If you ever hear me say I'm going off to live in suburban America, please do me a favor: Shoot me.
On this trip, I realized why every city planner's fantasyland is also the butt of every stand-up comic's jokes. Suburbs -- and particularly American suburbs whether they're in sunny California or chilly New England -- are the most boring places on the planet. All the houses look the same: two stories, with slanting roofs. There are only three kinds of cars: minivans, minivans and minivans. Oh sure, there are things you don't see in the city, like gardens and tree-lined avenues, but even these look like they were photocopied from some kindergarten coloring book. And, most disorientating for a man who's lived in Calcutta, Bombay, New Delhi and Hong Kong, you never see any people on the streets. (Suburbanites seem incapable of walking: they even drive to their neighbors.)
As I arrive in Fairfax, Virginia, I'm wondering how such sterile, somnolent surroundings can produce innovation. Why does the technology industry thrive in dull settings like Palo Alto and Sunnyvale and this place, an hour's drive from Washington D.C.? My best guess is that tech folks are at their creative best when there are no distractions -- and heaven knows there are none in suburban America. If you have some other explanation, please write to me, and we'll share it with other readers.
Anyway, I'm here to visit Xybernaut, the world's leader in wearable-computer technology. This is a small 10-year-old company (with around 150 employees; in the tech industry, staff strength is a more pertinent measure of a company's performance than revenues) that's on the verge of something great. I believe wearable computers are a concept whose time is nigh, and Xybernaut is better positioned to take advantage of the coming boom than any other company in the world. (You'll read all about its products in TIME's upcoming Interactive Issue.)
By rights, the folks at Xybernaut ought to be on edge: they have a critical product launch coming up next month and another, more important one, later in the year. The company is also in negotiations for a partnership with a major computer maker. Plus, as you've probably noticed, the tech sector is in recession. But chairman Ed Newman and chief technology officer Mike Jenkins are among the most laid-back people I've met. Newman, formerly a CIA operative (figure that!), and Jenkins, a tech whiz-kid, know they're on to a good thing and are supremely confident that the world will fall in love with their products. As a result, Xybernaut is a lively, jokey place; there's none of the nervousness and negativity that permeates Silicon Valley startups these days.
Some of the self-confidence comes from the fact that Xybernaut owns the patents for most of the key components of any wearable computer (see the Patents section of xybernaut.com for details). This, at the very least, ensures the company won't be taken by surprise by a new competitor. "It's not as if some company is going to fall out of the sky and land ahead of us," says Newman, breezily. "If you want to make wearables, you have to use some of our technology, and you have to talk to us."
Will Newman and Jenkins be the Jobs and Wozniak (or Gates and Ballmer, if you like) of the wearable-computing world? After 17 years as a journalist, I know better than to make such forecasts. I'll just say this: if success does come to Xybernaut, it couldn't happen to two nicer guys.
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