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An earring-sized computer is being developed in Japan.
The ‘Earclip-type Wearable PC’, which weighs 17g and has features including GPS, Bluetooth, a speaker, microphone and support for data storage, can be controlled with facial expressions, the blink of an eye or the click of a tongue.
The mini PC’s design is based on traditional Japanese ikebana – or ‘living flowers’ – flower arrangements.
"We have made this with the basic idea that people will wear it in the same way they wear earrings," engineer Kazuhiro Taniguchi of Hiroshima City University told Agence France-Presse.
The developers of the wearable tech are hoping to have a version ready by Christmas 2015.
The target audience of the motion-controlled computer is people who often cannot spare a hand to control devices, such as rock climbers, cyclists or people living with disabilities.
"Supposing I climb a mountain, look at the sky at night and see a bright star up there, it could tell me what it is," Taniguchi added, on the earclip’s possible uses.
"As it knows what altitude I’m at, which direction I’m looking and at what angle, it could tell me; ‘The bright star you are seeing now is Sirius’."
"[The internet connection] could connect you with a person who is looking at the same star at a remote place at the same time."
Taniguchi also suggested the use of the device as a hearing aid and assistant for elderly people, explaining that the earpiece could monitor the wearer’s wellbeing by keeping track of data such as pulse and body temperature as well as eating and sneezing schedules, possible predicting the onset of illness.
The Hiroshima-based developers are testing the device now, with the hope of releasing a consumer version of the earclip in April 2016.
