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Eyeballing the Future of Retina Scanning Lasers
robsmith writes "Microvision is releasing a wearable monitor this fall named Nomad. Check out the article from the Seattle PI for more deatils, 'Eyesight of the future is here'." Its still expensive, but its getting more and more real each day.
I know the guy who's job it was to figure out if its safe. Lets just say that safety would be the last of my concerns with this device... He knows his stuff.
MicroOptical, a company in Boston, has a pretty good technology: the image from a tiny LCD in the temple of a pair of glasses is sent through one lens from the side and off a tiny mirror embedded in the lens. A VGA display appears two feet from the person wearing the glasses. There is no blocking of the rest of the visual field. I've tried it and it works well, as long as you are OK with wearing glasses. (Ordinary glasses. Like people wear.)
It looks like these guys are actually well behind the cutting edge. There are several already-announced and soon-to-be announced devices that surpass this quality for significantly less money. Perhaps this is their first pass at a lower cost, larger market production device, but this isn't much to write home about.
... both which at least claim higher specifications at a similar or slightly lower price point. Check out www.afb.org.uk/public/5steps.html. It's quite interesting how these companies got started - one from the medical retina scan buisness, the other from the CCD industry. Neat.
Arkinstad and BiVideo are two competitors that come to mind
nope...they've been talking about these things coming out soon for 10+ years now.
When they come out with one and my wife finds I spent $x000 on one, then I'll be scared!
Your search - Arkinstad - did not match any documents.
No pages were found containing "arkinstad".
And this search didn't yield any information on direct-to-retina displays.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
For perhaps a better set of information about safety concerns and the like, go to the academic source of the technology in the first place: UW's HITLab.
The retinal display page is here, for starters. I don't imagine that the publicly traded company which got the technology would be as interested in disseminating this kind of info....
For what it's worth, they actually did quite a few trials of this at the UW's Medical Center, which is actually a very well respected hospital, and felt quite confident in it's safety.
Go Huskies!
Check my Go-related blog for beginners: DGD
It being a real word means nothing.
Main Entry: window
Pronunciation: 'win-(")dO
Function: noun
Usage: often attributive
Etymology: Middle English windowe, from Old Norse vindauga, from vindr wind (akin to Old English wind) + auga eye; akin to Old English Eage eye -- more at EYE
Date: 13th century
1 a : an opening especially in the wall of a building for admission of light and air that is usually closed by casements or sashes containing transparent material (as glass) and capable of being opened and shut b : WINDOWPANE c : a space behind a window of a retail store containing displayed merchandise d : an opening in a partition or wall through which business is conducted
2 : a means of entrance or access; especially : a means of obtaining information
3 : an opening (as a shutter, slot, or valve) that resembles or suggests a window
4 : the transparent panel or opening of a window envelope
5 : the framework (as a shutter or sash with its fittings) that closes a window opening
6 : CHAFF 4
7 : a range of wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum to which a planet's atmosphere is transparent
8 a : an interval of time within which a rocket or spacecraft must be launched to accomplish a particular mission b : an interval of time during which certain conditions or an opportunity exists
9 : an area at the limits of the earth's sensible atmosphere through which a spacecraft must pass for successful reentry
10 : any of the areas into which a computer display may be divided and on which distinctly different types of information are displayed
- windowless
- out the window : out of existence, use, or consideration
Yeah, but why would you leave your eyes on Roseanne all night? Heck, if anything you're going to burn in a login screen...
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Who else, on reading this headline, thought of Lagos from Snow Crash? Retina scanning lasers? That is, lasers that identify the retina of the person that it is aimed at. Potentially used from long range.
Nevermind...
--
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
Nope, the unit used by Apache aircrews (and others? I've gotten behind in my mail) Is simply a tiny Heads Up Display mounted on a swing arm very close to the eye. The image is projected on a lens in front of the eye. Just like a fighter pilot's HUD, only mounted to the helmet, not the top of the console.
Ignorance is the root of all evil.
...ok folks, who wants to beta-test the laser into the eyeball? Don't worry, quality-control was sub-contracted out to Microsoft. At least that's what the guy who reads my mail out loud to me says. Oh yeah, and call out loud when you raise your hand.
Ignorance is the root of all evil.
For $8,000 - $10,000 I'd like to see RGB lasers painting triplets on the backs of my eyes.
And I do mean eyeS, I want stereoscopic projectors so I can get 3D images.
Okay, I guess I'll wait a little longer.
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If Nomad was a copyrightable word (like the many made up words we see these days), Sega would have beaten Creative to it by a few years with there portable Genesis system.
--
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Trye http://www.mvis.com, as indicated in the main text.
Thanks. After reading it, I even scanned it again specifically looking for links to the company. Guess I never though to check the non-underlined text!
Given one hour to live, the student replied: "I'd spend it with professor FP who can make an hour seem like a lifetime."
But back in reality, a bevy of local scientists has discovered that humans can also use lasers to stamp holograms onto the eye.
In what way are these holograms? Holograms use interference patterns to store information. This seems like simple vector graphics.
The Nomad's release this year will be the first commercial introduction of the retinal-scanning technology, which does not block the user's vision.
Yet the prototype from the article does seem to block out most of the wearer's vision. I'd appreciate confirmation or a denial from anyone who has played with one of these units.
For more information, I tried http://www.microvision.com but that only leads to an unrelated Tampa Bay, Florida, US company.
Given one hour to live, the student replied: "I'd spend it with professor FP who can make an hour seem like a lifetime."
No, but I'd say you're not too far off from the Nintendo Virtual Boy graphics quality. Wonder if that gives you a headache after 20 minutes of playing.
If the light only has to travel a few inches at most, why bother to use a laser diode instead of a plain old LED? Collimation shouldn't be an issue over such a short distance.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Will it play all my old Genesis games?
Sweet! Earthworm Jim on the go.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
uhh... IIRC, 'nomad' is a real word
/'nO-"ma-"di-z&m/ noun
m-w.com says this:
Main Entry: nomad
Pronunciation: 'nO-"mad, British also 'nä-
Function: noun
Etymology: Latin nomad-, nomas member of a wandering pastoral people, from Greek, from nemein
Date: 1579
1 : a member of a people who have no fixed residence but move from place to place usually seasonally and within a well-defined territory
2 : an individual who roams about aimlessly
- nomad adjective
- nomadism
just for your edification! thank you, and goodnight.
ìì!
If you want to put a large hole in his head, its much easier to get a sniper in range than it is to get someone close enough to tamper with his glasses.
Come on, at least have the decency to attribute your .sig quote to its originator: the late Douglas Adams.
--
Win dain a lotica, en vai tu ri silota
now we have retina burn-in
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I had the opportunity to view the MicroVision demo unit at the US Display Consortium's investor's event in Manhattan a few months ago. The monochrome unit wasn't bad, but as pointed out, there are better and cheaper microdisplays out there from companies like eMagin's Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED)-based technology and the displays from Zight (formerly Colorado Microdisplay) and Three-Five Systems which are based on Liquid-Crystal on Silicon (LCoS)technology. The only advantage I see (pun intended) is that you can see through the MicroVision device. It is up to the end user whether that functionality (which will undoubtably be matched in the near future by the other technologies) is worth the considerable expense.
Read a preview of my novel CYBERCHILD at www.smartalix.com/cyberchild
I did the Walmart thing for a year, standing over a nice little laser that helped me find prices for stuff 90% of the time. No ill affects. Control is the key, lasers are really good at emitting a narrow and specific wavelength of light. Keep the power reasonable and these things will be a lot safer than say, oh I don't know, an arcwelder.
Fear is the Mindkiller.
Anything is possible given time and money.
Point is, there are common items that people are exposed to every day that would pose a much greater vision threat than this low power laser device.
Anything is possible given time and money.
At 30 frames per second, that's roughly 44x44 pixels.
At 10 frames per second, that's roughly 77x77 pixels.
At 1 frame per second, that's still only 244x244 pixels.
Keep in mind that all pixels are transparent or red only.
You won't be playing Quake on this thing, any time soon.
Education is the silver bullet.
--
Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
Reminds me of the old guy on the Simpsons -
*zap* "I can see!"
*zap* "Ahhh well, Easy come, easy go."
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
How could they refuse?
Now here's a new screen saver market for you....
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
What a silly notion.
You might as well just use a contact poison, geez...
This doesn't really present a viable assasination alternative, any more than eyeglasses do. These are quite weak lasers.
- Rei
You know when it's okay to shout fire in a crowded theatre? When it's on fire.
Oh, of course not :) Noone wants anything that directly access your sensory organs, that would be horrible. Like headphones, for example! :) Who would want that? Tiny speakers in your ears? Who is that attached to sound that they can't leave their speakers for a while? What would God say about headphones? You know they're just going to lead to another Columbine ;) I pray our children don't aquire them!
- Rei
You know when it's okay to shout fire in a crowded theatre? When it's on fire.
The amount of light is undoubtably far less than even houselight, let alone the sun (remember, your brain measures light on a logarithmic scale - sunlight is exponentially brighter than houselight. This logarithmic measuring is why lights appear to dissapear only with linear attenuation, not quadratic as it actually is.
;) heheheheeee)... which reminds me... I bet you're going to see a lot more people, if this ever takes off, talking about how "we're turning into vegetables" like they have with TV.. because, well, you can stare off into space like a zombie, but be browsing the web or watching a show :) I bet there would be a lot of cultural resistance... with people like me being the ones who are being resisted against ;)
;)
I, for one, wouldn't have the least worries as long as they had the most basic safety measures put in to prevent overloading. And, I don't care what they say, I'd still wear it in public (though, I'd probably look like I'm from Lain
I'm sorry, this just sounds like too much fun if the quality is high.
- Rei
You know when it's okay to shout fire in a crowded theatre? When it's on fire.
You can use this stuff today, without being seen, if you just put it inside a helmet.
The display is a red, transparent computer screen, but, in fact, is no screen at all. The device shoots a tiny laser beam that draws patterns onto the retina so that only the wearer sees the images.
Does this scare the sh#*$ out of anyone else? Although this technology is cool and all, I treasure my eyes and would never want a faulty device rendering me blind in one (or both) eyes. Reading that paragraph makes me shudder.
If they are going to mass produce these devices one day, don't you think a few will be released to the public that don't work properly? I hope not... Just spreading the FUD
"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch." - Jack Nicholson
Better than the idiots I see on Rt 128 witht the Boston Herald spread out over their steering wheel while they have a coffee in one hand and a bagel in the other.
This stuff is being researched by the University of Washington with Microvision being the consumer path or whatever. They've been working on it for about 5 years with mucho funding from the military (of course). As for some of the comments about shooting a laser in your eye, these things will put less energy in your eye than normal ambient sunlight so it's quite alright, in theory, anyway. :) I've met, although briefly, the head of the research at the uw. Here's the url for the department if you're curious: The Human Interface Technology Lab (http://hitl.washington.edu)
"They're either a benefit or a hazard. If they're a benefit, they're not my problem." --Deckard
Whether people will want to wear a device that shoots laser beams into their eyeballs remains to be seen.
Now, if people could wear a device that shot lasers beams out of their eyeballs, I'm sure it'd be much more popular :-)
What would be interesting was if they were able to grow an eye that would be optimized for use with lasers.
At least 5 years until Nomad is unobtrusive...
Winton
Wouldn't this be a wonderful assassination method for the CIA? Imagine, Fidel baby killer comes home late at night after an evening of drunken totalitarian debauchery. Weaving slightly, he places his drunken and obviously dilated eye up to the scanner, then, suddenly, BLAMIE! A dime-sized hole is instantly drilled through his skull by the megawatt laser cleverly installed by Joe operative. Once again, the world is safe.
Dirty Pirate Hooker
...and combined with a LASIK(c) plug-in, it can undo the years of damage caused by sitting too close to your monitor...
Shameless plug for my photos on Flickr
From the journals of a weary traveler:
Just as I thought I would die of thirst during my travels through the desert, I saw a fresh bottle of Poland Springs spring water only a few feet in front of me. As I reached for it, my hand somehow passed right through the bottle--it was the most realistic mirage I have ever encountered.
Just then, the computer on my belt emmitted the sound of a flowing waterfall and said: don't go thirsty, "buy Poland Springs water!"
D'OH!
ByteMyCode.com: A Web 2.0 code sharing community.
No wait, that's Macrovision. Sorry.
I demand a million helicopters and a DOLLAR!
I might be missing the point here...
No might about it. You've missed it.
I demand a million helicopters and a DOLLAR!
I want one! Hook a little Palm keyboard into the device (with wireless networking built in) and have a terminal displayed in my eye. How cool is that? If you look at nature at the same time it's like having the ultimate desktop resolution and color-depth.
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I'm trying to imagine a Beowulf cluster of these, but I'm not sure where they'd all go...
The heart has reasons that reason does not understand. - Jacques Bènigne Bossuet
So once the technology gets refined a bit and you get full colour, why not put some tiny cameras on the edges of a pair of sunglasses that are hooked up to the emitters on the inside. Also get some brain wave monitors added to the sunglasses' frame and "train" the pair to learn commands like "pan" and "zoom" and "toggle nightvision" and things like that. Soon, you've got people walking around with what looks like a pair of Oaklies when really they've got the ultimate spy vision equipment. They can see things kilometres away, see infrared, nightvision, etc. No need to worry about getting blinded by a light when using nightvision either, as the signal as the emitters could be smart enough not to send anything over given thresholds. Add in some facial recognition software and he's got robocop style target acquisition. You can get mission updates or important info displayed in a cool text box or something, or even a 3D model of the building or complex you are supposed to be breaking into. Run the power to the devices up the strings that let the pair hang around your neck. Add in digital camera storing capabilities and you can be snapping photos of anything without appearing to do anything, since it's just another command that the pair is trained to pick up. Any malfunctions, just simply remove the sunglasses or disconnect the power supply and you've got an ordinary pair of sunglasses again. So yah, it's just a couple of refinements of the techonology away. Who said the movies were wrong; it's just easier to do it in Hollywood than in real life.
Jeshko
I love deadlines, especially the "whooshing" sound they make as they go flying by.
Whetherpeople will want to wear a device that shoots laser beams into their eyeballs remains to be seen. I laughed out loud at this...
GOBACK.
One thing they don't mention is what happens when you move your eyes. The natural reaction to reading or viewing something is to allow the eye to move over the object. However, this device shines a laser through the iris. Is it really designed to follow a moving target? Or are we all going to have learn to keep our eyes still in order to read the display?
Flying toasters beamed directly on your retina. Cool.
These retinal scanners are totally unsafe. They encourage people to rip out your eyes, stick them on pencils, and use them to gain entry to secure systems. A false sense of security if there ever was one.
Bryguy
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
Second, it would be useful, for example, for an executive giving a presentation. The guys who invented it could easily listen in and help point out things on a model that only s/he could see and would boost the confidence of the individuals s/he was presenting the technology to that "everyone" knew much about it.
Finally, you have a lot of work to do as a religious troll. You don't sound confident in God at all. You must tell us not that He didn't know what he was letting us do, but that He let us because He wants to punish the wreched sinners whom live on in the unholy world of the Internet.
karma is for the weak >)
Makes Phosphor burn in like a walk in the park huh?.... Although a permanante image of Cindy Crawford burned into my retna might not be such a bad thing.... With my luck it would be Rosanne Barr though....
I couldn't fail to disagree with you any less.
The device shoots a tiny laser beam that draws patterns onto the retina so that only the wearer sees the images.
No more worries about your boss looking over your shoulder at work whilst you play UT/Q3A/T2!
Check out Althea for a stable IMAP email client for X. Now with SSL!
if you look here, you'll see the highly successful *cough*liar*cough* earlier version of this...
How Jaded Are You?
People are saying driving and talking on a cell phone is dangerous. How about driving and having the morning paper or a sales report being beamed onto your eye?
You would think that Creative Labs would hold a trademark or copyright on the name "nomad" for something like this.
room101 -- how much can you stand before they break you?
(they always break you eventually)
"But staring at a fluorescent bulb in the office would likely be more dangerous. Company engineers say that their retinal-scanning displays produce light levels much lower than nationally accepted standards"
Yeah, it's well below the 32 watts of the fluorescent bulbs in my office. Of course, the energy density is bit higher when all the light is focused on a point smaller than a human hair.
Here are some of the links that I found.
International Ophthalmology Expert Joins Microvision Advisory Panel
Eye Safety FAQ about Retinal Scanning Display Technology
Quarterly Report -- "Our products may be subject to future health and safety regulation that could increase our development and production costs. Products incorporating retinal scanning display technology could become subject to new health and safety regulations that would reduce our ability to commercialize the retinal scanning display technology. Compliance with any such new regulations would likely increase our cost to develop and produce products using the retinal scanning display technology and adversely affect our financial results."
I wish I could report that the company was taking the possible health risks of its product seriously, but that is not the impression that I get from my web search. There is no word on controlled clinical studies of the product's effects on people with normal vision, for example.
Tim
I'm glad they're finally releasing this commercially. Wearable fans have known about the project for a long time, but the devices were only being sold to "system integrators", meaning corporations interested in designing computers to use them. I was going to buy from one of their competitors (who don't use retinal scanning) sometime in the next few months, but now I'll wait.
Keen keen.
I've seen an earlier version of this. It was a bit bulky, and it looks like the real change in Nomad over other older Microvision products is in the size. Still, it's not exactly like it doesn't occlude your vision. The unit does block your view a bit, kind of like looking through a very strange barrier; that's the only way I can describe it. You also have to line it up correctly, or else I imagine (they didn't turn it on until it was lined up right when I tried it) it must look pretty funky. They aim to make full-color versions, but the limitation there is the blue laser. It seems there isn't a suitably portable blue laser yet.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
I know if I see someone walking around in public with a laser on thier head, pointing into their eye, I don't think Nomad, I think No Date.
The real problem is that people who have optic nerve degeneration or retinal damage are not going to benefit at all from this invention. Why in the world would people with normal vision want to wear something like this? It seems that this is an invention with no market whatsoever.
Dancin Santa
Just picture it, you go to Starbucks to get your double mocha frap or whatever the hell is there and instead of seeing people sitting around reading books: they're all staring blank at a wall through semi-normal look glasses. Most public places people will be staring off into space and either typing or concentrating on what they're reading. ::grin:: We're all going to look like freaks.
::grin::
And just my two cents: I think this looks really cool but I'm with a lot of the other people who posted that they're gunna wait to see what happens to these peoples eyes after a few years. I'm quite fond of my eyes and I'm not going to buy one until I'm sure I'm not gunna end up with a page of my favorite book burned into them.
> How many of us could survive without our
> cellphones, our pda's, our beepers, our internet
> access, and email ?
Ehh, I only break a sweat when I'm without online games or pr0n, like I am now because of just moving.
Anyway, it's amazing, when TV became omnipresent people decried wasting time that would better be spent reading or listening to the radio all night long.
This is just a brief stop on the way to borgification, so enjoy it while it lasts.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
Well, i think. Anyone else know?
I hope that soon, retina scan devices will change authentification as we know today. Users are fools!!! How many type passwords UPPERCASE when there are lowercase?
http://www.sorgonet.com
This technology is already being used by these guys: http://www.existech.com
Sounds interesting. If the device operates on the principle on a laser, I bet the laser could be modified to not be affected by the lens of the eye. This could have interesting effects for people with less then perfect vision.
You could read a digital book without glasses, or see a HUD for your car. Pictures could be taken with a digital camera and super-imposed. Night vision and/or infrared vision without bulky vision gear perhaps?
The biggest problem would be screen burn in. You remember what happened to those monitors that only shown green. Burned in. Can't let your retina get burned. Also, any kind of a power spike would fry your eye. How about a virus written for these devises communicated via built in cell phone? Not cool.
I think I will go on the list of people who think this is a good idea, but will wait a couple of years for everyone else to try it first. "I got the first one on the block!".... Hey, more power to you. I will learn from your "beta test."
Lawrence Lessig is my personal hero.
can be found at http://www.mvis.com/
Laser beams right into my eyes? But I need those eyes to see! I'm just going to wait until they can implant the monitor directly into my brain.
- Relativistic? That's barely Newtonian!
Can you say power surge?
Should've used this one: http://images.slashdot.org/topics/topicms.gif
I'm still waiting for it to work the other way around.
Being able to see what's on my computer through a device strapped to my head has limited application in my world. What I'm looking for is the computer to see what I see through a device strapped to my head.
The smartasses among us will be quick to point out that this technology exists and that it's called a camera but I need something smaller than that.
Photography has always suffered from the need to tote around equipment and, while that equipment has become smaller and smaller, there is always the need to remove it, ready it, and take the shot. I believe that once a camera is developed that is small enough to fit comfortably over the eye, that doesn't impair the users vision, and that can be activated with a minimal amount of effort, we will see a greater number of pictures which right now are just missed opportunities in viewers minds. Art, science, news; everything will benefit from the ability to instantly shutter away a picture for later use. We shouldn't be projecting in, we should be looking out.
My thought is that a lot of you guys are being a bit harsh. They say it isn't going to cause blindness I am willing to suspend my disbelief for a while. The thing that really caught my attention was that on there somewhere they said that the images projected onto the retina could be seen by some legally blind people. They certainly don't need to worry about it blinding them, and can you imagine a blind guy being able to see with something like that? I mean, it would probably have to sense where everything was with some kind of sonar type thing, and display in wire-frame, but that's better than nothing I say. Hmm, there are some limitations though, would it work inside a car? What kind of range? Anyway, this idea interests me because I have had a friend who was legally blind and I wonder if he could be helped with some kind of "bionic eyes"...
Jaw drops... salivate.. get stiffy.. cmon geek chicks ;)
imagine going to the opera and discretely surfing pr0n, or going to church and watching the game, with nobody being able to tell.... hmmmmmmm