History repeats itself…

Ignoring things like the wrist watch, the earliest wearable computer was built back in 1961 by Ed Thorp (father of the theory of card-counting in Blackjack) and Claude Shannon (father of information theory) to answer a question that had plagued mankind for generations: is there any way I can cheat reliably at roulette?

Now over 43 years later, history repeats itself yet again as a treo has walked away with more than $2.3 million, allegedly having used a cellphone rigged with a laser range-finder to up their odds of winning from 1 in 37 to about 1 in 6. Police have dropped the investigation after deciding there was no interference with the ball in play. (That wouldn’t fly in Vegas, where laws were put in place after wearables users in the ’70s spooked casinos.)

(Thanks to Steve Schwartz for the link!)