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Liteye Systems, Inc.

MicroOptical Corp

In fact, I am almost certain that these have been made to work (and/or they sell them to work) with PDAs and cellphones, as well as regular laptops and such. What you are describing is called a "wearable", with some elements of AR (augmented reality). The pioneer in this field is Steve Mann...

I saw a cooler set at Cebit. Better yet, it plugged into the phone so you could watch music videos.

MicroOptical has better stuff, IMNSHO.

I don't know that it's so much that we want to talk to computers, as much as it is that we want to talk with people, through computers. That is, sending people textual messages through the audio interface. Text is much less obtrusive, scannable, etc., etc.,. Sending SMS by voice will be very useful.

That said, we'll still want to talk with computers. You're thinking of a desktop computer, where you've got a keyboard in front of you. In those cases, yeah: Go with the keyboard.

The thing is, there are a zillion places where we want to use computers, where we can't, because we're tethered by the keyboard.

For instance, if you're one of the guys working at an auto repair factory, and you've got a visor that you use to see your schematics, fishing around for the keyboard when you've got your hands on the wrench is a real problem. Much better to just say: "Pull up the engine specs for (car model here.)" It frees up your manipulators.

I think Bat. life could be helped by using some flash memory to pre-load data off the drive, then sleep the drive... Think the iPods 32mb cache on roids... maybe 512mb-1gb?

As far as the screen goes, I hope the only option isn't the built-in 2" screen...

I think video out to TV or a John Ive designed video headset using this:

http://www.microopticalcorp.com/

Something using similar tech, designed by Ive... video+sound.. maybe even a mic..... cooler looking than anything on this site.. iPod earbud White.. Looking like it came out of a sci-fi flick..... and if Apple buys the parts in sufficient bulk, affordable.. that would work with both a video iPod and any Mac (or even PC)... This is what I think SJ sees in his head when he says that the iPod screen isn't suited for video..

Shrug.

Just my $0.02

My thoughts...

If Apple were to make a tablet.. it would wait until the move to Intel... So unless Apple's pushing out Intel Hardware before major Developers (Microsoft and Adobe) have native product ready, which I think would be a mistake.. No Intel based tablet or Intel based laptop.. Not yet anyway...

5th gen iPod... Could be a modest revision better bat.+80GB drive.. or could be a iPod platform based video device (set-top) or a MacOS X based/mac mini based set-top DVR entertainment device..

It could be a Mac mini+ with 2 user serviceable mem slots, and upgradeable AGP graphics.. perhaps a G5?

Could be an addition to iLife/iTunes dedicated to the production of podcasts/videocasts...

It could be that Apple has purchased Apple Records and that all the Beatles music is now available on iTunes in either 128 bit aac for $0.99/track Apple lossless for $1.50/track.

As far as an iPod that would play video... Shrug.. I just don't see it being usable.. the LCD being on long periods/bat life would be a major issue I think.. Bat. life could be helped by adding a huge flash memory buffer... say 512MB-1GB? But... lets be honest.. the iPod screen is too small to watch tv/movies on as anything other than a novelty ... If it's an iPod that plays video, I expect we'll see an iPod accessory that provides video out or that would make use of tech like this:

http://www.microopticalcorp.com/

Something using similar tech, designed by Ive... video+sound.. cooler looking than anything on this site.. and if Apple buys the parts in sufficient bulk, affordable.. that would work with both a video iPod and any Mac ... This is what I think SJ sees in his head when he says that the iPod screen isn't suited for video.. That or video-out to TV.. someway to watch other that on the small iPod screen...

Shrug.

Just my $0.02

Worse than http://www.dashpc.com/. DashPc is definately cooler. But i suppose all this bloatted stuff is really usefull if you have your own driver and you are sitting in the back seat, or it is your fathers car and you use him for your wardriving experience.Anyway i would like to see a project that uses eyewear like those ones that can be found on http://www.microopticalcorp.com/ instead of a display mounted on the car.

It's not going to have a screen. It's going to use glasses.

http://www.microopticalcorp.com/

Here's the PDF press release that shows a different view of the headset and some pictures of the Samsung phone. It's in French but pretty easy to understand IMO.

As this is a PAL/NTSC input device, it'll probably work fine with other phones with video output like the Sharp 902 for viewing videos off its SD card or playing games.

1. VR is expensive
2. Most people don't currently NEED VR, so compelling applications (outside of a few small domains) are somewhat rare. This will change over time.

There's of course a lot more to it than just that, but that is the basic problem. I've seen all sorts of programs that people would find interesting to run at home, but not vital to run at home. It currently isn't worth the cost for most people (anywhere from $5k for bargain basement stereo vision with poor tracking, to $1 million+ for a cave + haptic/robotic interfaces). People won't use VR until it is (a) unobtrusive, (b) cheap, and (c) intuitive.

On the 3D display end, VR needs to move from large space filling displays like caves to small setups like a small pair of glasses (current top end devices from manufacturers such as MicroOptical and Microvision give a glimpse at possible avenues forward). Ideally, these glasses should still let you see the real world (referred to as augmented reality, rather than virtual reality). This is far less disorienting for many people. There are also technical problems with HMDs (head mounted displays) aside from size and weight. The best HMD resolutions today are generally about 1280x1024, and the field of view often isn't stellar. For many people, these displays can cause headaches. The closer a display is to the eyes, the higher res it needs to be in order to avoid ill physiological effects. Then, the VR applications themselves need to run fast enough to have very little lag (ideally less than 12 ms between a user's action, and the application visually responding). If the lag gets too large, many people begin to get motion sickness (this is potentially a huge barrier for many people w/ VR). One alternative to VR glasses is projected displays, but without some additional engineering & mass production, these displays are not likely to be very cheap in the near future (and these displays still require some type of glasses, either shuttered glasses, or polarized glasses). The final visual alternative (ignoring fancy and expensive volumetric displays) are auto-stereoscopic displays, which work w/o special glasses. These displays have the downside though of requiring the user to sit/stand in a precise location in order to get the 3D effect.

Motion tracking also needs to get significantly better. Current motion tracking techniques (for gesture recognition, head tracking, etc.) are generally quite bulky and expensive. Some image processing techniques using video cameras show promise for cheap compact systems. Large scale motion tracking and registration (i.e. matching your position and orientation precisely with a map and models) is a much bigger problem for outdoor situations. GPS is one of the better ways right now, and that is abysmal (GPS gives positional accuracy to within a few meters, and no clues about orientation. VR apps require position to within a few centimeters usually, and orientation to within a degree or two). There is a fair amount of research into improving this, but it will likely be several years before any non-miliary applications emerge.

Finally, once VR is cheap enough (less than $2K USD for 3D vision and tracking), and small enough (i.e. a small/light pair of glasses, and at most a few stationary webcam sized cameras, or a single 3D projector), then average people can start to think about using VR. Even then, people won't use it until there are compelling applications. The first big applications will of course be games, but outside of 3D modeling, medical data, scientific data, psychology and geology there have been few compelling uses shown. Clearly there are a lot of compelling applications just waiting to be developed, but until VR becomes cheaper, smaller and more intuitive, these will most likely not be developed.

i thought the most interesting thing is that 800x600 oled hmd displays are coming (finally) vs. the currently on market 640x480. of course, how long it takes for the emagin unit to make it into consumer-available (and affordable) technology remains to be seen.

I'm sorry to spoil poster's joy, but aren't these and
these folks already selling such devices for many months, if not years?

What resolution can these things display? The linked article and video doesn't mention anything. MicroOptical already makes things like these. They have a number of different versions and can display at VGA (640x480) resolution. They have binocular versions, and there's even one in which the display is a reflective portion of a transparent eyeglass lens that looks like a bifocal. Why wait until next year for this one from Mitsubishi when MicroOptical already has a whole range of different kinds now?

What resolution can these things display? The linked article and video doesn't mention anything. MicroOptical already makes things like these. They have a number of different versions and can display at VGA (640x480) resolution. They have binocular versions, and there's even one in which the display is a reflective portion of a transparent eyeglass lens that looks like a bifocal. Why wait until next year for this one from Mitsubishi when MicroOptical already has a whole range of different kinds now?

What resolution can these things display? The linked article and video doesn't mention anything. MicroOptical already makes things like these. They have a number of different versions and can display at VGA (640x480) resolution. They have binocular versions, and there's even one in which the display is a reflective portion of a transparent eyeglass lens that looks like a bifocal. Why wait until next year for this one from Mitsubishi when MicroOptical already has a whole range of different kinds now?

What resolution can these things display? The linked article and video doesn't mention anything. MicroOptical already makes things like these. They have a number of different versions and can display at VGA (640x480) resolution. They have binocular versions, and there's even one in which the display is a reflective portion of a transparent eyeglass lens that looks like a bifocal. Why wait until next year for this one from Mitsubishi when MicroOptical already has a whole range of different kinds now?

I can't really tell from the webpage, but it seems the same as the MicroOptical HUD I have sitting on my desk. Its been around for a few years now, its certainly not brand new. Can anyone explain the ins and outs?

Check this out for eyewear displays. It's an OEM developer kit, so I'm sure it can be used to make something that looks better, but the way it uses a reflective part of the lens itself for a display is brilliant.

Even better would be if the display is partially transparent, you could use it as an overlay, where you can see what's around you

Check out this bifocal display. The image is actually reflected on that tiny little bit on the eyeglass lens itself that looks like a bifocal, that you can hardly see. It's clearer in the PDF specification sheet.

Even better would be if the display is partially transparent, you could use it as an overlay, where you can see what's around you

Check out this bifocal display. The image is actually reflected on that tiny little bit on the eyeglass lens itself that looks like a bifocal, that you can hardly see. It's clearer in the PDF specification sheet.

They have that already! The only problem is price.

wtf are they talking about -- i have a 1/4" 640x480 kopin lcd in my eyeglasses -- they have them up to 1280x1024 if you have the cash. that puts it at a dpi of around 4000. check http://www.microopticalcorp.com/Products/ for deets

My intended use was in conjunction with voice recognition, and multiple processes running so the service tech could see "Mitchell's On Demand", anything on the network, or displays from engine and emissions diagnostics (including OBD-II scanner).

I wanted something small, along with microcamera capability so the mechanic could look at things he can not get his head into, such as examining areas for air conditioning freon-dye leakage - which is very obvious under UV illumination when the proper fluorescent dyes and optical passband filters are used.

A look at the actual company product pages indicates that most "heads-up" displays are actually intended to be mounted on glasses, so whether your glasses are geeky or not is your own call... except that little gadget attachment is definitely geeky no matter whether your glasses are.

What are the best wearable computers you can cobble together for $2000, $1500, and $750? (USD)

Minimal Requirements:

-single eye head mounted display (like this)

-single hand input (like the twiddler)

-8 hours battery life

-linux

-802.11

Here's some I was looking at. Unfortunately, these things are expensive, and the sponsor I was going to research the interfaces for backed out, so I am left with an interest, a bit of driver software, but not sufficient money to pursue the research anyway on my own.

HUD monitor + virtual keyboard and mouse pad + a small brick/carrying case (or even a palmtop) for the guts and ports

= no external moving parts
= desktop, laptop, bellytop, grasstop, beach-towel-top, anywhere-top?

make the HUD wireless and it'd be my dream portable

Micro Optical Corporation

These use the heads-up overlay display technology.

The design is only a concept at this point, although Motorola is preparing for user testing, and plans to bring a product based on the design to market within two years.

Cheers,
-j.

Well, we've got nearly invisible bluetooth headsets, eyeglass displays, and now a keyboard that doesn't exist. Your chances of being mistaken for an well dressed, crazy homeless person are becoming greater by the day.

They are available, but it's a development kit as opposed to a go-out-and-buy-one product.

You can get a set of glasses (Model EG-7) with a prism built-in so there is no bulky object hanging in your field of vision. There is a bump on the side of the glasses for the screen itself, and a wire runs down behind the ear, easily concealable under a shirt.

You can already walk down the street with an earphone/microphone on, because you probably have a cellphone.

You can use a Twiddler for input, along with speech (maybe in the future). Perhaps soon we will have a Bluetooth Twiddler, allowing you reduce the number of wires.

In fact, incorporating Bluetooth would be a great way to improve the portability/functionality of your wearable. Connect to your cellphone with Bluetooth instead of using a cable or having a separate cell modem. Connect to a printer (Bluetooth or 802.11 for this application) and print something out on your way to the meeting. Your microphone/speaker could be Bluetooth, so there are even fewer wires (though the battery/communications module is a little bulky still).

With some dynamic networking you could have your system use Bluetooth to the phone while you weren't in range of a wireless network, and switch automatically, setting up NFS/VPN/SSH/etc connections as the network conditions change.

Here are a few links for wearable computing vendors that have displays you might want to look at. Xybernaut partnered with IBM to take over the wearable project if I remember correctly.

Xybernaut
MicroOptical

There are some reviews here. I've used the bulky but natural "virtual vision" goggles they mention, and yes, it's perfect for camcorders and mangles text. TekGear has some more modern displays, all of which look like your eyes are being attacked by a small piece of aluminum. They also carry the "best selling QUGA (?) monocule in the world" a one-eyed machine very close to what you describe except that the resolution is low and you look like a call center employee with the microphone stuck in your eye. There are also some in the Imac family, Bizrate has a list of several. Liteye puts out some sufficiently small displays of reasonable image integrity. Once again, still looks funky but in a funkytional sort of way. Plus, they are more of a parts supplier than a solutions provider. MicroOptical has several, with their tech briefly reviewed by about.com.

If you are looking to purchase one, the two buzzwords to use are head mounted display and wearable display. Hitachi even combined buzz and produced a wearable internet applicance, though only for the japanese and who knows if it was released.

I hope that gives you some ideas. I also hope some people post here who didn't just pick through google :).

It's not that you can't build wearable displays. Many have been built. It's that wearing a display isn't fun. Wearable displays get tiring fast. Try one some time.

If you really want one of these things, MicroOptical sells a VGA-compatible eyeglass-mounted display for $2500. And here's an article about Linux on a wearable. This guy writes about using EMACS, "awk", and a wrist-mounted keyboard.

• 
  tiqit
  pocketPC
  

• 
  5G pcmcia
  

• 
  micro glasses
  

• printable cell phone
  

http://www.microopticalcorp.com/Products/

http://web-ext2.darpa.mil/mTO/Displays/HMD/Project s/ammi.html

If you can't stretch to the M2 then the least obtrusive of any display is from MicroOptical Corp who make either tiny clip-on's which do QVGA (compress a 640x480 down to 320x240) and are VERY small, the other model is the integrated eyeglass - it looks just like prescription glasses. These are available now.

The inviso eShades that have had stories run on here are likely to hit market at around US$1000, the advertise in their press releases that it will be about 400-500, but after recent inquiries the price keeps rising, last I heard it was upto 800+. Don't hold your breath.

For displays NOW, unless you can build your own driver electronics - FPGA use is what people are looking at for n=building the driver logic from.

I'd go with an M1, fairly cheap (As far as HMD's go) and well tested and known amongst the borg community. They can be hacked to fir into sunglasses with a lil bit of effort. For colour, most people go the hacked glasstron route.

see wearables.los-gatos.net for a comprehensive listing of most things wearable.

for arm based architecture I'd imagine you'd checked out the LART pages, but there is also an ARM based effor at MIT, its called mithril I believe, and the PLEB effort in Australia.

Hope that helps

Teehee... so would we all, but the technology just does not exist yet. Wearable HMDs are either bulky, expensive or low-resolution -- pick any two. MicroOptical's stuff is the best on the market right now, but you'll still looking at $5000+ for those 320x200 eyeglasses on the front page. Limited betas of their new 640x480 display (woohoo!) will be available to qualified OEMs starting next year... but at least you won't look like a freak with one, you'll just look like a nerd.

Cheers,
-j.

I'd much rather get ahold of a wearable. Does anyone know of any such plans? I've seen the PC104 based wearble that Charmed Technolgies makes but it's still a bit clunky. Maybe someday I can get a Microoptical display and set of datagloves, attached to a Transmeta wearable. Check out weracam for some really cool uses of wearables. Steve Mann has a system that let's you take notes on people and if the mounted camera recognizes them it automatically pops up the notes in overlay. He also has a high speed camera that lets him read the writing off the sides of tires on moving cars.

And here all this time i've been drooling over the microoptical glasses mount display, Why bother when I can have a chip implanted into my eyeball and just use the hardware to directly superimpose an image on my field of vision.

Just a followup... Kudos to BrianHV for posting the link to a manufacturer that has very practical eyewear displays, some of which can clip on to your existing glasses.

It appears that 320x200 is available now, with 640x480 "in development."

Kinda like this? http://www.microopticalcorp.com/egdem o.h tm

Or the home page, here...

Kinda like this? http://www.microopticalcorp.com/egdem o.h tm

Or the home page, here...

Combine the uCsimm with the MicroOptical Integrated Eyeglass Display in order to provide what could possibly be the world's smallest functional Borg headset....
Plus the fact that they look like total BCG's (Birth Control Glasses) should only enhance the Geek appeal....
See the MIT Wearables page for more ideas....

#include "disclaim.h"
"All the best people in life seem to like LINUX." - Steve Wozniak

A little thinking out loud...

HUDs are the way to go to cure the physical screen limitation. Bonus is you get a little more privacy.

Micro Optical Corporation has the right idea with their Clip-On. IBM could pull it off with their Wearable stuff.

For audio, look to the In-Ear monitors musicians use...

For the rest of it, I think Charmed Technology has the right idea. The ultimate form for our every-day tech is when it no longer looks like tech. It's the peripherals that count. A single screen that can pull the video from any device, clip-on headphones to listen to any audio, and cameras and microphones added as you see fit - the Blue Tooth promise.

To be honest, the barriers to physical size reduction are power-source and connectivity between chips. Watch the SOC developments (System-On-Chip) for significant shrinks from multi-chip to single-chip forms. At the rate feature size is shrinking on-chip, the limitation isn't how many transistors or gates you can squeeze on, it's how many bond-pads you need to I/O with the chip.

Aside: Bought myself a couple of E-holsters to take care of more immediate gadget-loading. Works well under a sweater or jacket.

A little thinking out loud...

HUDs are the way to go to cure the physical screen limitation. Bonus is you get a little more privacy.

Micro Optical Corporation has the right idea with their Clip-On. IBM could pull it off with their Wearable stuff.

For audio, look to the In-Ear monitors musicians use...

For the rest of it, I think Charmed Technology has the right idea. The ultimate form for our every-day tech is when it no longer looks like tech. It's the peripherals that count. A single screen that can pull the video from any device, clip-on headphones to listen to any audio, and cameras and microphones added as you see fit - the Blue Tooth promise.

To be honest, the barriers to physical size reduction are power-source and connectivity between chips. Watch the SOC developments (System-On-Chip) for significant shrinks from multi-chip to single-chip forms. At the rate feature size is shrinking on-chip, the limitation isn't how many transistors or gates you can squeeze on, it's how many bond-pads you need to I/O with the chip.

Aside: Bought myself a couple of E-holsters to take care of more immediate gadget-loading. Works well under a sweater or jacket.

By far the holy grail of heads-up displays is the MicroOptical Integrated Eyeglass Display. Thad Starner, another of the MIT grads working with wearables (now at Georgia Tech) has a pair.

Here I have a whole bunch of links to further information about wearable computers and "enhanced reality" for anyone interested:

• A Brief History Of Wearable Computing
• Affective Computing
• BBC News: Japan Eyes Wearable PC
• Charmed Technology
• CNET.com: 10 Technologies That Will Take Over - #8
• CNN: Excuse Me, Is That A Monitor On Your Head?
• CNN: MIT 'Cyborgs' Bridge Gap Between Man And Machine
• CNN: Turn On, Jack In, And Geek Out With Wearable PC
• CNN: Wearable Systems May Cut Labor, Save Time
• CNN: Xybernaut Now Has Linux For Wearable PCs
• CNN Poll: Do You Want A Wearable Computer?
• Computer For The 21st Century, The
• ComputerWorld: Wearable Computers - Digitally Attired
• Context-Aware Computing
• CTHEORY: Body Delirium
• DisplayWear Incorporated
• Extreme Computing
• Handykey, Inc. Wearable Computing Page
• Houston Chronicle: Future Phones Home, The
• ICBorg
• Intelligent Information Filters And Enhanced Reality, by Alexander Chislenko
• ISWC- International Symposium on Wearable Computers
• Marvin Elizondo's Wearable Computing Page
• MicroOptical
• MIT-IDEO Wearables Intro
• NetWork Fusion: Armani, Karan, Xybernaut? 02/01/999
• PBS: Scientific American Frontiers Transcripts - Inventing The Future (Aired Fall 1996)
• PC World News: Wearable PC To Debut At Comdex
• PopSci.com Headlines: CyberFashions
• Slashdot Articles: Wearable PCs Under Linux
• Smart Rooms
• TechWearable
• TekGear
• Wearable Computer
• Wearable Computing Intro Page
• Wearable Computing Portal
• Wearable Computing Resource Page
• WearableGear.com
• Wearables Central
• Wearables WebCrawler Search Engine
• Wearables Webring
• WearableTech Corp.
• Wired News: Annotated Reality
• Wired News: Intel Chips In On Future Devices
• Wired News: Waiting For Wearable Wearables
• Wraith Projects
• Xybernaut

Impossible means no one's done it yet.

The "embedded screen in glasses" are built by MicroOptical and are currently unavailable to the general public. Development was funded by DARPA and they are still being developed. There are various clip on and other borg-like things, but you wouldn't want to wear them to Easter dinner.

The keyboard most wearable computing folks use is called the Twiddler. Don't know about power generation. You'd have to type a lot to generate enough for wireless IP PLUS hard drive PLUS "additional storage". I guess you did say a 9 volt battery. I'd be interested to see your power budget.

You should look at the StrongARM chip. Unless you want to run Windows, there's no need for x86 compatibility. Might as well go right for the lower-power ARM if you're running Linux.

Anyway, I think if this were possible, the folks at MIT's Wearable Computing Group would have done it already.

Don't let me discourage you, however. Good luck and let us know when you have something. I'll shell out the $, that's for sure.