Slashdot Mirror
Laser HUD Projected on Retina
Ligur writes: "The scoop is at the Seattle P-I: 'This fall, Bothell-based Microvision Inc. plans to give people the same cybernetic experience that once existed only in a screenwriter's imagination.
Through a device called Nomad, people will be able to read information from a small, wearable computer that projects an image over their normal vision.'" Looks like they've come a long way in the past three years.
Here is a mirror.
Alan Thicke's Journal
My Slashdot ads say "
Anyone else worried about having a laser beam blasted at their retina?
"Hey Mike, let's go hack Fred's laser while he's out at lunch, we'll crank up the laser's output power..." teeheeheeee what a wheeze.
And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour Isaiah 3:5
It would be interesting to see how this would be integrated with our current set of home devices. Right now it appears the cost is a bit too much for the average geek.
Something I would really want pointing at my eye! I'm sure it's safe, but can you imagine the marketing problems?
Still, this does sound like promising technology.
The problem that I have with their technology is that it seems to have a very narrow range of focus. Unless you're pretty still, it's out of focus. Unless there is some way to really anchor this unit to your head (like maybe some surgical implants!), I'm not really interested.
Sure, it's all fun and games until airport security starts ripping them off of people at the gates. Then we'll have starry-eyed cyborgs blundering into baggage racks and falling down all over the place :)
(yes, I feel sorry for the guy who got worked over by customs, but I also find the idea of confused cyborgs running into things very funny. So sue me.)
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
How about my contact lenses? Will they get messed up by this?
Nothing like a piece of melting plastic in your eye to wake you up. I highly recommend it.
Sent from your iPad.
...into the laser with your remaining eye.
I hope this HUD doesn't have the same problem as old monocrhome monitors with burn-in. That would suck a lot.
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
don't be so serious dude, laugh a little.
And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour Isaiah 3:5
It doesnt look like you can see through it. I mean, it covers your entire eye. So while it's cool, you wont be walking around like the terminator any time soon.
This is a really cool advane, but I have just a few concerns:
- Field of view will be limited to the Centre of the Retina, mostly for reading purposes... you can't exactly look over to the far-right of your retina...
- Some people have weak/damaged retina's, is a laser safe? (I'm not assuming a med laser here...)
- For people with severe Myopic conditions and the like, how clear will the image be after going through corrective lenses?
I'd love to try this thing!
Man, how many devices are going to be called Nomad in the near future? It used to be my Quake name and now everyone uses it =)
- Nomad (portable Genesis)
- Nomad Jukebox (mp3 player)
- Nomad (laser HUD)
Any others?
The Red Pill
the thing Gene Starwind uses while fighting in the Outlaw Star? ;) You'd always see a little red laser flash right into his eye.
I could see this being used the same way Gene used it, except maybe the Air Force would take advantage of it.
Portable HUD, I like it.
proton != antielectron
For those of you who missed, I am of course referring to this guy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/14/technology/circu its/14MANN.html
Hopefully, you can also make this shoot out the other way, ala Locutus of the Borg ;)
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Oh bother.
I think the important thing to remember is that they are shooting for something really usable in 5 years.
I would think this a bit optimistic if it weren't for how rapidly they have gotten this far.
All the posts about shortcomings miss the point. They know about those shortcoming but they may have many of them fixed in a much shorter timespan than anyone would have imagined even a few years ago.
The potential is astounding.
.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
What a copy protection scheme, beam the movies right into the eye.
Soon we can have individual viewing licensees, you put this on to watch a movie and get this message "You are not licensed to watch this movie!"
I bet Disney is already lined up to use it!!!
Oh, wrong Micro-vision, god I hope I did not give them any ideas!
"Some say the end is near, some say we will see Armageddon soon!
I certainly hope so, I could use a vacation from this stupid shit!"
Tool enema
Wise men speak because they have something to say, Fools because they have to say something!!!!
Wouldn't that mean your vision fades in and out if you watch a DVD? No thanks.
sulli
RTFJ.
Combine this with a wearable computer to project the naked bodies of porn stars over people we see every day. Now, instead of undressing the girl in marketing with my eyes I can undress her with my cyborg-eye.
does it play MP3's? :) and is it or is it not DMCA Compliant?
-motardo
A single-pixel laser beam moves so fast across the eye that the light creates lingering images which become as much a part of one's vision as scenery in the background.
Since it moves quickly, the beam does not stay in one place long enough to burn a hole in any one particular area.
and you can watch it when uo're in that dull meeting and nobody can tell
--Mike--
The future is being suppressed.
UW is the University of Wisconsin, not Washington. Just because you happen to register uw.edu first, does not make it right.
dinner: it's what's for beer
This sounds a lot like several science fiction shows/movies. Isn't this how the Total Recall device worked? and I'm sure there were others.
Seems like every time I think an idea on a TV show is good, someone goes and invents it for real... I'm starting to think the only sci-fi ideas that I won't see in my lifetime are the ones that are actuall physically impossible.
(Spudley Strikes Again!)
One can only own so many nomads.
(Yes, I do have all of these)
daed si luap
let's see, off the top of my head I can think of:
:)
- connect to PDA for scheduling/email/etc
- navigational maps in a car (no need to take your eyes off the road
- HUD's in aircraft
- determining the slope of the green when putting
- EXTREMELY immersive FPS (when the technology advances a bit
- hook to camera to get a 2 color display without risking your neck (military/swat/etc)
But probably the most important use...Making your friends jealous over your new toy
Zro
I've waited 20 years for these...
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
I would be interested to see if they have performed any studies (short term/long term) on the possibility of retinal damage due to projecting lasers directly on the retina. Anyone?
There's lots of stuff that folks are doing to their eyes these days that has no long term data on. For example, Viagra (yes, that Viagra) works because it is a phosphodiesterase inhibitor. We need phosphodiesterase for normal pigment turnover in the photoreceptors of the eyes and lots of evidence indicates photoreceptor loss in various models of phosphodiesterase genetic knock outs. Additionally, if you inhibit the phosphodiesterase of photoreceptors even short term, it leads to the build up of cyclic-GMP which results in increased Na+ permeability and continued deploarization of the photoreceptor membrane potential. The end result is that the photoreceptor no longer responds to light.
I wonder if folks are trading impotency for blindness. By projecting lasers on retinas are we trading more information for blindness?
On the other hand, projecting laser images onto the retina could certainly benefit those that suffer from various forms of vision loss. Perhaps by mapping out where folks have lost vision in their retinas, it may be possible to project the outside world onto the working portions of retina or magnify certain things onto retinas as well.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Uh, I'd rather have depth perception than my stock quotes superimposed on my field of vision.. That damn thing covers that guys entire right eye!!!
This needs to be able to identify what I'm looking at so that I can get more information on the subject. Things like "That tree is a Larch" or "That guy is the perfect size for kicking his ass and taking his clothes".
Every person walking down the street gets rendered to your eyes as Ali Larter.
Don't like the color or your car - write a mod so you see it as you like.
Change fonts on signs/books/etc... as you wish with OCR.
An interesting technology. Long-term it looks like it has a lot of potential. But for the time being, it looks like MicroOptical (http://www.microopticalcorp.com/) is a better choice for wearables. They're less obtrusive and they can already do color. And, while they're still not cheap, they are cheaper.
I definitely want to see power-consumption and resolution specs for Nomad, though!
Anybody else bothered by the fact that the article kept describing this as a holographic display?
-chrism
I thought it said 'Macrovision' rather than 'Microvision' and wondered how your vision constantly changing brightness could be considered a good thing :)
..conditions? The effect in bright sunlight would be quite different to that of very low light conditions. Indeed in very low light conditions the eyes sensitivity may be significantly reduced. Even though red light preserves night vision best.
The only advantage this has over other HUDs, insofar as I can tell, is low power consumption.
Wake me up when it has red, green and blues lasers and cost $200.
I was just thinking, "Hmm, I know some one is going to put something up about pr0n!" :) Hey, if WAP pr0n is profitable. . .
I can't wait till they integrate a RGB unit that can display any color and create a full color image. Then I can beam a movie directly into my brain.
McD
People who are against human cloning must be bitter they are not good enough to be cloned.
The article said that people who are legally blind (most likely because their eyes don't focus correctly) can see the laser image pasted on their retinas.
Attach this device to a head-mounted camera (even a cheap web-cam would work) and you could pretty much restore vision, much like hearing aids work. I would love to see these things helping the average person, as well as professionals who need the extra edge (doctors, astronauts, etc).
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
I always wanted a '55.
I've recently noticed a trend: /. doesn't really post any interesting news stories anymore. I don't know if this is due to recent events being slowish or whatever, but the quality of the site has been ESPECIALLY bad. I know /. jumped the shark a long time ago, but on the ski slope of quality, we're at some sort of "interest canyon" where /. sucks more than ever. Has anyone else noticed /.'s suckage over the past two weeks?
this sig limit is too small to put anything good h
It's been in Serious Sam several years ago?
What do you mean Serious Sam is not real life? They're not using UNREAL engine!
Make even shorter URLs - 8LN.org
Rename the screen saver Mystify to "Misty-Eye".
I don't know...the thought of direct retinal imaging with a laser makes me feel awkward.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
It seems like this technology might be more likely to appear in helmets first, like those used for Motorcycles or Racing. This also seems like a place where this technology would be more useful.
It would also be easier to get these ppl to try the technology. Of course, I'm sure it's obvious that the military would find this technology most useful for soldiers in the field...
Not dangerous? HA! You just wait until you see someone driving down the road talking on the cell phone in one hand, holding a cigarette in the other, listening to XM-radio, reading the newspaper sitting on the steering wheel and playing Q3 on their PDA being projected onto their retina!
Seriously though, this is just going to become another one of those things that you cuss at people for trying to do while they drive.
This device reminds me of the display Hiro uses in Neal Stephemson's "Snow Crash." No monitor, per se, but instead, a laser paints his eye with the image of the metaverse. Same idea, it seems. I like it (my 21 inch monitors are so bulky!), but I agree with an earlier post that these devices should be held under the same kind of scrutiny that medical eqipment is. The innovation is great (and it's about time!) but it _must_ be safe.
Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.
Hush up. Everyone knows the UW (aka, UDub) == The University of Washington.
...called the Spectrum. 24 bit svga 800*600, configurable as a stereoscopic binocular display. Sounds like quake through this thing would be incredible.
"If you're thinking what I'm thinking, you're right." -
Yet Another Retinal Projection Story...
Nothin but vapor to see here, folks.
This has the same article in it posted in June.
Totally non-sequitur reference to DMCA! Yay!
- Have a picture
This guy finds a pair of sunglasses that act as a HUD for everything that he looks at.
Very cool book, it's worth a read and maybe a Slashdot write-up.
It doesnt look like you can see through it.
The article says:
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.
Note: it "does not block the user's vision."
t'nera semordnilap
Maybe they'll come out with screensavers for this device so the laser won't linger long enough in one area to burn a hole in your retina.
Flying toasters, laser style!
That is so...scary. Out of all the senses mankind has been given, sight is the one I'm scared most of losing. Imagine if Bill Gates got in on this, and you have a blue screen of death imprinted on your sight for the rest of your life? I'm not going anywhere near one of those.
What, no advertisements onscreen??
A completely untapped mindspace...
...yeah right.
By the time any of us get ours, the thing will be programmed to display an advertisement overlaid on anything you look at.
Yet one more truly good scientific advance just waiting to be deflowered by marketing.
Imagine having a beowulf cluster of these shooting at one of your eyes!!
Wait a second...
Ok. Maybe that's not such a good idea after all.
I stole this Sig
When you think about it, though, the phenomenon makes a lot of sense. The beam is as bright as (average pixel brightness) * (total pixels on the screen). If you concentrate the brightness of the entire screen on one point, that point is going to be very bright and may well be damaged.
And that brings us to the problem here. If you burn the phosper off a little dot on your TV's picture tube, it's not the end of the world - you can just buy a new TV. But if you burn a spot in your retina, it's there forever unless you can get an eye transplant. If you used such a low-power laser or electron beam that this wouldn't happen, your picture would be too dim to see.
Mr. Uptime
Free Open Source Naked Ladies!
The monochrome display seems a little dull, doesn't it. But, hey! Just add a green laser and a blue laser... and you've got RGB! Yow!
And i guess they will have the product safe when it's out on the market. I hope they don't screw up too many beta testers' vision while developing the Nomad.
~llaurén
actually, these are Helmet Mounted Displays [HMD's] as opposed to Head (not heads) Up Displays [HUD's] so when mounted to a helmet for a pilot, it moves with your head.
~insert tech sarcasm here~
I know that several others have mentioned it, but here's a bit different take.
We all know that when you release DNA modified foods (IE Monsanto et al) you only have to show that no one can prove it causes catestrophic damage. (I know, I'm simplifiying it alot, but that's the general standing.) Since there aren't any really well funded opponents to the technology, then it pretty much sails through. The general rule seems to be...If it's for business, we don't want to hold this up, cause it might cost someone a lot of money. If it might harm someone - well, the market will fix things...
Which brings me to another issue - why do the "market driven" proponents hate the tort/legal system so much? When the system works right, the "market" determines what works by trial and error! So, if you're one of the unfortunate few to pick the wrong one, you're injured (loss of funds, health etc.) and others learn from your unfortunate mistake. It's the ones injured by the "market" process that need the legal system the most, and also the ones that deserve it the most too! So, if you love the market, then you really should love the legal system too. It's the only way a true market can be fair - or do you not care that those who you "learned" from are uncompensated Guinea Pigs?
Back to the issue at hand - what serious tests are the FDA going to require for something like this? How long will the test run? I'd hate to use a product like this, and find out in ten years that my right eye was irreparably damaged, and in my later years of life I'd loose vision from that eye! I'd bet that the requirements for testing and use are quite a bit less than we'd all assume. Lastly, I'd bet that any company that releases such a device will put the manufacturer and the seller in a shell corp, to limit the liability losses. They won't hold many assets, and will pass revenue and such to the parent. 15 years from now, provided there is some problem, good luck suing the company - they just paid out huge bonuses to the execs and went out of business.
If you think the above is poppy-cock, go do some research about the IUD Dalcon Shield. The manufacturer (who was really regulated by the FDA) got a horrible product into the market, and didn't care when it irreparably damaged many many women - many couldn't have children after their problems!
The idea's cool and all, but the real killers are in the details. How much testing is done. Who peer reviews it. How often must they report problems to the FDA, and what problems do they have to report? These and many other details will significantly impact the safety of the device. Finally, what legal liability the company might risk, will also impact how informal they are with the testing and implimentation.
I wouldn't be using the product myself for any period of time, until I understood the impacts of the following, and knew where the company stood.
Cheers!
Having gorgeous European girls throwing themselves at a handsome American like me really makes the travelling and jet-lag worth it!
Posted by Darth Randal:
You think Jay & Silent Bob are bad, one-note jokes in the comics, you should try dealing with them in real life. Yes - they are real people... real stupid people.
Trust me - any movie based on those two is gonna lick balls, because they both, in fact, lick balls. Namely, each other's.
P.S. - 'Clash of the Titans' doesn't stand the test of time.
Signed,
Darth Randal
Posted by Jay and Silent Bob:
In Reply to: Jay & Silent Bob lick balls - Darth Randal 15:25:37
All you motherfuckers are gonna pay, You are the ones who are the ball-lickers. We're gonna fuck your mothers while you watch and cry like little bitches. Once we get to Hollywood and find those Miramax fucks who are making that movie, we're gonna make 'em eat our shit, then shit out our shit, then eat their shit which is made up of our shit that we made 'em eat. Then you're all fucking next.
Love,
Jay and Silent Bob
Boobies!
Once we get olfactory manipulating things, we won't even have to shower any more. Hooraah!
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
The Chevy Nomad was actually the Corvette wagon.
Freakin' weird , huh?
Still, a cool car. I'd take one if it came my way.
Knowing from first hand experience that fire will burn your hand or that overdosing on prescription drugs is bad for you is OK. The fire will burn you every time and drugs will always do the same.
On the other hand, it is WRONG to judge a human being you have never met based on the experiences you have had with other humans of his/her kind. Why? Because human beings are different. You cannot generalize human behaviour without being a bigot.
Start expressing the opinion that certain things are just absolutely right and others are absolutely wrong.
Well, as far as I know there is no moral absolute. There are only cultural, learnt limits to acceptable behaviour and that changes from one culture to another.
People who really believe that THEY are Right and other people are Wrong are the dangerous ones. They will start wars (both secular and religious) and persecute people who disagree with them to the point of genocide. I, for one, am really concerned about GWB and the current White House cabinet members like Ashcroft and Cheney who see the world in a naive morally black and white fashion.
The owls are not what they seem
The Corvette wagon (also named Nomad IIRC) was a prototype based on the '54 Vette. Never made it into production. The Nomads were Bel Air based.
The recent Nomad concept car's styling is based on the '54 prototype.
...by now -- since the article they linked is dated Monday, June 18, 2001. Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick! June of last year!
See here. It's already been on Slashdot, even.
Yeah, the hot news is always on Slashdot, kids.
"Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive" -- hey, that's me!
I imagine this as a step toward instant translation of written foreign languages. Provided that the OCR capabilities were up to snuff, the night before you leave for Japan, you download the Japanese OCR pack into your Nomad. Then every neon sign that overloads the synapses comes to you in perfect clarity and in English.
Now if we can just figure out how to get them to appear below each sign with quotes around them...
"Goodness, how did you people live long enough to invent tools?" -Hobbes (the tiger, not the philosopher)
Except that for most of the time your brain can work around the damage.
I have lost around 13% of the retina in my left eye due to a retinal detatchment. So, I don't have a 20/20 vision in that particular eye and my peripheral vision is affected, but I don't have a black spot that I am aware of either.
It actually takes very specialized test equipment to detect the fault in my eye.
The owls are not what they seem
The one I tried was a bit bulky but I thought it was pretty cool. I could focus on object far and near and the image from the laser seemed to stay in focus the whole time. It wasn't like I had to refocus on the HUD. The beam seemed kind of bright at first but the guy was able to turn it down to where it was very comfortable.
I HATE the inevitable idiotic posting that follows, already we have many posts with the same unthinking, knee-jerk responses
I think you're missing the point here. It doesn't have to be declared safe or not safe in order to generate the "knee-jerk" responses you refer to. I don't care wheather you're a neuroscience grad student or not. You don't need to have a degree to be wise. If you extended your knowledge into a bit of psychology, you would see the problem I, as well as many other people have with this.
Lasers are potentially damaging. Retinas don't repair themselves. Let's do the math. OK. The laser this product uses is 'safe.' Says a bunch of scientists. Just like nuclear energy was. The public don't buy into what scientists tell them what is safe anymore. A precious few telling them what isn't safe is what changes public opinion (mobile phones are a prime example).
My sight is the most important thing I have. I would never *ever* put it as risk in the name of progress, just as I would never slam a Pentium 4 into my brain. Hell, I could run those floating point calculations quicker but at least I won't be worrying about overheating my chip due to poor fan throughput.
So, we finally reach my conclusion and (finally)my point. Science gets it wrong. It always will do. If there was a 0.001% risk that I could go blind from this technology, I don't consider that acceptable. The public don't have neuroscience degrees, they don't know the technicalities, yet they are the ones that are going to have to use this product in the end. We learn from experience what is bad for us. Fire is bad, stabbing ourselves with forks is bad, shining things into our eyes is bad.
The science behind it can contradict my view all it wants. It won't change my mind on the matter.
For more direct access
Unfortunately along with the trash, plenty of qaulity posts get modded to -1 becuase prejudice doesn't care for the truth. The rating system is a collosal failure overall. Id rather wade through the crud than miss a great post becuase little johnny didn't like having his hacker buddy dissed.
Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
Recall (or rather Rekall, to be true to the movie/book), worked by implanting the memories of the event directly into your head. This is much simpler; it's basically a CRT that uses your retina as the screen. Think of this as the way the Terminator saw the world, only not in red monocolor.
Which is not to say that the potential isn't amazing. In 10 years these things'll probably be about as cumbersome and expensive as ordinary glasses and have fantastic color and resolution. Combined with portable computing power and/or wireless networking and you have the knowledge of the world at your command everywhere you go.
Seems like every time I think an idea on a TV show is good, someone goes and invents it for real... I'm starting to think the only sci-fi ideas that I won't see in my lifetime are the ones that are actuall physically impossible.
Heck, why stop there? How many people a hundred years ago could have imagined the stuff we take for granted today? We're much better than our ancestors at imagining the changes tomorrow may bring, but we're certain to be surprised nontheless.
Dyolf Knip
Still, this does sound like promising technology.
Sure, all technologies *sound* promising, but what have those technologies delivered, other than a society of asocial fat-asses who complain that no one loves them even as they plot out the next Enron scheme?
It's a brave future these technologists see for us, a place where you don't have to *see* poor people or urban blight or even your fellow fat-asses--from the article:
"Eventually we will be able to get the resolution so clear and the images will look so real, that you may not be able to tell anymore what is real and what is being created by the computer you're wearing," Evans said.
Now *that* sounds like the perfect world--your vision enhanced so that all the dirty parts of existance are pushed to the background by buxom anime characters, your surroundings cleanly filtered into one rosy worldview that guarantees a market for Frosted Flakes.
Where's my soma?
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, The Histories
1) a laser is a single frequency of light, meaning that it only selects VERY few molecules and heats those
2) you can see it, so obviously it's causing a reaction
3) that reaction has to be violent because you only have a very small subset of detection molecules that you can trigger and the signal needs to be strong enough to notice
result : you get a lot of very local, and strong, heat sources on your retina, which is something that just doesn't occur in nature, and your eye probably isn't prepared for it.
They've been saying they had this technology since, like, 1998. Well, maybe they do, but they certainly aren't in a hurry about getting it into customers' hands, are they?
I was really excited about this company a few years ago, but now I'm somewhat more sceptical: they've had 4 years with nothing but vapor announcements and a nice website.
Property law should use #'EQ, not #'EQUAL.
when companies start paying to broadcast images onto your eye.
Everytime you see a car... "Microsoft: Where do you want to go today?"
Everytime you see a bottle... "Isn't it Miller time?"
Everytime you see your girlfriend... "AOL: It can't get any easier than this."
heh, oops. I meant "microvision" of course. And how did you know about the RF modulator? Are you the one sending me those signals? must ... fight ... mind ... control!</kirk>
"If you're thinking what I'm thinking, you're right." -
The Windows blue screen of death burned into my retinas for life.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
It won't be cool till I can run the only real OS XP
Yeah - that's my student account.
I only use it for student and university related business.
I DO use my Hotmail account for general mail.
At least I GAVE an e-mail address. Coward.
Kevin Christie
Neuroscience Program
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
crispiewm@hotmail.com
While it would be cool to have a HUD only you could see, take time to develop this technology fully. I wonder what kind of background radiation this thing emits.
Imagine if the windows bluescreen with some obscure error was forever burned into you retna. I'm sure that there are much worse things however, that can be burned into your retna though...(goatse.cx)
I once shot a man who posted too many, "Imagine a beowulf cluster of these"
Then the system works. You can wade through the crud at -1 and I'll stay at 1 (unless modding). You can even sort the articles oldest to newest.
-no broken link
I have an eye condition called "lazy eye" which makes my left eye much worse than my right. I can't afford to lose my right eye to cyborg technology. Can it be attached to the left?
You first say that humor is "still" seen as being a subjective judgment. You say that as if that's a good thing. Then you say that many things that were once understood as being universal are now understood to be subjective. You say that like that's a bad thing. So, are subjective judgments good or bad? You seem to be unclear on this point. Then you elaborate on this idea by mentioning that the converse is also true: it is socially unacceptable to make a universal judgment. You imply that this is an unfortunate change of sentiment.
You continue this cacalogy by repeating that "funny is always open to interpretation". You earlier described this tolerance, correctly, as being the result of humor being understood as subjective.
Then, in what appears to be a non sequitur, you conclude with the assertion that you consider your own sense of humor to be absolute and calibrated to an absolute scale.
Well, technically, it is formally true that your conclusion follows from your premises -- but only because your premises are contradictory.
I just attempted to articulate what I suspect you intended to express; but, fuck it, it's a lost cause. You seem to be mostly complaining that other people don't agree with your estimation of [what is relative and what is absolute] / [what is subjective and what is objective] / [what is particular and what is universal]. If you were to employ logic like our colloquial "Earth logic" -- and used English -- perhaps things might be different.
Personally I'd really like something like this with a "zoom" feature. Perfect for the beach of course. Or spying on your neighbours, if you're so inclined.
(sigh)
You have taken all the fun out of it.
Although I do snicker a little at the amount of time you took composing what was evidently a well thought-out-- albeit completely misguided-- response to what was basically a throwaway comment on my part.
Well, if that was a troll and you crafted its incoherence -- then I'm impressed. It wasn't that funny, though. If you know what I mean and I know that you do. Don't you?
I am acquanted Thor Osborn (who, I believe, is no longer with Microvision) and have tried out the demo unit. It really works, although the thought of a laser beam shining on your retina seems a little counter-intuitive. I have also met Tom Furness and it is clear Tom is involved in lots of VR related stuff, this is just the tip of the iceberg.
The model I tried was red only. Last I heard they were working hard on an RGB system. The kicker is that everything in one of these units can be reduced to solid state electronics: laser diodes, MEM mirrors, driver chips, CPU & memory. This is important because Moores law could drive down the cost of these things pretty quickly.
Jack William Bell
- -
Are you an SF Fan? Are you a Tru-Fan?
contact lenses could allow you this jodi foster grant type effect!
do not look into beam with reamining eye :)
___ This sig is in boldface to emphasize its importance!
I guess instead of phosphur burn on monitors you'd get retina burn if you left it on too long. yeah... that would be great... after work you look around and see left-over images of work stats.
-=-=- I don't suck... you blow. -=-=-
You say "Hello!" to a trekkie and all he spits out is "resistance is futile". Not to mention when he looks at your face, he tries to annoy u with that funny laser. Kinda reminds me of Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story trying to zap Andy with his infamous sidearm gun.
A few years back when I visited HITL at UNi of Washington (where most of the Micorvision research was done) I got to use one of these things an of all the HMDs I've used (and I've used a lot, from $200 cheapies to $60k milspec jobs) this is by far the best. The thing I liked the most is that the image is so sharp and focused - way better than my vision even with my glasses on. And the nifty thing is that it's in focus even with my glasses off, whilst the rest of the room is a blur. Maybe this needs a few more years (the one I used was full colour) but this is definitely the way things will be.
pithy comment
we're one step closer to snow crash and transmetropolitan.
I have no desire to reach nirvana.
And the possibility of retinal damage doesn't concern me all that much. Why? Because there's a whole lot worse out there. I'm not sure on the specifics, but I'm fairly sure a device like this must use a very very low powered laser to work, that and coupled with the fact that the feds would never let something like this out on the public market if it had a tendency to cause blindness assures me that it's fairly safe.
As for that one in a million chance that I go blind, have you read the side effects listed on some of your favorite pills? Flu? Diareah? Ulsers? Internal Bleeding? Some how a loss of vision (which most likely will be caught before I go completely blind) doesn't seem half as bad.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
All bow before Steve Mann, the nerdiest of all nerds.
THIS IS KILLING ME... Read Yout Own FUCKING PAGE And Stop Posting The Same Thing Over And Over!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ok, /. punks, when u going to accomplish u 234589 task, which was asked a few years ago, anyway, when a lame news site such as this, cannot post simple year information on its site, then the postings are not all that fit to read
but mostly nothing gets read from time to time anyway
It probably wouldn't be worth $5000 if they used low-quality components, now would it?
[insert witty comment here]
a laser is a single frequency of light, meaning that it only selects VERY few molecules and heats those
that reaction has to be violent because you only have a very small subset of detection molecules that you can trigger and the signal needs to be strong enough to notice
You know, I've found that when I have have no idea what I'm talking about, it's better to keep my mouth shut.
Obviously you haven't learned this lesson.
You might start with this:
http://www.cis.rit.edu/mcsl/faq/faq1.shtml
Then follow it up with a basic physics course.
"Although other companies that make wearable Pentium-quick computers with tiny LCD computer screens are far ahead in the consumer market, their mini-monitors block the vision of the eyes they cover."
Don't get me worng, when I first saw vr goggles for sale, they were lightweight transparent LCD screens, you had to put on a black cover over the glasses if you didn't want to see the rest of the world at the same time, So if I can get LCD glasses that are lightweight, cost 1/10 the price, and have the added benifit of being 3d and color, what exactly is the advantage of having a lazer shooting in my eye? the only reason I could think of is that other people could see the images with the LCD, but is that enough to justify 10x the price?
Remember that episode of Star Trek TNG where there was a little laser that shot into the crew's eyes, which ended up becoming addictive? Finally! We get our own copy of a device with subliminal messages such as "DMCA is Okay!"
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
All medical and safety issues aside, this is a very cool development. On the other hand, I'm still getting used to how nifty my 17" flatscreen monitor is ... Only one real concern: how long between the time that this or a similar device becomes available to the general public and the time that it's practically required that you own and use one. Think the telephone, the answering machine, the PC, the laptop, the handheld, (not to mention cellphones ...).
I once had a drug-induced experience which did exactly the same. Beats beaming laser in your eyes.... ;o)
While Stephenson immediately popped into my head as well, I honed in on a passage from another one of his books - "The Diamond Age", where the blight of a fellow who had an imbedded display in his eye was mentioned.
Advertisers, always trying to find new places to plaster their ads, hacked into the guy's visual system and planted an ad right smack-dab in the middle of the fellow's field of vision. Permanently. He even saw it when his eyes were closed. Eventually, the guy did the only thing he could to get rid of the damned ad - he off'ed himself.
The technology was perfectly safe. But it was the social ramifications that did our minor supporting-character in.
Mom always said I would go blind if I kept playing with that thing. Come (no pun intended) to find out it's TRUE!
Cool! Amazing Toys.
Decorated WWII veteran detained, searched at airport
It was clear he was a dangerous man well versed in blasting airplanes out of the sky.
Don t need an embedded AI system to tell you that :0)
My wife has held a position in Microvision Inc stock for over 6 years. It has been a decent return on investment at the current price, however we wish we had sold it when it peaked a couple years ago. In my opinion the company is a classic case of academics never really wanting to stop the fun they have researching a promising technology and release their child into the mercenary world at large. Oh Microvision has been selling "price is no object" retinal display systems to the military and surgical theatres for quite a while. The big money was supposed to be made when Microvision licensed the technology to consumer electronics manufacturers so the rest of us could enjoy HUD technology. I worry this will never happen in my lifetime with the companies current management. They have bushels of patents covering direct retinal display and licensing agreements covering MEMs and key LED technology used in the product family. There are some very bright and dedicated employees trying to fulfill the promise of this new display. Yet in the annual reports for years it has been a story of "Any quarter now, Microvision is going to set the world on fire with our revolutionary technology!". We though a few years ago when a couple new high profile individuals joined the board of directors (one of whom I believe made a substantial investment) that the tide might be turning, but that faded. We have heard rumors that some key employees are very upset with the current president for having squandered Microvision's opportunities. I think investor fatigue may set in and their burn rate will finally catch up to them. This would be a shame, a promising technology and the creative efforts of many individuals lost because of poor business execution. I hope I am proven wrong.
Okay, well, we can all wax poetic about why it isn't going to work, why it's not safe for the eyes, why it's too bulky, limits the field of vision too much, has a really dumb name, and so on and so forth. But I invite some of the more open-minded of you to think about the long term prospects on the Nomad, as well as the reality as opposed to kibbitzing.
A company has brought us the first generation of the computerized overlay within field-of-vision that we see in movies. This gives me a real shiver of anticipation. Now before I address the future, I will address the present complaints.
1.) "The Name" - Yes, it's a dumb name. So what? If I name a bar of gold "Wheezey" it's still a bar of gold.
2.) "The Laser in the Eye" - Kibbitz all you wish, this product is already on the market, has already been approved, and tested over and over. The U.S. Army is already one of the users of the same type of scanning technology used in the Nomad. And since it's been in testing for over a year, I have not seen a single report of eye damage, or accidents. I do not say this is impossible, but I think that for a company to propose such a radical interface such as a laser in the eye, they are going to be 5,000x more careful than when Jack & The Box first got all that bad press about e. coli. This is not some cheap disposable pocket laser you buy at K-Mart... this is a several thousand dollar piece of industrial hardware.
3.) "Limiting field of vision" - Well, from what I've seen on the web site, it doesn't obscure much of the vision at all, except perhaps peripheral vision on the covered eye. Those who wear glasses would not notice any difference. Additionally, it should be mentioned that the -point- of this whole technology is to be able to continue getting needed information while not having to look away from what you are doing, such as working on an engine, flying, driving a tractor, etc... Or, that if you do have to look away, you can keep an overlay of what's in front of you.
4.) "It's too bulky" - Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the first public generation of this type of technology, and it effectively takes up less space on the face than a pair of goggles (except of course the military variety which takes up as much as a pair of flight goggles does). We live in a very spoiled world, where microminiaturization has hit such a scale that we can carry an entire office's worth of computer abilities in a cellphone smaller than a man's hand. None of these things started off like this. The first cellphones were about half as big as a cinderblock. To get any kind of decent printing, you had to have a plotter as big as a cardtable. Now you can get a printer that is far faster, with better resolution, limited only in width by the paper you use. Considering how little space it takes up now, I can only expect that it will take up no more room than your average telemarketing-sales phone mouthpiece within 5 years. Or perhaps it will simply be a pair of William Gibson-style mirrorshades.
Now to the future...
What I'm seeing in a lot of these posts is "This looks like it has really cool potential. I'd like to see what it does in the future." and "It's too expensive to buy right now."
I invite you to think outside the box, which in a group of intellectuals such as this, shouldn't be difficult. Instead of thinking about the Nomad itself, think about how to get rich off of what it will become.
Remember how we all said "Damn, if only I'd had bought some Microsoft stock way back when?"
Well this is "way back when" and the company is Microvision. Except the window on "Way Back When" is probably between 6 months and 5 years. The Libra
You now even get set modifiers for each moderation reason. Setting Flamebait to +1 will undo the effect of any Flamebait moderations for you, setting it to +6 will make any flamebait always show up for you (since it will be a +5 post for you).
"Flamebait" is what is usually abused as a form of censorship - but you can override that.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!