While he was a grad student pursuing his PhD at MIT's Media Lab, Richard DeVaul developed "memory glasses," a spectacle-mounted display wired to a small wearable computer running Linux. As the project's name suggests, it was intended to remind the user of things they needed to do or context-relevant facts they needed to remember, sort of like virtual post-it notes. "I can improve your performance on a memory recall task by a factor of about 63% without distracting you, in fact without you being aware that I'm doing anything at all," DeVaul explained.

DeVaul (bottom left) and colleagues model the memory glasses

"The things that I want help with are, in a sense, very simple," DeVaul told USA Today while describing the project. "Basic things. If I've been sitting in front of my computer for six hours, and haven't gotten up to eat, a little thing would remind me, 'Rich, go take a break.'" DeVaul's glasses were subsequently featured on an episode of Scientific American Frontiers called "Never Forget a Face."

DeVaul invented these glasses way back in 2003. So why are we telling you about it now? Well, because Apple's just hired the guy. Of course the glasses aren't the only thing DeVaul's done and is valued for; the wearable computing expert was a co-founder of AWare Technologies, "a company focused on technology-driven solutions to the problems of physical inactivity in the corporate health and fitness market" that did work for everyone from DARPA to the Olympics. But here's to hoping that in a few years we'll all be queueing up for iGlasses.