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Retinal-Scanning Screen Prototypes
Troed writes: "Microvision demonstrated a prototype display that uses three leds and a mirror to display SVGA
graphics from something small enough to be put into cellphones." Not
a lot of technical details, but what's there looks good. It'll be
a few years at best before the prototypes turn into real products, and
I'm not quite sure I want to beta test this one, but I sure can't
wait for when they are ready for prime time.
nope. here's the official list :
Herc/MDA 80 x 25 text
CGA 320 x 200
EGA 640 x 350
VGA 640 x 480
SVGA 800 x 600
XGA 1024 x 768
SXGA 1280 x 1024
UXGA 1600 x 1200
it would be interesting to see if this technology could work in reverse as well. Read the information from the retina that the eye is seeing, and then access usefull and pertinant information. For instance, you are looking at the night stars, and the computer locates and displays an astronomy chart over them, helping you to find and name constellations.
>>Not until someone actually DOES and sues the manufacturer for millions of dollars. Remember McDonalds and the lawsuit that required them to put "Warning! Coffee is extremely hot! Drink with caution!" on their coffee cups?
Do you remember that the woman got third degree burns, needed skin grafts, spent a couple weeks in intensive care and offered to settle for ~$20K in hospital fees?
Do you remember that McDonald's rebuffed that offer?
Do you remember McDonald's having received hundreds of complaints in the past about the coffee temperature?
Do you remember that after losing the trial, McDonald's lowered the coffee temperature to something consumable by human beings?
Or do you only remember how the media characterized the case?
Well, the technology seems basically identical to Nintendo's virtual boy, but with three leds (red, green, & blue) instead of virtual boy's one (red).
Same concept: a flashing LED is scanned by an oscillating mirror, and you hold the whole thing up close to your eyes.
The Virtual Boy came with an automatic-pause feature, wherein it FORCED you to take a break every 15 minutes. Additionally, a strong warning was stuck right on the machine... it was NOT to be used by young children, because PERMANENT EYE DAMAGE could occur.
Yikes.
> Any kind of light ultimately damages the eye.
As far as I can tell, that's not actually correct. UV and the bluer light frequencies cause damage, but provided the intensity isn't too high the lower frequencies cause no known damage.
In this case there is no reason the intensity would be sufficient to cause any damage.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"While working for them briefly in 1998 I had the opportunity to test the 800 x 600 VGA retinal display and it was impressive.
They don't over hype their technology as much as they should and most of their efforts are in military contracts Vs consumer electronics.
In 1998 Microvision's business plan listed the consumer electronics market as 10 to 15 years away from using their technology in any form.
They focus on military, aviation and medical applications. The coolest thing about retinal displays is that you can paint images on the retina without disrupting your normal field of vision. This, for example, would allow a doctor to have all your vital signs imaged on the retina while they performed an operation, or a pilot to view flight and/or weapons data without taking their eyes off the sky.
Microvision bought the technology/patents from the University of Washington. The majority of employees that work there spent many years in academics (Optical-Physics PhDs). As a result the company culture is very unique and unfortunately slow paced.
They focus on improving the resolution, testing the ergonomics, and in addition, MEMS (Microelectromechanical Systems) work. The military research contracts pay their bills but don't necessarily make them rich. They know their technology will rule them all...just not for another decade. For now it is all about research and patents.
Microvision will never manufacture any form of their product in mass quantities regardless of what their press releases may say. If wearable computer and smart-phone manufacturers think they know how to implement Microvision's technology for the NBT then by all means they'll help make a prototype and sell them a license to build millions of gadgets.
Since there seem to be a ton of unthought-out posts on this I thought I'd lend some words. Although it's at the risk of only skimming most of the posts as I don't have the time.
The research for this, or at least the bulk of it, is being done at the University of Washington in the Human Interface Technology Lab (HITL). I've been to a presentation by the guy who heads the project and it actually is pretty cool. I first heard about it long ago. Another post said Microvision started talking about it in 1993 and I think that's about when I first heard about it. There's a large chunk of funding coming from the military, of course, and they'll have the first crack at it if not already. Also, Microvision had either a small prototype or a simulation of one at a job fair that I attend in the last year and it was pretty dang sweet I have to say. The prototypes that are at the UW (yes, they have in fact built them) use diode lasers in stead of LEDs. Truly, the diode lasers are fine as they put far less light in your eye than ambient light does but LEDs are more public-masses friendly. Anyway, the UW page for this is hitl.washington.edu/research/vrd/. They've probably got more technical details than Microvision does.
"They're either a benefit or a hazard. If they're a benefit, they're not my problem." --Deckard
I'll repost this, since the "anonymous coward" stuff tends to get ignored. This particular prototype was a full color cell phone demonstrator. It may be somewhat inconvienent to hold a phone up to your face, but you have to admit that a 21" virtual display might be nice... Of course resolution needs to be increased, of course it will be a year or two before you see the cell phone product. However, we do have a SVGA heads up product that began shipping this year. It is a monocrome red see through display that is bright enough to use in full sunlight. It's basically the same thing that the main chick was wearing in the begining of Final Fantasy (sprits within). It is being targeted for things like medical (surgury) and aircraft repair where you want to be looking at what you're working on while also having some data in your field of view (heart rate, schematics, whatever). It's a little spendy at the momment, so we aren't going for the general market, but you could do it in a binoccular setup to get 3D rendering or whatever. And I know you all probably will dissagree, but for an augmented reality display, you really only want monochrome anyhow. Full color images would block your view of the world and reduce functionality. Of course, we have a variety of full color prototypes. The goal is mobile computing, and anything else you can think of where you want a big bright display that doesn't take up any space. Ford, among others, is looking at using the technology in cars for in dash displays etc. Some of it is described at our web site, www.mvis.com. It works. It's cool. Don't knock it...
You've got it exactly. It's a screenless projector (or your retina is the screen), though it does have a lense to bounce it into your eye (or at least the head mounted ones do). The cell phone prototype sets the focus depth with a physical stop that you set against your head. The head mounted product, has a depth of field adjustment (as you mentioned) so you can set the image focus to match your preffered field of view. I believe (though I'm not sure) that the focus plane can be from about 2 feet and out. The NOMAD product is designed to be used while working on something, so the focus is usually very close. It really works quite well, and I haven't used the newest models.
The concept is not that an image will hang in the air (like you said, impossible). However, if there is an exit pupil in the dash and you look at it, you will see what appears to be a large screen superimposed onto you view of the dashboard. If you make the focus of the image significantly different than the where the dash is, you will only see the image (think looking through a screen door, you only see the screen if you focus on it.).
I think the real probem with this thread is that it started on the cell phone prototype, which has some flaws (being a first gen prototype and all).
The real products that we make are all head mounted displays.