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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.
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.
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.
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.
A photon's a photon, right? If it's too powerful, it's gonna burn stuff. If it's not, it won't. What's special about laser light that causes your concern?
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Also, a diode laser of sufficently low power would be self-limiting in the case of regulator failure.. they tend to blow if their currents go even slightly beyond their ratings. So, take a page from the nuclear weapons designers: Build such systems with a 'weakest link' mentality.. if any portion of the circuit dies, use components of such low quality that every other one in the chain bites it as well.
It's painful to lose a five thousand dollar device like that, but it's better than going blind, no?
"Avast! Prepare for the rodgering!" THWACK! "Arrr.. me nards.."
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!
I worry a lot less about this than about drugs. A drug potentially can act with every single molecule in your body. But basically, a photon is a photon, your eyes are designed to handle photons. So long as they stay well below the UV frequencies (which can break bonds and produce actual chemical changes), you should be pretty safe. Even if you manage to bleach out all your visual pigment, it should eventually recover. I suppose that if you pumped enough photons into the retina, you could cook it from purely thermal effects, but that would take quite a bit of power.
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.
Why don't you talk to her and try to undress her FOR REAL.
"And like that