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Retinal Scanning Displays
Logic Bomb writes "The New York Times has an article covering new advances in the field of display systems that beam images directly onto the retina. An actual useable product has been developed that allows you to see a "projected" image without necessarily interfering with the rest of your vision. It sounds like a great way to watch TV or read news headlines on the bus if you ask me, but the article discusses some more, um, useful applications. )"
If you don't want to register with NY times, replace www with channel. Let anonymous coward reign!!!
This stuff is going no where. Getting two sources ligned up for 3D is a real pain. The other problem is the pure clutter of the display on your visual field. Humans just don't multi-task that well. Just look at how bad drivers perform with cell phones.
If you really want to see this stuff, the SID show is June 3-8, 2001 at the San Jose convention center.
a variation - instead of a fixed adspot, billboards and such would be blank (they'd probably become more discreet), and use technology similar to what you see in modern tennis and baseball games, where the ad is digitally placed. to update an ad, the advertiser just updates the image in a database somehwere. imagine how cool that could be... and imagine how clean non-enhanced reality would look (sans retinal projector).
This is already in the works for the next generation apache, the Longbow. While visiting the Boeing Mesa labs last march we were shown a demonstration of their simulators for it and the guy in the simulator was wearing this device that projected the HUD onto his retina...so I guess that makes this pretty old news.
what are you, stupid? it's a worthwhile concern, and you're not funny.
I had the opportunity to demo the microvision retinal display. It only had a red laser so the images were shades of red, but I was able to see a 3d rotating image of an engine block with pretty impressive resolution. However after I took off the unit everything I saw for the next few minutes had a green tint. It seems the red laser saturates your eyeball and brings out the green color and blue colors.
They have already bought systems that rangers can use on their helmets. It is basically an overhead map of the entire area that shows their spot, their heading, altitude, as well as unknown movement around them, and also friendly units. On top of that, their weapons now have cameras attached to them with thermal imaging, nightvision, and a whole array of lenses. They can also peep their weapon around a corner and see right out the camera without having to compromise their position by sticking their head and helmet out. Very very nifty. And deadly. I am going to assume that in about 5-10 more years the majority of grunts this will be standard issue and this will also mean a single soldier can fight without even sticking the gun but against his shoulder, but rather looking through the camera while he's hidden behind a tree, in a bunker, etc. He will also be able to freely engage in combat in pure dark with hundreds/thousands of his comrades knowing EXACTLY where each and every one is at as they advance into China or where ever it is that pisses us off next. It is true, it is now. Welcome to the 21st century.
How in the fucking HELL is this offtopic?
Didn't you fucking moderators see Taco's stupid fucking geek story about his Borg Box he wants to build?
You stupid sons of bitches. Holy fucking shit I wanna kill you God damned geeks.
Actaully, the mvis display rasters about a 120 degree fov, as opposed to the 30 or so being deployed in the micro-lcd type systems. Just as in those systems, when you look down to the left, you scan accross the 120 degree segment, to view image. In literal terms, the projection is occuring accross the back of your eye. As the eye executes sacads, the fovea effectively travels through the domain... There is interesting work attempting to track the fovea, and rastering higher resolution data to just that area in the display... this has been attempted for flight simulation systems, and for video conferencing to optomize bandwidth. The microvision system may represent a unique opportunity to apply the same principle to much greater advantage...
When you have a microLCD in your glasses, you're simulating a larger screen at a greater distance. If you want to look at the top left corner of the screen, you move your eye to look at the top left corner. If you want to look at text inthe center, you look to the center.
If you have something scanning directly on to your retina, and you move your retina (to look at part of the image that's not immediately in the center of view) doe the entire image move with it? On what is the scanner mounted? Does it know where your eye is looking, and update the field of view accordingly?
In short, an 800x600 resolution is pretty meaningless because all the image that's being projected outside of the fovea (very center, detail-oriented part of the retina) can't be attended to at the level of resolution the image provides.
The article gives no info, but I'd like to know how the image updates in response to eye saccades from place to place, and/or head movements.
I remember seeing a prototype retinal scanning display that Tom Furness and his team had developed at the Virtual Cockpit project for the air force in Dayton. This was almost 10 years ago when he packed up the project and moved it to the University of Washington's Human Interface Technology lab in Seattle. At the time it was bulky but it looked real and ready for refinement. Yet it is still under development and not really here -- not even for the military, who tend to be early adopters of this kind of tech when it's expensive and clunky. So how soon will this *realistically* take to appear in the real world?
(Anybody remember the IBM commercial where the guy on the park bench is jerking around like some kind of Tourette's sufferer -- until they zoom in and we see he's using a wearable to day trade? It's already getting hard to tell the crazy people from the people who are just using cell phones with headsets. How much worse is it going to get with things like this?)
Once this thing hits the consumer market, how long do you think it'll be before we start living with constant advertising in the corner of our FOV. Ugh...
Actually, you're eye does have three different color receptors. Namely red, green, and blue (actually, cyan, magenta, and yellow, which are the subtractive compliments). That is the reason we use RGB screens. For example, red and green light together trick our eye into perceiving the same color as yellow light, even though the wavelength of yellow light cannot be created through any combination of red and green light (physically). RGB screens are a direct result of the biology of our eyes.
Gods, I hope they don't do that. Can you imagine the sticky ads possible when they know just where you're looking? It'd get really annoying if the image followed my vision in space instead of staying put. Besides that, the eye actually introduces a continuous jittering in order to compensate for the human visual system's tendency to ignore static retinal images. Oh gods! the fnords! THAT's what they are.
That's a little more overboard than what I was thinking. I was thinking if it had head tracking, you could take someone to a building site, set the alignment correctly, and then project an image of the to be built building onto their eye and leave the rest of the image transparent. That way, they could (with a notebook computer running it) walk around the whole site and see what the building would look like for "real" - much better than architecture renderings.
:)
Or the other killer app is that no one can see that you're looking at porn all day
Only the cones are receptive to color. The rods are only receptive to brightness and dimness.
Correct. This was a copy-paste error of mine. The specifics are outlines on this page, in the "PHOTOPIGMENTS" section.
Karma karma karma karma karmeleon: it comes and goes, it comes and goes.
unlike a CRT's phosphors, our retinas do not have separate 'pixels' for red, green, and blue
Actually, we do. I dont remember the details, but some of our retina's cones and rods capture only specific colors. Color blind or people are people with disorders of such specific cones and rods, when it's not due to brain issues.
I'm partly color blind, as I have difficulty seeing yellow.
When our retina differs from CRTs, however, is resolution, of course.
One good place I found for info on this is this place, and for info specif to color vision, this sub-section is handy.
Karma karma karma karma karmeleon: it comes and goes, it comes and goes.
I saw a prototype of this system many years ago at the University of Washington HIT lab. Red mono only, and took a table, but it looked pretty good. I'm realling looking forward to consumer color models... maybe in another 10 years. Getting this up and running is just one of many steps towards becoming a gargoyle. :)
There's no mystical energy field that controls my destiny. It's all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense.
Live news feeds for all. Automatic insertion of commercials based on physical location, biometric state and recorded user preferences.
I just keep remembering the Star Trek episode with the retinal image game plugged into the pleasure centers of the brain. Of course that required Wesley Crusher to solve, so we'd all be DOOMed!
The net effect should be roughly equivalent to if the image was projected onto a pair of glasses: It remains stationary if you just move your eyes, but moves along with your head.
What you are in essense saying is that because X (naturally) depends on Y to reach point A, that X has a natural right to Y. That simply does not follow, mere dependency does not equate with right. The same can be said for sperm. Do my sperm of a natural right to a fertile women? Is a women necessarily immoral for denying any one of my sperm this right? Of course not. The logic is simply flawed.
No matter what your beliefs or your other arguments are, this one simply does not stand.
Well I know some of the engineers and a physicist at the Bothell outfit, last I heard (as I recall), they're using laser diodes since brightness is an issue with LEDs. They modulate the three diodes, aim them at a single fiber, then direct that at some kind of scanning mirror...That said, I really don't have any more details to give you, it's been awhile since I last heard. I've heard a number of people say first hand that the technology works well, but at least one mentioned some disorientation. It's pretty promising stuff.
Furthermore, I believe that when science can be reasonably certain that the risks are small, that individuals should be allowed to decide for themselves whether or not they want to take that risk. I would. Who are you to tell me that I can't use this product because it hasn't been proven safe (although they have done a studies already) in your opinion? Hell, we haven't "proven" Quake safe yet, it might cause convulsions or something, or cause us all to go postal, we haven't waited a decade yet... Is this the kind of world you want to live in?
Add wireless networking and instead of having to look for a band on someones sleeve during a firefight at the local paintball field your box could show everyone who isn't on your team (cause remember it knows where everyone *on* your team is) with their entire body covered in a big bulls eye (hmmm, have to make it smart enough to not do that for the ref I suppose).
--
Poliglut
Sorry didn't mean to post anon...
u almotion.shtml
The rocking thingie... I saw something about that on Tomorrows World (BBC TV) a few months ago.
A pair of goggles, with electromagnets near the ear around the temple and behind the ear. When the magnets were turned on, it would fool the ear into thinking that you were leaning so the body would automaticaly compensate. this only worked with a full HUD because if the eye can see the horison it overrides the ear.
Here's the link to the story http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/tw/items/000126_virt
mountvol \\?\brain{dbe069b1-65ae-11d5-bab4-806d6172696f}\h
A couple of weeks ago, I saw a documentary showing this technology being used by surgeons, and was very impressed. The main advantage of the system is being able to display a *live* 3D model of the operated organ (or any other data), allowing the surgeon to remain concentrated on his 'target' rather than having to look at some monitor, hence reducing the risk of a bad manipulation.
When performing microsurgery, surgeons wear magnifying glasses, so don't worry about your tiny blood vessels or nerves. Anyway, I don't think any serious surgeon would use this technology if it weren't adapted to their needs, and these people are demanding when it comes to new hardware. The top surgeons who were testing the equipment seemed to be very happy about it!
.max
-- It's always darker before it goes pitch black.
or there will be "Peace Love and Linux" ads on every sidewalk we look at. I have to imagine what others would think when I start screaming about all the penguins everywhere.
Combine this with some motion tracking hardware and when you're sleeping with your ugly girlfriend, she'll LOOK like Latetia Casta or Cindy Crawford (yes, or even Natalie Portman...)
-Chris
...More Powerful than Otto Preminger...
There's a world of difference between throwing strange molecules into your bloodstream and banging on neurotransmitters, and projecting photons into your eye. You have probably had at least six or seven photons projected into your eye TODAY! Some weird people claim to be bombarded by billions and billions and billions of photons day in and day out, and they seem to be able to live almost normal lives.
It's a photon, man...nothing scary here...
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
How could an LED possibly work? You need to get a fine point of light projected on a spot 1-2" away. Anything other than a coherent light beam would just spread out and be useless.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Was this a class 2 or class 3 laser? One burns your eye very quickly, the other takes forever. If they did that with a Class 2 laser, I wouldn't be at all surprised because Class 3 lasers are much stronger.
Um, just replace "www" with "channel" and you don't have to reg.
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To understand recursion, one must first understand recursion.
What I would want is a object recognizer (edge detector) so I could find my way to the bathroom at night without killing my shins.
make Linux, not Microsoft. sin(beast) = -0.809016994374947424102293417182819
I'm partly color blind, as I have difficulty seeing yellow.
Hey, I think my whole town has this problem. At least they all drive as though the traffic lights are colored red,<nothing>,green.
Wern't we all saying that RIAA woulden't be happy until they could beam the music right into our ears ... ? now the MPAA is all happy ;)
Why aren't you encrypting your e-mail?
With this technology, the bluenoses will have just a bit more credibility with the scare line, "You'll go blind from looking at porn!"
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
is here
Wouldn't want to try this thing first generation though - anyone seen the screen burn on 80's terminal monitors... Think about that on your eyeball...
+++ ATH0 +++
I am a wearable computing enthusiast, just won a new CPU unit off of ebay for hacking, as a matter of fact, and let me tell you, none of us is holding our breath waiting for this tech. With new display tech being available at less than 1000 dollars, it's actually becoming feasable to make an HMD with vga resolution. The Cy-visor, for example, can do 800x600 and is fairly easy to get on ebay brand new for about a grand
... a *long* time ago. I think it was in the EE Times, circa 1990.
The system described at the time wasn't using any lasers, since there's just no need to use coherent light to keep a source collimated over a one inch distance.
I remember that the hard part was keeping it in focus as the user moved his eyes, since the distance light traveled through the cornea varies with the position of the eye.
So, is it the traditional Five Years Off?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
"That's not good enough, I'm afraid. I want hard scientific facts, not ill-informed opinions."
And you read Slashdot?
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
I thought U of I invented a solid state blue laser that's being used right now in CD players?
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
Trust me, you will find it quite hard to look at a beam with an intensity big enough to damage your eye. Your eyes will shut by reflex. Sure when you manage to look into such a beam you will see some after images for a few minutes but that will be all.
Further there are no invisible wavelengths damaging your retina without you knowing it. Like in sunlight.
well, if you had read the article, you would know that it takes standard inputs, so if you have $10k sitting around, you'll be able to play quake/watch pr0n/etc on it just as well as anything else.
And since it's a wearable, the term 'implant' is hardly appropriate.
//Phizzy
"Most European technology just isn't worth our stealing," -- Former CIA chief James Woolsey, referring to Echelon
You guys thought that the id number stored in the cue cat and the pentium III chips were bad...
Just wait until this device is a two way street and your user-id is a retinal scan. You just can't fake that one without reverse engineering the device itself. Oh wait. That's illegal and wrong.
User 45235334 likes to download music on his home computer and lives in NYC... lets put a MTV TRL banner ad in the middle of their field of view.
-pos
The truth is more important than the facts.
The truth is more important than the facts.
-Frank Lloyd Wright
The manager at Microvision came to where I worked last summer to do a deomostration. Our company was investigating wearable computers for some time critical missions. The estimation is, if the engineerers can save 10 minutes per job with the wearable computer, then in 10 jobs we will get our money's worth.
:)
The thing wasn't too big as compare to a Xybernaut.(Which I played with for a while as shown here. Please show this to your female friends and see if I can impress any of them. I thought it was more impressive than a Corvette, but so far I have no luck.)
It only displays in red because the other types of colored laser needs humongous sized equipment. And yes, this thing does shoot a laser in the eyes and when we questioned the safty thier manager told me they can show a great deal of proof of saftely machanism. If you have ever wondered about how it was possible to shoot laser precisely into your retina, well, they actually use an array of rays, not just one set.
I have actually used the demo retina display for about 15 minutes. It works great under any type of light surroundings and image was razor sharp. They grey scale also worked like wonders.
Microvision claimed last summer that they will acheive 600x800 resolution in production, while they showed us the 640x480 model. Frankly it was good enough. But that is not the most important thing. What really seperates the retina display from LCD based display like what's used in Sony Glasstron and Xybernaut and other dozens of displays at last years' wearable computing expo is that retina display is the only method that TRUELY display information as a completely transparent display, so our engineerers can actually see what they are doing while reading information at the same time. How? The displayed image is actually focused on something like 3 feet (I forgot the exact number, and whether or not it is adjustable.) in front of you, so by changing your eye's focus point, You can swtich between the real world background and the retina display.
So how much was the damage? well I think they were saying that their projected price was something short of 20k. Makes your $500 glasstron looks like a gameboy's toy which it is. I personally would definitely throw in that money if I had it
It still amazes me what makes it to the top page and what doesn't. These articles should be together.
I wouldn't be worried about the safety, as long as there's no chance of the intensity of the laser increasing suddenly.
I'd be more worried about the beam suddenly stopping, and focusing on one spot on the retina for too long. It seems like that could happen more easily than a sudden increase in intensity.
The shareholder is always right.
Acutally, I liked the idea Neal Stephenson used in Snow Crash: use the laser to rear-project onto translucent goggles the user's wearing. The indirection would keep the user safer from a system malfunction.
Yes, but will it keep me safe from bitmap viruses?
The shareholder is always right.
Combined with face-recognition software, this technology might be a great way to work around face blindness. My life would be a lot easier if people's names would hover over their heads :)
The shareholder is always right.
Otherwise people around you will know that you've been surfing porn by the way you're frantically swatting the air in front of you.
The shareholder is always right.
Please place remaining eye here.
|
v
120 characters isn't enough to explain it.
It sounds like a great way to watch TV or read news headlines on the bus if you ask me, but the article discusses some more, um, useful applications.
Companies need to realize there's nothing more "useful" then what people want something for. Scientific and military applications are fine, but if they want to sell, they'll have implant TV, porn, and high level gaming. Government contracts are nice, but 90% of geeks using your technology to play Quake is even better.
The Good Reverend
I'm different, just like everybody else.
I also tried it out myself at the US Display Consortium's Annual inverstor conference in NYC last week. Impressiuve, but they still have to get the steering mirrors onto one chip. Until they do, the accompanying optics will continue to be cumbersome and expensive. It was an interesting demo, though. I believe that hi-res SVGA microdisplays in near-eye mounts are significantly superior, and much more useful in field appllications. I was able to compare the eMagin OLED microdisplay to the MicroVision device, and the OLED creates a fantastic image that is much better and therefore mopre useful. The Inviso microdisplay is based on Liquid-Crystal-on-silicon (LCOS) technology, and also provides a very good image for near-eye apps. smartalix.com
Read a preview of my novel CYBERCHILD at www.smartalix.com/cyberchild
I wouldn't be worried about the safety, as long as there's no chance of the intensity of the laser increasing suddenly. Interestingly, I'm wondering if it really is a laser - the article never states that it is a laser, except by implication in the sentence,
"At first glance, pointing a laser directly into your eyeball seems to fall somewhere between the risky and the downright foolhardy. "
but it may just be a narrow, projected beam of light, not lased light. I'd be curious to find out more about that. After all, if it's a laser, and you want a color display, you'll need THREE lasers, for each of the primary colors, scanning along side each other (unlike a CRT's phosphors, our retinas do not have separate 'pixels' for red, green, and blue).
-- "Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." -Joseph Stalin
Because the image is being projected onto the back of your eye, would not looking to the left (looking from above: eyeball rotating counter-clockwise) create an image in the wrong direction?
No wait. I get it now. I was backward. Interesting that the image is being produced with lasers... I wonder why LEDs or something less exotic isn't being used.
Evan - needs to hit preview before submitting
Arturo
Are you a soccer mom?
Are you not content with distracting yourself from driving your Land Yacht with a plain old cellphone?
Do you hate how you have to miss the current episode of "Days of Our Lives" when you go to pick up little Jimmy from kindergarten?
Fear not! There is a solution to your problems - A retinal display!
...
...
God help us all. The thing is, you KNOW there's going to be people who will do just that.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
I feel like that whenever I see someone post a message in all bold.
I've actually had the opportunity to use one of these, albeit a tabletop version in testing. It was interesting, especially becaus they hadn't yet worked out the color, and it was just red. It was really cool, though, because you could see right through the picture, but the picture was good, too. I coulld easily see myself using one in the future, if they got the color and portability worked out. One other thing I remember was that it was very sensitive to motion, that is, if you moved slightly, the image would disappear. That would need to be solved too, in order to make the device usable.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
I'd say sooner, but I imagine it will be a while before your average consumer can afford to own a few pair.
Put on the special siting-helmut... look through the siting device...
The image of an CD-ROM-based, edgeless map of the area near the siting location is mixed with the raw view (through the siting device)...
A control allows the smoke-spotter to fade between image sources, until the location is accurately determined, e.g. by comparing landmarks to symbols on the map.
HELP: If anyone has some ideas on how to improve the accuracy of such smoke-sitings, in a hilly area, these guys would be happy to hear from you:
smokey@wrs.cx
Practical, appropriate (rather than high-end, out-of-reach military-class) technological solutions are to be preferred.
Progress to date includes the brainstorming up of some -possible- ways to go:
Ideas, Practical Tips (e.g. limits of effectiveness for any of the above solutions), Links to Sources of Equipment would all be of interest & very much appreciated.
PS How does your nearest Fire Tower do it?
TIA
You have to wear a bulky helmet to use this thing? Until they can get the size of this device down, noone except the most extreme geeks will use it. People won't even wear bicycle or motorcycle helmets now to save their lives. Why would they wear them to watch TV?
I just hope I don't have old packman mazes burned into my retina when I'm 80.
Rats would be more funny if they could fart.
Maybe some crazy eye Doc discovered this while doing RK...
"If you are on fire you can just stop, drop, and roll. If you fall into Lava you are just dead." - my 5yr old daughter
Then follows the creation of a gaming industry centered around braille.... quake3 for the blind!
Hmm. Just testing, and I'm not getting gcc to work (even with -Wno-error) unless the pointers are cast (as in the previous post.) The C language reference does say that pointer subtraction is LEGAL, but not guaranteed to be meaningful except for members of the same array. That means that I may not be guaranteed to get 4 bytes of difference, but it should compile and while I should be able to get some number of bytes difference from it, there's no guarantee that I get the right number. Oh, well, cest la C.
WARNING -- SPOILER: I'm taking advantage of the fact that I want four characters output, and that longs are four bytes. Using the array gives me two longs that will be next to each other. I decrement the char pointer p (which points to the second long) until it equals the first. This happens in the while condition (which could be written as while((p--)-k){...}, if I wanted to make it longer, which I don't. Operator precedence lets the compiler grok what I mean.
John
John
Acutally, I liked the idea Neal Stephenson used in Snow Crash: use the laser to rear-project onto translucent goggles the user's wearing. The indirection would keep the user safer from a system malfunction.
John
John
I work on the VRD project. It is well documented as safe. If you wasn to "see" the research it is published. If you think light entering the eye is dangerous may I suggest a deep cave.
-Jordan Andersen
jordan@hitl.washington.edu
I never realized how annoying /. is . I'm the only poster here who knows about this stuff and I'm way at the bottom...
:-).
I work on that exact thing at the Human Interface Technology Lab at the University of Washington. Right now I'm doing some work to identify doorways and staircases for the purpose of superimposing over the users sight. The VRD is great for this because it does not block normal sight Also, since the light enters the eye over a small portion of the lens, people with lens damage and such can still view the image.
I've seen some earlier posts that suggest than the VRD is/will be way to expencive. Let me tell you that it is not. The complexity of the device is much lower than a CRT or LCD screen. It takes us about two days and $15 dollars worth of readily available parts to construct one by hand. (Minus the computer to drive it of course.) I suspect a good and near invisible VRD will be available in 4 years for less than $100.
As far as the shooting lasers in to peoples eyes, it is not as bad as you think. People commonly associate lasers with high power. Our lasers can't cast a visible spot on a white piece of paper.Getting human subject approval is not picnic though
-Jordan Andersen
jordan@hitl.washington.edu
You thought Real Networks unique identifier was bad, wait until we're all using retinal displays and every piece of corporate software adds interferometry code to map your retina. Once you're in their database, it's like a cookie you can't erase. Any time you use their product with a retinal display, they know it's you, indisputably. They may not have your name, but they'll know who you are on the internet.
And just wait until stores start scanning your retina for identification, before they'll take a check. The databases will be cross-referenced in no time, and then they WILL know who you are, and there will be no hiding it. Big brother, here we come.
If you have a problem with my views, REPLY, don't moderate!
It goes without saying, the ability to map the users retina will be built into any commercial retina display. They need sensors to track eyeball motion, and it is certain that those sensors will (with the proper software) do double duty, and map the retina, as well.
If you have a problem with my views, REPLY, don't moderate!
Because of irresponsible thinking like that, I can't type like a normal person. No new 'technological innovations' should be foisted onto the general public until they have been proved safe by years (decades, if necessary) of scientific study.
Sure, it's only light; only lasers. What happens when the first wave of users start going blind in 10 years? Are you just going to say, "Oh, we're sorry. We never imagined something like this could have happened."?
That's not good enough, I'm afraid. I want hard scientific facts, not ill-informed opinions.
If you have a problem with my views, REPLY, don't moderate!
Basically, if you put this with a real-time speech recognition system that was a 1000x better, you effectively have created a wearable "real-time closed-caption" display for deaf people. They would use it in the everyday world whenever hearing people spoke to them, so that they know what a person said. I'm deaf myself and I would love to see something like this in sunglasses form.
Another application for the above product would be as a language translator for the tourist going abroad in other countries. The system would translate any foreign language into the wearer's native language and display it. Great way to learn the French language. =)
-Cyc
/.'s 10 Millionth
By the time I was poking around Fluke Hall at the UW the all red monochrome version had shrunk to the size of a small briefcase and was quite easy to use. They were working on a color version but it was still benchmount. I believe they were having trouble shrinking the blue laser. Pretty slick tech though :)
Ad in classifieds: Pandora's Box (no box) $5
Steve Mann has been using a system like this for years with his wearable computer systems. It creates what he's termed "mediated reality", which is just a cute term to describe the overlay of data onto reality as opposed to full virtual reality. It's pretty impressive, and fairly intimidating at first when you think about shining a laser directly into your eye.
The other form of mediated reality (and more commonly used as he only has a couple laser eyetaps) is similar to the standard LCD concept. Except, instead of displaying the data on an LCD screen that blocks out reality, the data is overlayed on a image of reality. The light rays that are reflected on the eye are colinear with what would normally be seen, so minimal distortion occurs.
It's pretty cool to see this sort of thing coming to market.
- In hell, treason is the work of angels.
Just like you and the tapeworm own your body.
Last I checked, tapeworms aren't involved in human reproduction.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Your ignorant world view makes no allowance for rape. For child molestation.
You have serious psychological issues. That's all I will say. Your post has so little do with what I've said that I simply stunned and unable to respond.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
It's not the being offended (although it's silly to be offended by an opinion), it's the dragging of rape and molestation into the subject. That's the sign of someone who has way too many issues. Be that as it may...
we've had the right to determine what happens to our bodies.
Wrong; society tells people what to do with their bodies all the time. You can't use your body to kill someone. You can't prostitute yourself. You can't drink and drive. You can't take certain drugs. Some of those you may not agree with, but there is no question that society can tell you what you can do with your body. Bottom line, you can't use your body to cause harm to others.
What are extenuating circumstances?
I don't pretend to have the answer to what should happen in every case, for example, where do you draw the line when you have a severely deformed fetus. But it's irrational and illogical to argue that because 0.1% of births have moral issues surrounding them, therefore we should allow abortion on demand in all cases. Do you think a woman should be able to abort a fetus one day before delivery?
The church has only gotten around to apologizing for Galileo...
Only fanatics invoke the church on this issue -- on either side. Religion has nothing to do with whether it's ethical to destroy a human being at whatever stage of development.
Let me repeat this just to make it clear to you... my womb, my choice... period.
Funny, a few hundred years ago they used the same arguments to justify slavery. "If you don't like it, then don't own slaves. It's none of your business to interfere with my choice. Who are you to force your views on me?"
It's my body, and your opinions add up to just about a tinkers damn.
At this point in history, you are correct. It used to be the same case for slavery, but eventually society evolved to where we protected all human beings, not just the ones with the power and control.
Either human life is valuable or it is not. If it is valuable, then it shouldn't matter what stage of development a human happens to be in. Note, by the way, that a newborn baby's brain has not developed at birth, and is totally non-sentient. Should we allow post-birth abortions? Why not? Why shouldn't a woman have the choice as to whether they want their own children in the world or not?
What I find most fascinating about people like you is that you have absolutely no sympathy for life. I mean it's nine crummy months! You would rather see a human life destroyed rather than a women being inconvenienced for nine months. It's just incredible to me.
I'll just address one point in your previous post: if my child were going to be aborted, and I would have the chance to take over the carrying of the fetus, I would do it in a microsecond without hesitation. Ironically, one of the famous feminist cliches is totally wrong: if men bore children, abortion wouldn't even be a consideration. Can you imagine the uproar if an evil, mean man decided to abort a woman's child?? It would never happen.
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Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
it's a worthwhile concern, and you're not funny.
No, it's a stupid concern. Do you think they're using a 100 watt laser or something? To use your analogy, if a headphone company asked you try out some revolutionary new headphones, would the first thought that would come to your mind be "Who was the brave soul who first agreed to that insanity?" Do you really think that there would have been some great risk of the first person to try them having their ears blown out?
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Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Who was the brave soul who first agreed to that insanity?
Oh my God! They're shining light into people's eyes? What are they, INSANE???
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Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I call my invention a "laser"
=P
e.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
I thought it was kinda funny when I posted it, maybe not side-splitting... but geez, cut me a break - Bad Comments are flamebait. Bad comments have nothing to do with the article they are attached to. They call someone names. They ridicule someone for having a different opinion without backing it up with anything more tangible than strong words... etc. That's from the moderator faq. I don't think my post qualifies...
I alternate between posting +5 and -1 Comments. Karma: +53 -47 = 6
Now all you need is to strap Taco's Borg Box onto the helmet, and presto, instant self-entertainment system. Might be a little heavy...
I alternate between posting +5 and -1 Comments. Karma: +53 -47 = 6
This is a good way for me to get my dog to let himself in and out of the house.
Don't laugh... it would work! There's not too much difference between our eyes and my dog's eyes.
Newsfollow.com
RTFA. It's funny because the laser is powered at 1% of the OSHA-acceptable level.
The Scanning Laser Lpthalmoscope (SLO)is a diagnostic and research instrument that does exactly this, and has been in use for years since its invention in 1979 in Boston by Rob Webb. This is the precursor to the wearable retinal projection systems being offered today, and safety analyses were done early in its history. (SLO's have another requirement, which is that there be enough power so that backscattered light can be captured and an image of the retina be recorded). See http://www.hitl.washington.edu/publications/r-97-3 1/ for some safety analysis work.
Whis means I could play play Quake all day at work, and as long as I wasn't moving unconciously with each shot, my boss would never know.
I like it. Although I have reservations about pointing a laser (any laser) at my retina, for any extended period of time.
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--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
Pretty creepy stuff.
I can't find it now for some reason, but about a year ago a saw a very cool piece of concept art at Microvision's site: A pair of sunglasses with a small laser mounted near one ear, which beamed the laser onto your retina by way of a tiny reflective spot on the inside of the glasses.
I wonder how long till that implementation of this technology is available in the stores? (I want to hope 5-10 years, but 15 seems more realistic.)
-- If no truths are spoken then no lies can hide --
some of our retina's cones and rods capture only specific colors
Only the cones are receptive to color. The rods are only receptive to brightness and dimness.
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Technoli
Should Slashdot research it's own archives before trying to pass something off as newsworthy tech?
m.mmm..myyy
After their first 'virtual retina display' was prototyped, they had visitors in their lab looking at the device. One gentleman placed his right eye onto the scanner and went through the demonstration. When he was asked if he was thoroughly impressed with the demonstration, he replied, "Yes, but not with the demonstration itself, but rather the fact that I saw the demonstration with my blind eye."
The man only had the ability to use 5-10% of his optic nerves in his right eye. So he was partially blind but amazing nonetheless.
Here are other articles on the subject: an older zdnet story and '98 discover technology award
-sal terre
That hospital is focusing on clinical applications, like superimposing information about a patient, including vital signs and medical images, onto a surgeon's field of view.
Boy howdy... From what I know, nerve fibers were about the same thickness as human hair, right? Especially in tight places like the hands. It also seems like there are any number of delicate blood vessles, nerve tissues, tendons, etc, that would be about the same size as an 800x600 pixel. I don't know about you, but I would much rather my doctor get a possibly distracting earful of my vital signs if my chest is hanging open than have them superimposed over the top of my delicate internals.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Yeah, it's $10K now, but I'm betting that in 5 years or so they'll be able to put it under the brim of a baseball cap for $200. Add a wireless connection to a computer on your belt, and a pointing device, and speech-to-text, and you've got the wearable dream machine...
OK,
- B
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http://www.bradheintz.com/
- updated
When did science come up with a dipstick to determine when a fetus becomes a baby? You make up your own rules and then demand that all adhere to them. You are just a self-righteous idiot who tries to pass off his own fanatical beliefs as science.
No, because it doesn't have a brain. You'll note that at brain-death we normally take a body off life support.
A fetus does not even start to develop a brain until 3-4 weeks. So, is it morally acceptable to you for a woman to use RU486 after, say, 2 weeks? At five months, the "brain" in a fetus is incapable of even the involuntary reflex action of breathing. If someone's brain became incapable of even supporting breathing, wouldn't you consider that brain-dead?
Tell us what have you done to improve the lives of unwanted children born to crack and heroin addicts. How have you helped children born into poverty with not enough food to eat? Have you adopted any children born with AIDS? Admit it: You don't give a shit about children once they are born. You just want to play your holier-than-thou card and try to prevent women from making their own moral choices -- because you are so arrogant that you assume anyone who disagrees with you must be wrong.
Microvision just came out with a new full color display . They are using light sources
rather than lasers to achieve full color.
I tried one of these out late last year when Microvision was at the AUSA convention. I wouldn't say that it doesn't interfere with your vision, however; you have a small screen in front of your eye, which is translucent but colored as well. It's a very far cry from just having something appear in your vision as an augmentation to normal sight.
Also, due to the fact that a small blue laser for this application has yet to be invented (and for that matter, ANY blue laser with a long lifespan that can be used for this application), color displays are quite a long way off. They have the red and green, but blue is a major problem.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
As for the fertility thing, im not sure what the difference between In vitro and In vivo is, but im referring to normal human reproduction after the egg has been fertilized. So, assuming that a couple (or a woman and a test tube) have successfully fertalized an egg and the egg has successfully been implanted into the woman(in the case of woman and test tube), what are the odds that the egg will survive for the next nine months and be born. I understand that this is partly a function of the mother's standard of living but for normal healthy mothers, it should be similar. Do you have a reference or suggestions for places to look for this information?
As for being alive and under their own steam, young humans are not capable of survival without a host(parent or woman with a womb if you prefer) untill they are several years old. They rely on their host to feed and protect them untill they are capable of doing this on their own. Without a host, the child will die. Saying that they are fully functional at birth is simply not correct. Arguing that they are not people until they are born is just a semantic difference. Kicking a child out of the womb is no different than leaving your kid in the woods alone. If they are fully functional at that time, they will survive, if not, they will die.
"Doing that will make you go blind."
Now it may be true.
And let me point this laser at your retina.
Who was the brave soul who first agreed to that insanity?
Dancin Santa
Another application for the above product would be as a language translator for the tourist going abroad in other countries.
Yeah, but who want's to hear everyone speaking like babblefish?
BTW: How do you do abroad in this country?
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
Buddy boy, I took biology too. You obviosly flunked it. Otherwise you'd be able to answer the following question: How long does it take for a fertilezed egg to become a fetus? And then, tell me just what there is during that time period. I'll wait and pick the discussion up then.
I don't understand why anyone claims that it would be less distracting to have words emblazoned (good word for lazers on the retna, no?) on the back of your eyeballs would be LESS distracting than trying to cognitively process words on a screen just below the object of your attention out in the world. The only difference is that you have to move your eyeballs and shift focus to look at a screen, but most of the shift that has to occur is an ATTENTIONAL shift, from image/object processing, to linguistic processing. Furthermore your eyes are busing darting around to create the illusion of a gingle unmoving still world... Some people have tried this, so it must work, but I would think that an image that was remaining still on one part of the retna would not necessarily seem to remain still as the eye moves to capture features in the world.... At the very least I can imagine a huge headache as the apparent RELATIONSHIP of the words and the background world shifts as the eyeball moves to a different feature in the external world.... Again, I know people have tried this, and maybe this isn't a problem, but the basic situation of needing to shift from driving a car/airplane or navigating obstacles in 3d space to processing words seems unchanged whether the words are on the eyeball or on a screen just below the field of vision....
Another application for the above product would be as a language translator for the tourist going abroad in other countries. The system would translate any foreign language into the wearer's native language and display it. Great way to learn the French language. =)
Yeah, but you'd end up talking like a babelfish translation. Or, of course, AYB.
Promote proofreading. Don't mod up sloppy posts.