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Wireless Bluetooth Sunglasses
elecngnr writes "Motorola and Oakley are going to team up to create Bluetooth enabled sunglasses. At the CES, Motorola had also announced that they would be developing some bluetooth embedded clothing with Burton, a snowboarding company. " Speakers built into the hood, and controls built into the jacket for your audio player and phone.
What instructions are there on the laundry tab ?
is this even washable ?
Exercise caution when modding this message up: the author acts like a jerk when his karma is excellent.
Because the manufacturers need another reason to charge you two hundred dollars for five cents worth of plastic?
I enjoy boarding to escape.
I would never dare to use such sunglasses in fear of being microwaved to death
Will the glasses black out if a Microsoft product comes on screen? Or will they turn blue?
This is another way of starting a sig with this and ending it with that.
TF intro was longer than TFA
...run linux?
Call me back when you've got a bluetooth HUD or something. The MP3 player can sit in my pocket.
I can't imagine anyone making the time to go snowboarding and then saying to themselves 'gee, I wish the guys in the office could reach me WHILE I AM ACTUALLY SNOWBOARDING'
Yes. MS recommends that when this happens you remove the glasses, fold them up, put them in the case, get them back out, and them put them back on...oh yea, and they recommend installing SP2.
Having done so much with so little for so long, I now can do anything with nothing at all.
Does this mean I have to worry about hackers turning my socks into spam zombies?
"He who throws mud, loses ground." - proverb
snowboarding
I was just thinking that what attitude-is-everything people racing down an icy Pennsylvania hill, weaving through other people on a slippery, metal-edged plank and attempting to periodically sail through the air need is an easier way to block their senses.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
And Bluetooth-enabled sunglasses do what exactly? Unfortunately, the article doesn't say. I'm guessing they're going to provide an audio output facility, but who knows for sure?
I'm off to install a Bluetooth chip into my toilet. What is it going to do? Damned if I know, but one things for sure -- /. front page, here I (and my Bluetooth-enabled toilet) come!
Yaz
(...who actually has and uses two Bluetooth devices).
Auto dry? Auto fit? Auto lace? If it ain't up to McFly's standards, it ain't worth purchasing.
Sigs are for Terrorists.
my ipod fits perfectly in my pocket. my head phones are pretty much invisible. why put this in clothes that i'll forget to take out when I wash it. I always hate when new technology comes out and mfg's try to tag it on to every product they have to make it sell.
This is useful.. when I am driving or outside i am always wearing my sunglasses anyway (for the most part). Now i don't have to worry about a hands free set and my sunglasses not fitting well on my head together.
for uncompressed "CD quality" audio, what enables these new headphones and this new sunglasses are the Advanced Audio Distribution Profile, which compresses the audio using the low complexity lossless Sub-Band Codec. These devices usually also support a profile that enables you to play, pause, forward and rewind, or, if paired to a telephone too, to mute the audio when a call is received. This all seems very nice, I just wish these profiles get supported in Tiger (and Longhorn, or Windows XP new Bluetooth stack, to be fair). Can't wait to get some more wireless audio.
Motorola and Oakley better check with their legal departments...Suntiger Inc. might try and sue to protect their intellectual property for "blue blocking sunglasses" which sounds eerily similar to "blue tooth technology".
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
Wireless Bluetooth?
did I miss a meeting?
If i walk outside my bluetooth radius, i become scared and confused.
need is an easier way to block their senses.
To danger, anyway. What'd be neat is if they went black when anything threatening came by. We could set up anything dangerous to emit bluetooth "danger" signals....
Tweet, tweet.
Put a Bluetooth chip in your toothbrush, so when you're brushing and you realize you forgot to flush, you don't have to touch the commode handle in mid-brush.
Ceci n'est pas un post.
What a great product! Now everyone can cause WLAN interference without even trying!
Any cretin can see that obviously, your sunglasses would be worn beneath your hat. If said hat is tinfoil, not only would it block RF transmission, leading to a poor signal, it would also reflect and focus the RF waves into your brain. That is a bad thing.
A beowulf cluster of people wearing similar sunglasses... Ok, that even creeps me out.
Actually, I think they are working to embed the bluetooth (BT) technology in the sunglasses for things like BT enabled phones. There would be some type of earpiece on the glasses and the mic would be built into the frame.
I own and use several BT devices. I have a wireless mouse for my PowerBook. Also, my mac is configured to accept BT from my phone, so I can completely turn off the ringer and the caller ID shows up on my monitor. Very nice for meetings. The lab I work in has a G5 PowerMac with a wireless keyboard and mouse. Not having all those wires helps clean the desk up nicely.
Having done so much with so little for so long, I now can do anything with nothing at all.
Would that be a shitty interface to your crapper?
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
Oh yeah baby, that's Stylish with a BIG S.
Take a gander here at the mp3 version. Don't be fooled by the photography, these babies are BULBOUS! I think they're going for the cyborg look.
All I know for sure is that when I say them in compusa I just couldn't stop laughing.
I can't imagine using those things snowboarding. They look like they'd fly off with one quick turn of the head. I like lightweight and simple glasses for boarding. They WILL come off your face, unless of course, you are much better than me and NEVER find yourself yardsailing down the slope. Did I mention that they look like shit.
Yeah this is a good idea.
First we complain about drivers being distracted with phones while on the road. Just wait till we have skiers/boarders doing the same. Not being able to hear when you are listening to your iPod is really safe
It is Motorola that they teamed up not Apple so it will be a phone that these things talk bluetooth to. So sound quality is already messed up. I guess it would make all those fancy ring tones sound cooler too.
E-TP
Bluetooth enabled toilet paper.
Anyone else think they've gone off the deep end with this crap?
Send whiskey and fresh horses!
You will be able change the opacity of the lenses by adjusting the contrast on your palm.
I'm running the same configuration -- a PowerBook with an Apple Bluetooth Mouse and a Sony Ericcson T610 phone. The phone is configured to not only accept SMS messages, but to synchronize my calendar and contact data, and to permit wireless GPRS Internet access on the PowerBook through the phone. A very nice set-up indeed.
My problem is more with the linked article than with the product itself, which I (obviously) have yet to see, and thus have no opinion of.
Yaz.
...and put the electronics in one of those fake Groucho noses. Propably would make for better transmission.
Who has the Janta 200 Super Chromatic Peril-Sensitive Sunglasses?
If you get the Bluetooth Blublockers, they would probably splode themselves.
When clothing actually has enough processing power and connectivity, you will be able to say:
"There's a clan match in my pants and everyone's invited."
Bluetooth is incredibly low power, and operates on a different frequencly from WLAN. Also, the peer-to-peer style network topology means that two BT networks in the same area will share the bandwidth rather than interfere with each other.
You'd have to get a lot of devices into a small area before interference would become a big problem.
Mr. Clowes, your hi-fi pizza is ready. Mr. Clowes, dial 432 for pickup.
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
I am not sure about wireless sunglasses.
So, I can't listen to my music when I am not wearing shades?
I want a bluetooth remote for my iPod, I want a bluetooth module for my Bose QuietComfort 2s. I want to control it while I am on a plane, without worrying about all the damned wires.
With that, I don't need electronic embedded clothing...
Better than a SCSI interface--requires less frequent system flushes.
Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
Where have you been hiding?
Yes, bluetooth was over-hyped to be the one "one true solution" in the begining. But that doesn't mean it's irrelevant.
For short range devices, it's a good technology, wireless input devices, wireless headsets for mobile phones, etc. Heck, if my current cellphone had bluetooth, a bluetooth hands-free mounted in my car would be ideal. My phone could stay on my belt, but would automatically interface with the hands-free just by getting in the car.
So, no it's not dead, it's not even dying, it's just not the uber-meme of the week anymore.
DAMN YOU bluetooth device people!
If you never make mistakes, it's probably because you're not doing anything.
Bluetooth operates on the same 2.4 to 2.5 GHZ ISM band as "b" and "g" networking, but it is split into something kike 79 non-overlapping channels rather than three non-overlapping channels. I don't know if any reciever allows you to choose, or tries to avoid detected interference though.
It shouldn't interfere, but with a bluetooth mouse next to a bluetooth reciever AND a WLAN reciever within a foot of each other, sometimes I notice a greater lag on the g card.
For walking and driving around sunglasses would be much more stable than the average headset.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Actually, this is how they really work - I know this because I read about it on the back of a cereal packet. First the bluetooth connection links in with your cameraphone. You have to pair the two so that they know each other and will talk to each other, it's like friendly functions in C++. After that, is just a matter of clipping your cameraphone to your jacket, or if you've got one of those new flip phones you can just slide it over your top pocket so the camera points out. Ideally, you'll be on a 3G network, but 2.5G works quite well depending on your location because the camera will take photos every few seconds and relay them back to the Oakly NOC. Now, here I'm afraid it becomes decidedly low-tech: They tried baysian filters, image recognition filters and even that technology out of Cambridge that detects excessive pink in the photos, but nothing worked better than just hiring some minimum-wage dufus off the street to quickly scan the photos. When they spot images that cross the threshold of danger they hit a big red button on their desk. It's one of those emergency stop buttons you see at the conveyor sushi restaurants - you know the type - and whamo - a high-priority paging packet is beamed to the phone, zips through the bluetooth connection an shuts those glasses down! Black. Can't see a thing. And just in time too. H2TG make them out to be some all included device but this is the state of the art folks. If they sell well, next year it'll all be integrated. Such is the life cycle of bluetooth devices.
Anyone else been thinking of super-chromatic-peril-o-sensitive sunglasses? Or ist it just because I'm watching the BBC Hitchhiker? :-)
bickerdyke
can't handle the truth! One of them must be one of the white trash you describe.
BTW, I've walked by the Oakley store in Charlotte while I was on my way from NYC to Atlanta. That is a very nice mall, and the Oakley store does stand-out like a tube top at a black-tie affair.
I have never heard of "lil john". Ditto for "Chapelle". And given what I've seen, I have to say, thank fuck for that.
Neat.
...
Next the sunglasses will be able to listen to your cell phone calls, give you a heads-up closed captioning or translation maybe, perhaps allow advertising to be popped up too.
Plus they can be signaled to go completely opaque if the Homeland Security Network realizes you're in the vicinity of something you ought not see, or if a tactical nuclear device is about to go off within your line of sight.
Every driver should be wearing a pair
That the sunglasses will be that bitchin 80s iridium wrap around style?
I would'nt really call it irrelevant. I am working with some people who are researching ways to embed household devices with bluetooth. Now, there are some who would cry that this is geek-driven tech and on some accounts I would agree. However, the focus of much of this research is to utilize technology to increase the accessibility for those who are mobility impaired. Creating these bluetooth networks would make independent living for these individuals more of a reality. Bluetooth modules embedded into lighting, heating and air conditioning, doors and door locks, media devices, etc. is a large improvement in the quality of life for these individuals.
Why bluetooth? 1. There are a lot of bluetooth products out there. 2. There are a lot of software libraries for bluetooth. 3. It runs on the ISM band. 3. With bluetooth, you can create a scatternet. 4. Its relative short range is a plus in terms of interference in these applications. The list could really go on from there.
While this is certainly a niche market, it is a large market. I think part of the problem with bluetooth is that some developers have been unable to exapnd their minds beyond the cellphone paradigm into other areas that could make a huge difference.
Having done so much with so little for so long, I now can do anything with nothing at all.
Supported OS: Windows XP, 2000, ME or 98SE (98SE requires additional driver); Mac OS 9.2.2, OS X 10.1.5, OS X 10.2 or OS X 10.3 Oh great, just what I've always wanted... to have Windows ON MY FACE!
That the next iPod will likely have Bluetooth or 802.11b/g/whatever.
-Stream to AirPort Express
-"Remote controls" available that work with Bluetooth from Apple and third parties.
Should be an interesting year. They gotta suppport that $249.00 and up price point by further differentiation. Mot wouldn't be doing this otherwise.
Don't get me started about "Jokely". Beautiful sunglasses - for a few weeks. Every pair I've owned (at least six pair since 1988, including the original Eyeshade) has failed to provide adequate protection against nefarious sunglass-killing and losing forces.
A pair of Oakleys with a homing device - now that, I'd pay for.
iPod sucks. I had one for 2 days before it broke, it was the 40 gig version too. Turns out the hard drives are junk. I returned it and got my money back and got a RCA Lyra with a gig SD card for a quarter of the money.
Don't forget to add $200 for an iPod bluetooth adapter.
n av iplay.php
http://www.tentechnology.com/products/products_
Plus just like with the Shuffle you won't have a display.
I like the idea of Bluetooth personal area networks. They just need to improve its implementation a little. 10 meter range is fine , but the devices need to be able to interact a bit better. For example I own a jabra headset , a bluetooth enabled phone (n-gage) , a bluetooth enabled PDA ( axim x50v ) and a usb adaptor for my laptop. I use the headset with my phone , and for skype(out) with my PDA and laptop, and utilising the audio gateway for voice notes on my PDA and laptop. I use bluetooth to install(sync) programs on my PDA from my laptop. I use my phone to control winamp on my computer.( Bemused ). My laptop and PDA use bluetooth to access the GPRS modem on my phone. I would like to see better bandwidth and implementation so all these devices can operate in harmony so I do not have to keep pairing , or initiating connections - I would like to see my devices that are paired operate simultanously.
...I obey the laws of physics....
I'm betting they communicate with a belt-mounted (or in pocket) Perilometer, and turn completely black at the first sign of danger.
The all-in-one Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic version won't be out 'til next year though.
Why doesn't the gene pool have a life guard?
I, for one, welcome our new, bespectacled, trendy bluetooth overl.. arrrr, I don't think so.
chown -R us yourbase
Well, it's probably not what it is but....
Connect your glasses to your BT enabled GPS (or even better, cellphone with gps), an arrow on the glass points you in the right direction, and a voice tells you which way to go.
Combine this with any other cool features available in your pocket-bluetooth-gadget-collection(tm) and you got the whole world in your hands... head.. glasses... whatever..
Apple built a platform for their ideas, Google built one for everyone's.
They are peril sensitive and turn black at the first hint of danger. For example, it will spot copyrighted materials and black out if you do not have appropriate DRM licences.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
...now imagine a beowulf clust....
Isn't that what JC Denton wore on Deus Ex?
have the glasses pick a good contrasting color based on the current light conditions, turn that color up and down 4 or 8 notches and you have a smooth whatever-scale display. Low bandwidth, but enough to select songs or something. It's possible...
The optics would certainly be more complicated as you noted, which is why a HUD in general would be awesome. Slapping a flash MP3 player into some sunglasses, however, is not. I guess that was my point.
Would you want something that radiates that close to the brain (esp. if it is always on), in addition to the cell phone irradiation we are already getting?
l ls _phone/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/01/12/mymo_pu
They let you see the world around you is really full of subliminal messages and aliens.
Oh, and if your friend won't put them on, just beat the living crap out of each other for a half hour or so...
>;k
They turn black at the first sign of copyrighted material, thus preventing you from seeing anything you haven't paid for.
If my call is important, why am I talking to a recording?
More importantly are they Peril Sensitive?
*cn;t c teh keybrd....
NOTICE: the impending IPR lawsuit filed by Joo Janta 200 Corp has been avoided due a passing SEP Field. Have a nice day!
Ahh, that's better. Where were we?
Of blankness, I know nothing.
i have had my burton jacket and bag both of which have ipod controls built in for about 7 months now. http://www.burton.com/Burton/gear/products.asp?pro ductID=377&shortMaterialNumber=B5253101
I Predict A Riot
The next version of Bluetooth is supposed to have 3 times the bandwidth of the current version. Thus nicely solving that problem.
> However, the focus of much of this research is to utilize technology to increase the accessibility for those who are mobility impaired. ...do Spastics get all the neat toys?
In the UK, Burton sell suits and chav (google for it) clothing. Since people are embarassed to be chavs, Motorola may want to re-think their partnership!
PS. I know about Burberry too. Seeing the business news report that their sales were down due to people being too embarrased to wear their clothes cracked me up.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
... go outside often enough to even need sunnies?
Strong, Light, Cheap - pick two.
With sunglasses costing an arm and a leg nowwadays (silly designer frames) it is interesting to note that techno-fashion will probably bring prices down. You can manuf. You can buy a latest mobile for less than the price of some stupid frames right now.
HUD's - don't get your hopes up, you need micro projection for this, but it is coming with new displays. The reason? Hold you finger 3 cm in front of your eye and focus on your print... can't.
You need to have a focussing projection, and any reflective surface will diffuse the light.
I think a fiber optic channel carrying the signal into the arm of the glasses, then lensing it into a convex mirror, which shines it onto your retina would be nice...
I think techno-fashion should stay out of designers hands, the same way as I laugh when I see someone with that ferrari digicam...
In 2 years, what is he going to do with it? It will be a joke antique. Buy a real ferrari now, and in 2 years, you can still pick up chicks with it.
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
My suggestion with the sensor was to pick a color that didn't blend in with the surroundings. Aka, don't pick white when you're on the slopes. I don't think the whole display glasses idea is impossible, it's just nobody's working on it real hard. These guys have a 20% transmission, which is about on par with some sunglasses. Dial down the resolution and the colors, and maybe you could make it more compact.
:-)
Regardless of my stupid ideas on how to make it more useful, I think if somebody actually tried to make a pair of display glasses that were somewhat comparable to normal glasses, I think people would buy them and push the technology along. Original point being, that would be more exciting than an MP3 player strapped to some sunglasses, especially if they were wireless.