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A Computer Display in Ordinary Sunglasses?
DonaldP asks: "I've been making head-mounted displays for wearable computers for a couple or three years now; I think my latest and greatest 3rd Generation display is a big step ahead! It fits inside a normal-looking pair of sunglasses. Why would I do something like this? As far as I know, this is one of the only ones available out there - the only others that come close are made by MicroOptical Corporation, but it's been years and you STILL can't actually BUY any of their products. With large companies like Xybernaut holding plenty of patents on wearable computers and going strong, is there a place for my little one-man company? Any tips for making it on my own? Or is my best hope to hook up with a giant?" I've been waiting for a nice and portable HMD for years, and this has the advantage of not making you look like a Borg reject (although some of you might like that look). HMDs still have a way to go to be practical for everyday use (many still require perfect vision or contacts because they are clumsy with glasses) but I'm sure these drawbacks will be fixed with time.
In 1987, I saw an Apple video (taking place in the future, intended to be a nostalgic review of Apple's past) where Woz wore a paper of MacGlasses, complete with tiny disks that inserted into the side of the frame (shades of the MMC/SD crads) - pretty cool, too bad it didn't happen. (The video also had a newsacst where IBM announced their latest main frames were compatible with teh Apple 3000 series mainframe.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
As cool as these kinds of displays are, how do you input data? I mean voice recognition is nice, but there is the problem of privacy, annoying other people and if I recall most people don't think as effectively while speaking outloud (heh kind of obvious).
Solve the man/machine interface and you won't need to make the displays.
-- Button up, your ignorance is showing
"Why would I do with something like this?"
Hmmm, I have private investigator friends (insurance fraud, they don't get to carry guns and drive Ferraris) that would love a pair of completely innocuous shades that would let them point say... a video camera in a suitcase one way while they are looking elseware.
We actually had a discussion about this the other day, wondering if you could do it wireless and have the antenna and power pack/receiver disguised as a "sports loop".
I would like this same rig because I am just plain a Bad Person ;}
Is there an optometrist on /. who can answer this question? (year right!) Staring at an object so close to your eyeballs can't be good. Wouldn't it strain your eyes a lot more than conventional monitor?
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
The focal point is actually far in front of you. On my unmodified M1, I have to wear my glasses (I'm near-sighted) to read the display.
--The more you know, the less you know.
While the covert HMD is a really neat spiffy product, the bariers to entry into the hardware market are quite high. In order to compete you'll need to be able to finance production operations (the easy part) and incur substancial legal expenses to insure that none of the many wearable computing patents - mentioned as being held by large players in this market - apply to your hardware, and in the event that some can ce construed to apply, you'll need to handle licensing which will probably be at great expense as well. Furthermore, although the SSSCA will probably not add requirements to your hardware but given the current legislative enviroment, similar legislation that would apply, might appear at any moment. As we all know - the wearable computer maker has not reached mass aceptance yet so without sufficient customer base for the computing hardware, the market for the display hardware - normally some percentage of the market for the compute platform - will be extremely small, regardless of how cool the hardware is. For these reasons I'd recommend considering licensing your hardware to a larger player in the market. While you won't derive nearly as much revenue as if you marketed the product yourself, the revenue you collect will be predictable and will be recieved within a timeframe (and I'm making an assumption about Anubis Enterprises) acceptable for small businesses to maintain solvency.
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
Three questions:
I wear prescription glasses. Would this cause any problems?
Is it possible to use this with a Windows-based computer? (Don't freak out - I have my reasons and they are valid ones)
Can you drop the price a hair?
Seriously, I can foresee a great number of uses for this. I would suggest you go for it, but hire a patent lawyer to do some research for you. There's probably a ton of prior art on this by other companies, but there might be some government research you can base off of.
Anyway, good luck and all.
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
I think it's called "Retinitus Pigmentosa."
A friend of a friend of mine is gradually losing his sight to it. Apparently he can still see just a limited area at the center of his former field of vision. But he still uses the comuter (and watched the WTC collapse).
If the "eye strain" objection cited elsewhere isn't a factor, something like this might at least return a full view of the computer screen (and then, movies? live video feed?
Something I have considered for quite awhile (Back in '94!) is how to get around in virtual worlds. The solution I came up with is by no means 'true VR', but instead aims to be natural. The idea is that you have a platform a couple inches thick by about 8 feet square. (The size could change depending on what is most comfortable for the majority of people.) The platform would then be divided up like this:
/|
<code>
________
|\
| \___/ |
| | | |
| |___| |
| / \ |
|/_____\|
</code>
The user would normally stand on the center square. Each of the divisions ahead, behind, to the left, and to the right represents a direction that the user may wish to go. While in the virtual world, all the user has to do to move forward, is to take a single step forward onto the division in front of him. Similarly the division behind him would cause him to back up. The left and right would strafe.
The left and right could potentially be a 'turn' as it is in most FPS, but I fealt that the turning should rather be handled by the HMD (say via a Boom Tracker) due to the fact that side stepping is a more natural result to taking a step left and moving your head is a more natural 'turn' motion.
Anyway, that was my idea and since I don't have the time to build it, I'm sharing it with everyone here. A tip on building tho. It would probably be easiest to take a cheapo gamepad and strip it out for its interface. That way the electronics and software will be compatible with existing and future programs.
If anyone builds one of these things, I'd love to hear about it. Shoot me a mail at: jNOSPAMbanes@techie.com
Just remove the NOSPAM.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
You should also try and figure out a way to get your page posted someplace where it'll be seen by about a quarter-million geeks who've been dreaming of something like this for at least ten years.
Seriously, at $1500 a pop, limited to 320x240 greyscale, and with a 2-month waiting list (and that was presumably before today), I'd guess that you're not quite at the point where every single one of us will buy one, but even so, you probably did just secure at least a few orders. (It'd be interesting if you'd post back in a few days with the results.) The sweet spot would probably be if you could hit 640x480 and at least 8-bit color without going too far over $600.
Still, this is already pretty nice -- I'd call myself "tempted", but not quite "seriously tempted", as it is; definitely interested enough to keep an eye on your progress. The price point is probably more important than the features: I'd be more likely to buy it as it is if you got the price down than at the current price if you got the features up.
Good luck.
David Gould
main(i){putchar(340056100>>(i-1)*5&31|!!(i<6)<< 6)&&main(++i);}
The picture for wearable fans is getting steadily better. Consider an Ipaq with wireless package, pcmcia video card, IBM 1Gb Microdrive, a Twiddler2, and one of these HMDs. The specs to hook up a Twiddler2 are already out there. You run linux from here and you're all set.
:)
Well, maybe you might want another battery
Sure it has a redundant screen. I used to hate that idea. But now I realize that it just means I can still use the machine in situations where the wearable is not appropriate (like the beach) or when I've already taken it off.
Every year these little handhelds get more powerful and the peripheral market around them gets richer. I think this is the critical mass that will finally allow the normal (non-EE) person to put together usable and powerful wearables. The HMD is really the missing link.
Just as an aside, I wrote the author about modifying my own M1 to his first-gen sunglasses hack some time ago, and he refused to do the job (for money, I mean) because he felt that his current design required too much "tuning" for each person's ergos. I guess he's licked that problem, and it's nice to know that some people really aren't just in it for the money. He's a good guy.
How about if you could figure a way to work this with a PDA? The resolution and lack of color would seem to work well with a Palm OS guy. You'd have to work on the interface a bit, but it'd be relatively cool to have your address book handy right where you could see it. You could scribble notes to yourself while walking down the street and what not. HMD+PDA+Expedia = easy navigation, or a quick car crash. (You get my point, though.) Combine your HMD with the black and white Clie's with the jog dial, and you may be able to sell some. Especially to those tech-crazy Japanese.
Where the wind blows, the tumbleweed goes.
A year or two ago, Newsweek did a feature on eBooks.
The chief lament was that they were more incovenient than real books.
Elsewhere in the same issue, there was a story about computer displays embedded in (albeit oversized at the time) eyeglasses.
EUREKA!!!!!!!!
Ummm...would you like the moon with that too?
...use your imagination
Respectfully, this is WAY beyond what the state of the art can support right now, or in the foreseeable future.
It's a chicken-and-egg problem...the masses won't be interested in wearables until they are more or less equivalent to desktops. But until the masses are interested, the major players won't devote major funding to getting wearables up to desktop level. Which means that only hobbyists and small businesses will do it. Which means that progress will be very slow.
On the other hand, I think you may be overestimating what you really need. Instead of thinking "What do I need from a wearable in order to do the things that I do on my desktop?" try thinking "What can I do on my wearable that I can't do on my desktop?"
Here are some suggestions:
* have a combined MP3 player/watch/note taker/scheduler/data bank/voice-over-IP cell phone/email/pager, all in one go-anywhere device
* have a personal electronic assistant that helps you remember things based on your current surroundings and other cues (check out the Remembrance Agents Page for more details)
* broadcast video of what you're seeing back to your home basestation. If you get mugged, you have a video of the guy's face. If you see a beautiful sunset, you can watch it (admittedly on a small screen) with your sweetie later.
* mapping software that updates in realtime, showing you where you are and providing you detailed instructions on how to get to your destination.
*
Dave Storrs
4 or 5 years ago a company called Virtual Vision had sunglass based consumer displays. They nearly went under when they found there was no market for them.
They are still around and they do mostly vertical market stuff now and they've become a subsidiary of eMagin which makes super small LCD displys (like 1280x1024 in less than 1 inch)
Since the sunglass thing they also make Borg like half sunglass attachements. The uses I've heard of are for example, a surgeon can wear one and have all your vital signs in his view (or just at a glance to the side of his forward view) at all times so instead of having to look up at all those machines hanging over the operating table he can concentrate on the surgery.
Another I've heard of is supposedly it takes a truckload of manuals to cover maintainence on commerical airliners. Well, they made a belt worn wireless networked computer connected to one of their displays with voice input so instead of having to bring the truck over and search through the paper manuals while trying to fix something the mechanic could just call it up on the display he's wearing and glance at it while he works on the problem area.
PS: My Father works for that company.
Imagine, you could have a database of faces of people you know, and have a little camera on those glasses which reconigses a face when you push the little red button on your pda.
..", and it pulls up all emails from that person last week from all their known account, and auto opens any that have that subject in that subject line, or reference to it in the body.
Then to the side of your vision (assumming higher res) brings up things like birthdays. Then you attach a mic listening for keywords like "..the email you sent me last week about
Sure, you need more computing power, better batterys, a mini camera, but the technology is not 10 years away...
So, some punk ass kid gets one of these things for his birthday. Its got a camera, OCR software, and a computer algebra package. All of a sudden he starts pulling A's in his math classes without learning a thing...
If these things get mass produced, and I hope they do, they will probably be treated by academia like the origonal pocket calculators. If you get caught with one, you get expelled. Watching this industry mature is going to be very interesting. Its just one step closer to the cyberpunk lifestyle in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. And damn, it is cool.
Kan jeg få en pils, vær så snill?
Sounds like you have the start of a working model. The point about eyesight problems is an important one. I used to work (as a softie) making scanners. The optics guys there had been demonstrated simmilar devices. These had been carefully measured to proove that the image was focused on your retina when your eye was relaxed. Properly set up it sounds like these devices will be a lot better for your eyes. Improperly set up and I expect you'll be screwed. Could the device detect if it had become inappropriately calibrated? What happens if I sit on it at the beech, drop it in my beer, then put them on backwards (I know its called evolution, but imagine a reasonable accident!)
I doubt that you could market this on your own. I'd expect you'd need some technical help, you do all the mechanics, optics and software by yourself! wow! but are all these areas up to the required standard for sale? Maybe you could find some partners or contract some good people. Sorry to have to use a dirty word but you will need some "marketing" to! Can't believe you'd want to spend the time necessary doing this.
Are there independant testing labs for the safety of optical devices? (I think there are but have no details.) If this was established and I could see your device working, send me the bill.