Space Gear - Xybernaut MA-5 Wearable Computer System!

Here's a fun one. Xybernaut was a company based out of Virginia that was on the cutting edge of wearable/portable computers. Back when PDA's ("Personal Digital Assistant", what gadget geeks had before smart phones and tablets showed up) had a few megabytes of memory, this thing had gigabytes. It also had a screen that fit over your eye, pre-dating Google Glass by many, many moons.
So what was wrong? Well, for one, it was bulky, had battery issues, and looked stupid. Their brochure (oh yes, I found the MA-5's brochure) indicated it would be used by everything from construction workers to lawyers to enhance their job duties. What lawyer is going to walk into court with that b-movie cyborg costume strapped to his head?

But wait, there's more! Xybernaut was also fraught with all sorts of legal trouble. Nepotism all over the place, securities fraud, and bankruptcies.


If you want a few chuckles, here's their website from the time of this segment (July 2001): https://web.archive.org/web/20....010711132359/http://


Space Gear was a segment on the Space Channel covering new tech/gadgets.