Thanks to new technology, people with severe disabilities can monitor their posture and heart rate; psychiatric patients can monitor depression indicators; and avid gamers can play a quick game of Dance Dance Revolution on the run just by slipping on a pair of sneakers.

Scientists and researchers met curious citizens at the Hyatt Harborside Hotel for a series of speeches, demonstrations and exhibits showcasing the integration of new wearable technology into daily life at the 11th Annual International Symposium on Wearable Computers.

The computers displayed come in many forms, and are worked into the structure of things from tank tops to belt buckles. The benefits are many, said researcher Oliver Amft, who represents the Wearable Computing Lab of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. Electronic textiles, for example, are a washable and unobtrusive way to monitor physical activity, eating habits and even upper-body posture, he said.

Amft, who sported a computer integrated into his belt, said the symposium aimed to “provide systems to help [at-risk people] get through the day.”

Developers of the technology hope to use it in rehabilitation clinics, by physical trainers and on job sites to monitor and improve the efficiency and productivity of workers.

One poster on display featured the work of Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers Daniel Olguin and Alex Pentland, who designed a “sociometric badge” that would monitor the wearer’s health, detecting early symptoms of depression through voice inflections and body movement.

Other researchers discussed wearable technology for improving communication between the deaf and those without a hearing disability – a development that ISWC 2007 General Chairman Thad Starner said is one of the field’s major goals, especially in improving the inadequate and often unavailable emergence-response systems in place for the deaf.

Starner said he is working to develop a mobile translator between American Sign Language and English. He said scientists are also stepping up efforts to help paralyzed people improve their speech and autistic individuals advance their social skills.

But it’s not all serious: Wearable technology also lets wearers play interactive games anywhere.

Nirmal Patel, a doctoral student at the Georgia Institute of Technology, showed off prototypes for cellphone versions of Dance Dance Revolution and Mario Kart. In Mario Kart, users control characters through motion sensors in their shoes. Patel demonstrated the wearable Dance Dance Revolution prototype, playing with the handheld DDR by kicking in the direction of arrows that appeared on the screen of his cellphone.