Slashdot Mirror
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.
Start small. Make a few of 'em by hand, make sure they all work, and sell them on EBay. Create a nice business oriented web site and link to it in your EBay listings. Research traditional marketing priciples and apply them. A catchy domain name helps, too.
This is something you could start now for very little $$. Trying to find someone to manufacture these things en masse would be a pain in the ass and likely require a huge investment. I say, make them all by hand for a couple of years until you are so flooded with orders that you just can't keep up. Then take it to the next step.
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig
"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
Although I think this technology is very cool, I think a key thing missing is the lack of a video camera. While he does mention that this drastically increases the size, it would make this technology MUCH more useful.
There is some usefulness for these sorts of displays (heads-up current information like current stock quotes for example), without some new input device to control such a radically different gadget from what we are used to. Somehow I don't see people 10 years from now running pine off to the side!
While perhaps some kind of hand-pad would be a good short-term compromise (What do people think should be hooked up to one of these, maybe a Handspring Expansion?), the most intuitive and relevant inputs would be voice and/or sight recognition.
Imagine searching a crowd for a friend. You say aloud, "Where's Paul?" and this baby runs a face-pattern recognition algorithm to help you... Just a thought ;-)
It's all about publicity. The first thing you need to do is dupe^H^H^H^Hconvince Slashdot editors that your idea is cool, real, and one VC funding round away from changing the world as they know it.
Kevin Fox
If one integrated:
:D
3D acceleration
Head tracking
Finger motion tracking
and a sufficiently powerfull processor, it would be possible to make basically a floating keyboard out in front of you, visible stereoscopically through the glasses as being in a comfortable ergonomic position.
You could then type on this nonexistent keyboard! With headphones, it would even be possible to have audible feedback in your ears every time you hit a key.
I think it would be cool to walk around with regular sunglasses on and see time/date and other information popups appear around the edges of my vision, focussed to infinity.
I guess I'll have to wait for brain implanted chips and retinal projectors, though
How about this:
A pair of display glasses kept next to the copy machine. When it jams in location D2, the user puts them on and an animation of how to remove the jam is superimposed on the actual mechanism. The same applies to any kind of mechanical task (think fixing an automobile, or the advanced chapters of the Kama Sutra).
Or this:
A firefigter eners a burning building; it's smoky and nothing can be seen. Radar maps the suroundings and shows a wireframe model on his heads up display. (Actually, I think they have things already which can see through smoke, but perhaps they could be made lighter). Or maybe containers of hazardous materials would have a transponder that would alert the firefighter to its presence, display a red dot at its location, and show its material safety data sheet on request.
Or this:
A headset that gives a surgeon a heads up view of her patient's vital signs, displays plans she has made for complex operations, and integrates with advance sensors to give her the equivalent of x-ray vision.
Or this:
A pair of glasses that would allow people identifying rare plants or insects to compare specimens to the taxonomic databases. They could even be integrated with a video microscope so the user doesn't have to bend of a stereo microscope all day.
Personally, I'd like to get rid of computer monitors. They're an ergonomic disaster, and scaling them up in size creates all kinds of space and energy problems. But I could probably think of a hundred other applications for them in every day life. I believe computer enhanced reality has a huge potential.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.