JAWARHARLAL NEHRU TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY

A Technical Report

On

DIGITAL JEWELLERY

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award the

Degree of

BACHELOR OF TECHNOLOGY

IN

ELECTRONICS AND COMMUNICATION ENGINEERING

By

G.SAI PUJA 07E51A0462

Under Esteemed guidance of

Ms.Nazma

Assistant Professor

INTERNAL GUIDE

DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRONICS AND COMMUNICATION ENGINEERING

HYDERABAD INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT

(Affiliated to JNTU, Hyderabad,AP)

Gowdavelly,Medchal Mandal,R.R.District.

2007-2011

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HYDERABAD INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT

(Affiliated to JNTU, Hyderabad,AP)

Gowdavelly,Medchal Mandal,R.R.District.

DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRONICS AND COMMUNICATION ENGINEERING

CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the following student G.SAI PUJA ( 07E51A0462 ) have

successfully completed her technical report titled “DIGITAL JEWELLERY” in partial

fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the Degree of BACHELOR OF

TECHNOLOGY by the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad, during

the academic year 2007-2011.

Internal Guide: Head of the

department:

Ms. Nazma K.Ramesh Babu

M.Tech

Associate Professor Professor

Department of ECE Department of ECE

HITAM HITAM

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External Examiner

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.

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

front of them.

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CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION 5

2. WHAT IS DIGITAL JEWELLERY? 62.1 Historical context 62.2. Digital jewellery and its components 72.3. Technical specifications of digital jewellery 92.4. Display technologies 9

3. ELECTROMAGNETIC BEADS 11

4. PROTOTYPES OF DIGITAL JEWELLERY 124.1 HIOX Necklace 124.2 HIOX Ring 124.3 IBM’s Bracelet Display 13

5. JAVA RING 145.1 Introduction 145.2 Working 145.3 Features 15

6. CURRENT AND ONGOING ACHIEVEMENTS 166.1 CharmBadge 166.2 Intelligent Spectacles 166.3 Smart Wristwatch 176.4 Magic Decoder Ring 176.5 Charmed Communicator Eyepiece 186.6 Mouse-Ring 18 7. ADVANTAGES 20

8.

9.

CONCLUSION

REFERENCES

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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

means of wireless appliances. The other key factor of this concept market is to stay

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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.

Thad Starner (2001) outlined the challenges facing the development of wearables as

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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

and packaged as various pieces of digital jewellery. Each piece of jewellery will contain a

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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 2.4: 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

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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.

4. PROTOTYPES OF DIGITAL JEWELLERY

4.1. HIOX NECKLACE

Fig 4.1: HIOX Necklace

Complete HIOX necklace showing all 26 letters of the Roman alphabet extended in 4-dimensional space-time. Metal with leather cord.

4.2. HIOX RING

Fig 4.2. HIOX Ring

It is a programmable HIOX ring with 16-segment LED display.

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4.3. IBM’s BRACELET DISPLAY

Fig 4.3. IBM’s Bracelet Display

Prototype bracelet display developed by IBM

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5. THE JAVA RING

5.1. INTRODUCTION

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. Dallas

Semiconductor is developing a new Java-based, computerized ring that will automatically

unlock doors and log on to computers.

Fig 5.1: Java ring

5.2. WORKING

The Java Ring can be programmed to give you access to every door and device. It

is snapped into a reader, called a blue dot receptor, to allow communication between a

receptor and the java ring.

Fig 5.2: Blue Dot receptor

The Java Ring is a stainless-steel ring, 16-millimeters (0.6 inches) in diameter,

which houses a 1-million-transistor processor, called an iButton. The ring has 134 KB of

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RAM, 32 KB of ROM, a real-time clock and a Java virtual machine, which is a piece of

software that recognizes the Java language and translates it for the user's computer

system. Digital jewelry, (designed to supplement the personal computer,) will be the

evolution in digital technology that makes computer elements entirely compatible with

the human form.

5.3. Features of Java Ring:

Runs Java better (plus portions enhance Java Card 2.0)

Careful attention to physical security (rapid zeroization)

Durability to stand up to everyday use

High memory capacity (up to 134K bytes NV SRAM)

Retail connectivity to 250 million existing computers (less if designed-in before

manufacturing)

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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

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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.

Your eye would serve as a mouse, with menu items selected by focusing your attention

on an item on screen.

6.3. SMART WRIST WATCH

Fig 6.3: Smart Wrist Watch

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

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

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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