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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.
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!
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
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.
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Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Trye http://www.mvis.com, as indicated in the main text.
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."
now we have retina burn-in
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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.
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How could they refuse?
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
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
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.
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...
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!
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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'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.
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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.
Should've used this one: http://images.slashdot.org/topics/topicms.gif
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"...