Former design student working
on secret project for Apple Inc.

A former design student from Texas A&M's College of Architecture has been hired by Apple Inc. to work on a project known only to Apple CEO Steve Jobs and eight others, writes Computerworld blogger Seth Weintraub.

"This is a significant hire for Apple and one that shows the company is looking far ahead into the future of mobile computing," wrote Weintraub in a blog dated March 15, 2010.

Richard DeVaul, who earned a Bachelor of Environmental Design degree in 1999 and eventually a doctorate at MIT, has a background in developing wearable technologies.

DeVaul, wrote Weintraub, was a founding organizer and leader of the MIThril wearable computing project, which developed a distributed, clothing-integrated, wearable computing platform.

His Massachusetts Institute of Technology doctoral dissertation, part of the MIThril project, was "The Memory Glasses," a tiny computer display mounted on eyeglass frames wired to a lightweight computer that flashes reminders to the wearer. 

"DeVaul conducted a study with 28 people in which subliminal cuing substantially increased participants' ability to recall names associated with faces," wrote Theo Emery of The Associated Press in the Nov. 11, 2003 issue of USA Today. The peer-reviewed paper was presented in 2003 at the International Symposium on Wearable Computers in White Plains, N.Y.

After graduating from MIT with a Ph.D. in 2004, DeVaul co-founded Aware Technologies, a company focused on technology-driven solutions to the problems of physical inactivity in the corporate health and fitness market.

The company developed StepTrakLite, a free application, featured in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today,  which the iTunes Store calls the most popular software pedometer for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

For Weintraub's blog entry, visit http://blogs.computerworld.com

The USA Today's story on "The Memory Glasses" is available at http://www.usatoday.com

DeVaul's homepage is at http://devaul.net

- Posted: Mar. 17, 2010-