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Wearable LCD Display
fenimor writes "PhysOrg reports, that Mitsubishi is going to introduce next year a headset with a small liquid-crystal display screen which is positioned in front, slightly below eye level so as not to obstruct normal vision. Designed for users who need to perform multiple tasks simultaneously, this tiny wearable heads-up display is expected to cost only US $400."
I never thought we'd get to the point where people had to attach televisions to themselves. I can already hear the bickering over usage rights while driving. I'm beginning to think that John Titor wasn't so wrong.
BLING BLING. Meet the architecture that's changing everything.
This should be a really neat way to get rid of power hungry displays. This device will draw some power, but hopefully, by virtue of its size, nowhere near the amount of a conventional laptop or PDA display. It should definitely open up some interesting possibilities. Imagine being able to shut off your laptop display, with this plugged into the VGA port, and drawing it's necessary power from a powered USB or Firewire port. Mmmmm ... Tasty ...
No, LCD doesn't emit EMI radiation. But this makes me think of another question... Are there any long term effects from using it? Like eye strain, or headaches, or nausea?
Has anyone else noticed the impossibly fast evolution of multitasking ability?
People over 70 have trouble doing one thing at one time
People over 55 seem to have trouble walking and cheqing gum simultaniously
People over 30 think that they can drive and talk on a cell phone at the same time
College and high school students can take note on a laptop while carrying on 6 simultanious AIM conversations while paying enough attention to the teacher to know if they are growing supicious
What's next... babies with tenticles?
Another advantage of an RSD is that it is a spinoff of a device to scan the retina, and adding one more beam-splitter and a photodiode on the laser side of the scanner lets the display do this, too.
That leads to two extra functions:
1) The retina print can be used for a "password". (Fewer worries about somebody who steals your wearable getting at your data or using your comm account to make 20-hour calls to 900 services in Malagua or spam the whole internet.)
2) The display can measure where you're looking - and use that (with suitable algorithms to keep the cursor from being obtrusive) as your pointing device. (Look-and-click means one less device in your hand, i.e. a chord keyboard with mouse button chords in its vocabulary. And it ought to be a bunch faster than mousing.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way