it partnered withNike to introduce the Nike+ line of sneakers. This product wirelessly connects to an iPod and tracks the distance and pace of a person’s run.

There’s no telling what’s next for Apple and this market. Maybe we’ll finally see a pair of wearable iPod glasses based on a series of 2008 patents for head-mounted displays. Or maybe the company will try to create new additions to the iPhone by offering attachments and sensors. One thing’s for sure, these technologies will continue to spread into our clothing, sneakers and maybe even our glasses.