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Would You Wear Video Glasses?
Roland Piquepaille writes "According to EE Times, an Israeli company has developed a personal video display device that looks like a simple pair of glasses. You can use these glasses with various sources, such as a portable media player or your cell phone. This technology promises to eliminate the dizziness phenomenon usually associated with this kind of display. And with these glasses weighing only about 40 grams, you'll feel that you're viewing a 40-inch screen from a distance of 7 feet." Video screens embedded into eyewear isn't that new, but the footprint of these is smaller than what I've seen before, making them cooler to wear on the subway.
Much better to wear them while you're driving. At least more exciting.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Why do we keep seeing these articles posted on the Ziff davis advertising application ? i wonder if the eetimes allow anyone to just take their text and images and plaster around them adverts without permission ?
perhaps i should just photocopy Ziff davis magazines and post those on the web with adverts, after all it works for Roland so why not anyone ?
perhaps we need a RIAA to represent websites and original authors to stop the plethora of copy&paste scammers out to deprive the original artists of their efforts
"looks like a simple pair of glasses." - No way these will make you look like a space dork! I'll wait for the cool looking version, thanks anyway.
I'd use them, but only in certain places.
Certainly never on a subway or any other public place where you should be alert to your surroundings. They'd be ideal for taking on a trip to use on a plane or in a hotel room.
DeviantArt Page
NSFWI remember seeing glasses video displays this small a decade ago. Of course the problem with them then, and even now, was resolution: The resolution was so terrible that it has limited uses, seriously degrading even the already low quality of television.
...and the answer is NO!
I already wear glasses and for this sort of thing I'll wait for the contact lenses version and lasik sergery versions to better fu& up my ability to see what is real.
That way its more life like....
http://www.mirageinnovations.com/
no technology can survive without games and porn.
I *definately* want one of those!
I've always dreamed about having my own personal HUD. I've always drooled at that old Augmented Reality Quake thingy.
making them cooler to wear on the subway.
:-)
Because it's cool to wear shades underground.
"Who says nothing is impossible? Some people do it every day!" - Alfred E. Neuman
I worry about the long term effects on the eyes. You are constantly focusing on sonething only an inch or less from your eye, and the eye strain might have a negative effect over time. Remembering Steve Martin's movie 'The Jerk' where a device designed to keep your glasses from slipping down your nose eventually made everyone on the planet cross-eyed, I would use this but definitely limit my time.
A most overlooked advantage to owning a computer is if they foul up there's no law against wacking them around a bit.
1. As mentioned by others much higher resolution.
2. Sensors to detect where I'm viewing. Whether my focus is on the screen an inch away from my eye, or if I'm trying to look out past the screen. If I'm trying to look out past the screen, the video should shut off immediately (or at least become translucent).
If it does work as advertised, its potential is huge e.g. for hands-free PDAs in all sorts of repair and construction jobs as well as military applications.
Look, there are times & place video is appropriate & useful and times it is not. I'd love to be able to lean back in a comfortable seat and watch something, put my body in a position that is not looking-at-the-screen-on-the-wall/desk/stand. Heck give me a small wireless keyboard and I'll geek from the backyard hammock on a nice day. Airline seat? ANYTHING to avoid the salesdroid on one side, have-you-found-jaysus nutter on the other, and the screaming baby behind.
But on the subway? No. Driving? No. While 'speed walking' the neighborhood? No (my iPod-anesthetized neighbors blissfully unaware of the activity around them are already bad enough!)
Anyway, any bets how long 'till we hear the sounds of Battlestar Galactica from the adjoining stall as a co-worker takes a suspiciously long bathroom break?
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Mirage Innovations logo looks rather like the one on my Sony Walkman, turned upside down.
:)
Wonder how long until they're sued?
...Does it run Linux?
From the TFA these glasses are being touted as a portable multimedia experience. With the (lack of) details on the websites it appears that wearing then will significantly fill out the users field of vision (which you would hope for in order to get the best viewing). So we have:
:D
1) Expensie tech (As in a couple of hundred)
2) Not physically large
3) Highly visible to everyone else that you are using it
4) Blocks out significant part of your own visual field (and also audio)
5) Designed to be used outside of your own home (as otherwise why use it)
In a private situation (or on a plane) these glasses would be OK, but wear them on the subway, or sit in the park and you might as well put up a banner that says "Mug me!!"
But a solution would be to put a web cam on top of the glasses, and feed it back into the system as a "picture in picture" so you can keep track of the outside world while you gasp at the unblelievable plot quality of m:i:III
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
As we age our eyes loose the ability to focus at short distances, thus the need for reading glasses. Would someone who needs glasses to read be able to use a display that is only an inch or so from his eyballs ?
I don't want to shut out my view of the outside world entirely. Using headphones is bad enough, but not being able to see is too much.
Also, they look incredibly dorky.
This is clearly a step forward and will lower the cost of wearable screens, we can just hope it's not as much vaporware as it sounds. I also have some issues with the whole wearable screen tech business: Every "videoglasses" producer has always promised 40" TV, for as long as these have been sold, but usually the let down is quality. You know a laptop 12" screen can also seem to be 40" as long as you have it close enough, and a laptop screen has better resolution.
I've used the Sony version that you plugged into a TV, and that version was very low res, about 400px in height. I'm not sure you can make "affordable" wearable displays with any good resolution. Even though Mirage, the makers of this device, are using a single OLED/LCD it still going to cost a lot to produce enough pixels to satisfy the eye.
And I can't figure out how my glasses are going to fit in there.
That's how I met my wife.
talking on on my phone... watching Shrek 2.... drink... something.... and shaving... while turned around and yelling at the kids
Power to the Penguin!
How long until we can have nanites that attach themselves to the individual rods and cones of our retinas and cause the nerves to fire or not.
Technoli
Why are all the stories on slashdot things that were on digg.com two days ago?
Now *that's* what I really call "Intellivision".
assimilation! Given the wrist-band key-pads, blue-tooth headsets, I-pod ear-buds, then add these glasses to get one step closer to being Borg - granted, the concept has loads of different potentials once they get the resolution up and hands-free clearing/trans-lucing worked out, but until then, no, I won't own a pair - when they do, it'll give another dimension to the term "reading glasses"...
Take the 90-Day Challenge! http://rwmurker.bodybyvi.com/
- Shaving or putting on makeup
- Reading the paper
- Using a laptop placed in the passenger seat
- Turning around to smack the kid in the back seat
But my personal favorite is the guy I saw playing the trumpet.I can hardly wait to enjoy dodging the guy who's using these to watch, say, the fighter chase inside the Death Star from Star Wars.
Depends on a few things ...
... present an image that looks blurry to regular vision, but sharp to someone not wearing their glasses that is.
First of all - they're hideous. Few types of (sun)glasses look good on people (depends on the facial shape amongst other things), so a one design fits all is out the window if you expect people to use them in public.
If I can get some that fit outside my own glasses, that'd be nice. Even better if you could adjust each screen to somehow present an image that apears sharp to whatever's wrong with your eyes. Not sure you can do that though
40 grams is also a bit on the heavy side. My own glasses weigh 22 grams, and they can be a bit bothersome in the long run. Of course, these probably aren't meant to be worn 16 hours a day anyway, so maybe it's not a problem. Hard to say without trying.
Since they're obviously meant to improve your sense of "being there" in whatever you're watching (movie, tv, game), you'd think it'd be logical to use Dolby Surround head phones with them. However most ear covering headphones are uncomfortable to wear through a movie when you're wearing glasses, as the "legs" (no clue what they're actually called) tend to get mushed between the ear and the skull, which is rather annoying over the course of more than maybe 45 minutes in my case.
I suppose my answer to the question in the title is a big fat maybe
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
People are going to think you're from the loonie bin when you're laughing out loud at the comedy show you're watching.
From slashdot:
Hmmm.. 20 inch tube monitor or glasses that fit in a drawer when i'm done... hmmmmmm
More desktop space or a 20 inch tube monitor that takes up so much space I glued a shelf ontop of it.
The ability to wear glasses... lean back with my wireless keyboard and trackball, and get something done.
I gotta say... while I like my old sony 20se, it won't last forever... and LCD is pretty attractive, glasses are even more so.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
I think they tried too hard to make these look like regular sun glasses. I think they should add borders to the lenses, or something to proclaim that "No this guy isn't just wearing the most retarded sunglasses you've ever seen, but actually a nifty piece of technology."
They got the something light right, but until they can actually make these look like fashion wear, they shouldn't even try. It's like trying to make the ipod look like an earing. It would be big clunky, and ugly, but just trying to make the ipod look like an ipod has created a fashion trend in and of itself.
So far the only piece of wearable technology that can actually add cool points is something that's centuries old - The Wrist Watch
Go ahead and call me unreliable; reliable is just a synonym for predictable.
All I need are a couple more features:
Heads up display - Interact with the real world when needed and use when distractions won't be an issue. Think checking a map when stopped at a red light.
Virtual Interface - The device could project a virtual keyboard on to any surface (or in mid air?), allowing for user inuput in any location.
Sure these may take some time to implement, but in the mean time, I'd be happy be the dork wearing the current model.
If the size of perceivable objects diminishing with distance is an inverse square relationship (as it is with light intensity...)
Forty inches at seven feet is equivalent to approximately one inch (.81 inches, to be precise) at one foot, which isn't that big. It'll fill most of field of vision, though (hold a ruler one inch from your eye and compare).
This message printed on 100% post-consumer recycled electrons.
you'll feel that you're viewing a 40-inch screen from a distance of 7 feet.
40 inches is about 1 meter. 7 feet is just above 2 meters.
It does not talk about resolution. I have 2 x 1600x1200 20", so 40" would be 4 times as large. However when I stand 7 feet away, it looks about 4 times smaller, making it standard.
So I guess they are saying it looks like a normal screen. They could have also said that it looked like a movie screen screen where you sit in the back of the teater.
Oh and 40 grams is about 1.4 ounce.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Great... something every mugger in the world will try to steal also helps to distract you so you don't notice the approaching mugger!
... and in the DRM, bind them.
Kids would go crazy over this! Put on their "glasses" and cheat straight through the test.
I know they already exist, but I'm thinking in terms of their being commonplace.
Main CPU box worn on the body, display spectacles, wireless keyboard and mouse (if desired) or wireless input tablet a la Wacom if preferred. Maybe a decent voice recognition system for dictation.
All doable now, of course, but how long before it costs less than a thousand pounds?
Connect them to that remote controlled, turret mounted machine gun, coupled with the radar-based RPG "shield" and you'd have one sweet ride!
I love convergence of technologies!
Only at home behind closed and locked doors. And drawn curtains.
And even then, what would be the point? For the same money, I can buy a decent TV that 1) won't hurt my eyes, 2) friends can also enjoy, 3) doesn't requirement me to hide from the world because of how moronic I look.
Comment of the year
If this really were JUST like a simple pair of glasses, you could potentially do all sorts of things; coupled with a video scanning device, you could flip through a book, much faster than you could read it, and then google it from your glasses. Heck, you could get a HUD for real life, or zoom in on a far away object... especially with the shrinking size of high-resolution cameras, the possibilities seem almost endless.
I'm sure the military would be interested in some applications too.
http://www.TheGamerNation.com/Forums
Just an inverse relationship. So many ways to explain it... so little time.
argumentum ad fallacium: Fallacy of defining a fallacy which allows one to dismiss the argument in question.
And to those of you who wouldn't dare using it in public because of the fear being mugged: I hope the mass production of these devices would make them as common as the earplugs everyone is using with their MP3-players nowadays.
)9TSS
Ill just wait for a low profile model so the subway muggers skip me thinking I am aware of their pressence and have a button or something that will allow me to toggle between the video and totally transparent view, or even better, they could integrate it with the video ipod and use the wheel for video dimming control to let me get on and off the subway safely without taking off the glasses; or even to move the screen under my main line of sight? :D
:) ...Ill pay no more than 30 bucks each!
and that -mass production consumer affordable pricing remark is a must of course
http://www.myvu.com/details.html
I actually preferred to read info from the pages linked in the summary because I didn't have to wait for all the content to slide into place.
When I first saw the link I read it as "Migraine Innovations".
And yes, I suffer from migraines so that might have something to do with it.
Invalid Checksum. Retrying.
The Walkman logo itself looks like what you get when you fill in the circles of the International Olympic Committee logo.
Most importantly, it gives you (possibilities of) stereo view. Never mind that glasses of less convenient form have been here for while...
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
I learned from personal experience a long, long time ago that big, weird-looking glasses make you look like a total dork.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
If the Oakley Thump can make regular sunglasses look like a medical device for an unfortunate ear disease with the addition of earbuds and some flash memory, then we're a long ways off before somebody makes video glasses that don't look stupid. I mean, that shit still looks dumb in 2360 (wow I didn't even know geocities was still around. gg yahoo) The video glasses could be very cool for things like integrated HUD overlays while driving, but that won't really be needed until we have flying cars. I'd rock these ugly-ass glasses while I cruised by in a flying car. Have we learned nothing from href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096874/">Back to the Future II? Man, if the government only stop suppressing all the free-energy technology...
Maybe it's because I haven't had my coffee yet, but when I first looked at it - I could have sworn the website you linked was http://www.migraneinnovations.com/
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I've been actually dilligently waiting for this kind of technology to come into the mainstream for good. I want to get rid of my giant monitor and equally large computer tower all in one hull. I'd replace the tower with probably a Damn Small Linux box and the monitor with a 'Personal Video Display.'
Its just like "Snow Crash!" YAY!
Hwy 101 driving into San Fran' ... both hands ... yes, driver side, only person in the car.
An 30/40-ish Asian guy in a gold Lexus playing the pan pipes
...no they don't. they look like a pair of video glasses.
I never cheated of course, but some friends of mine had the same craze when cam-phones came out. They took shots of their paper and MMSed it to each others.Teach thought it was the mobile's calc.
We ruled ack then.
That is my answer.
GPS, audio & video and they were not opaque that would enable 'virtuality'.
I'd love to have an interpreter and a tour guide to enable me to look at something and be able to also be able to solicit information about what I'm seeing.
That would make a tour into something unique.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Reality catches up to Anime.
_ 21.jpg
http://www.inetres.com/gp/anime/bebop/09/bebop_09
Give me a Data Dog and a Mac mini and I'm set.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Not only would I wear these, I'd implant them after removing my tear ducts.
Hey, what a great idea to include in a story! Oh, wait...
No gods, no demons, and no masters. Secular Humanism!
Sure! I'm a geek!
So say we all
I am still waiting for my EyeTap.
The version branded exclusively for /. members will be much cooler than those shown in the FA. It will come with tape pre-wrapped around the bridge.
I'd definitely wear them, but the current resolutions of these things are a far cry for computer users (e.g. highest I've seen is 800x600). The reason I'd wear them is because it would be nice to have a virtual (large) monitor to go with my laptop. But again, please make the resolution better.
Combine that with Apple's "display watches YOU" idea, add some software to figure out what part of the screen the person is looking at, add a button to click, connect it up to a (small, wearable) computer, and that would be a very cool computer.
At the time of posting this, the Slashdot story says, "According to EE Times...".
However, the reference is to what is apparently only a P.R. release in EE Times. For money, companies print any press release that is connected to their subject of interest. "According to EE Times..." gives the impression that someone at EE Times actually investigated the company, when it does not look like that is what happened.
Recently Slashdot has run several stories about companies in Israel that supposedly have innovative products but in actuality are looking for investors. The idea has seemed to be to get people interested in some blue-sky idea, and then get money from them. Apparently it doesn't matter if the idea ever makes money; the profit is apparently from investors. For example, the Slashdot story The Car That Makes Its Own Fuel.
Note that the EE Times press release says: "... via a nanoscale diffraction grating. The trapped light propagates within the substrate by internal reflection toward the viewer's eyes"
The "nanoscale diffraction grating" is apparently just a mirror. All diffraction gratings are "nanoscale". That's how they work. Diffraction gratings can be used to separate colors, but they also act as mirrors.
Quote from the company's web site: "Mirage Innovations is poised to provide a real solution..."
Here is the "news" from the company's web site: Mirage Innovations Completes $7.5 Million Round of Funding
Rehovot, Israel, September 22, 2005 - Mirage Innovations, an innovator in the field of personal display technologies, today announced that it has concluded a $7.5 million round of financing from Gemini Israel Funds, Benchmark Capital and existing investor Landa Ventures.
The patented NanoPrism(TM) technology developed by Mirage Innovations is based on diffractive optics.
NanoPrism(TM) enables the creation of ultra-lightweight, compact, affordable and cyberstress- free personal display devices. Binocular displays based on this technology, such as the Mirage Innovations LiteVuT personal display, are the only cyber-stress-free personal display devices on the market.
"The rapid convergence of video content and media-capable portable devices has created a very exciting market for Mirage Innovations. The company's focus on innovative, enabling technology, combined with a seasoned management team, was very attractive to the investors" said Yossi Sela, managing partner of Gemini Israel Funds.
Mirage Innovations will continue to focus its product and business development strategy on this promising opportunity and will use the proceeds of the financing to complete the development and accelerate the commercial deployment of the technology.
"Mirage Innovations is poised to provide a real solution to meet the demand for alternative portable display systems" said Tal Cohen, the CEO of Mirage Innovations. "The demand for media-capable portable devices is being fueled by the enormous increase in content for MobileTV and Personal Media Players, which has become available only in the last couple of years." He concluded by stating that the management team at Mirage Innovations is "delighted to have such an influential and innovative group of investors backing the company."
About Mirage Innovations
Mirage Innovations offers its breakthrough NanoPrism(TM) technolog
Wearing these in public would serve as a very effective means of birth control and greatly reduce the wearer's risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases.
Is this fraud? See this comment: Wanting investors. FRAUD???
Maybe not fraud, but VERY misleading.
That's all I can think of looking at these glasses.
How intense is the luminosity of these glasses? Sitting right in front of your eyes, no matter where you're focusing, it's got to be doing some damage.
Not only that, but you can't adjust the "distance" between yourself and the display (you can't "zoom") so if there's something illegible on-screen, you can't do anything about it. At 800x600, I fully expect there to be a LOT that can't be read at a virtual 7' distance.
Screw the rules, I have green hair!
but the footprint of these is smaller than what I've seen before
...yes, here it is: http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/11/17 0215 Is Corporate Speak Invading Your IT Department?
Ok. Smaller. Sure. The guy in TFA looks like Tick's sidekick Arthur. As noted earlier, not cool.
And "footprint"? Wasn't there something about business speak earlier? Hang on a sec...
Ahh, it seems we have been to the end of the sidewalk on this topic, and though we seemed to have checked all the right boxes, we are still inclined to leverage past efforts in our own way.
--
Let's repeat The Non-Conformist's Oath:
I promise to be different. I promise to be unique. I promise not to repeat things other people say. -- Steve Martin
I promise to be different...
and I don't have Flash loaded on my Windows, so in Firefox it just shows a bunch of blank squares. I really hate sites like that.
"the future's so bright... but I gotta wear shades!"
"hey, could you pass me a paper towel? er.. I mean... DEPLOY ABSORBTION PANEL!"
But I have one major problem with it. I wear glasses. Because of specific problems I can't do contacts (I often work in an environment that has trace elements that contacts may (do) concentrate to unhealthy levels) So I stick with glasses. Now if something like this could be attached to my glasses..... that would be treat.
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
Just think - wear this at work - then our boss can't tell if we're watching a DVD or working!!!
I can't wait to get this for work !!!
Hmm. More toys to keep me isolated and entertained. More ways to prevent me from having to be alone with my thoughts. Or worse, from having to not be alone and actually socialize with those around me.
I mean, hey, I like cool toys too. But we really are creating a bizarre society of anti-social people who need to always be bombarded with external entertainment.
bwahahah and the fantasy takes one more step towards reality. .hack//GU needs to be translated quickly.. so I can be an insane fanboy and play it before KH2. ^^;.
Yes I would but I have a few requirments.
1) they need to be under $200.
2) I need to be easily able to use my xbox with with them, then switch over to my computer.
3) Image quality should blow me away
-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+ *** http://www.mountainfort.com *** +-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-
Any laptop screen that is backlit is necessarily hugely inefficient. Only a tiny amount of the light that it produces will pass through your pupil into your eyes. A far higher proportion of the light these glasses produce would be likely to reach your eyes, so they could be made very bright yet draw only a few milliwatts of power.
Microprocessors and peripherals could in theory be made to be many times more efficient than they are today, but a 15" screen with a given brightness could not be made much more efficient than current OLED devices.
If these things really are comfortable, the next generation laptop could be made as small as its keyboard - and work for many days on a much lighter battery.
It seems to me that there are two possible "next generation" computer interfaces that can replace the current ubiquitous keyborad+mouse+LCD panel.
One is direct interface to the brain. This is the ideal, but a looong way away.
So the other seems a likely intermediate step. Replace the screen with glasses that overlay a CG interface on what you see. Replace the keyboard (partially) with voice recognition. I say partially as I think a folded up keyboard will also be part of this system. Replace the mouse with devices that detect eye movement and hand gestures. Just as now the mouse works with the keybaord, so the Voice recognition will contribute to the eye movement.
Of course, what is being produced now is crap; but try using a ten year old mouse.
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
Microvision is the only company with technology to make something like this work. Placing small screens inside the glasses puts huge limitations on the resolution of the image. Painting the image directly onto the retina with a tiny low-powered laser solves that, producing a "virtual" image of arbitrarily large resolution without having a screen at all.
-- If no truths are spoken then no lies can hide --
> Because it's cool to wear shades underground.
Damn, I just remembered the BLADES device that Zak wore in the Cyberia[2] action/puzzle game. Definitely cool looking (at the time), though the backpack-style computer unit seemed awfully problematic....
"All hands, BRACE FOR IMPACT!"
Then you could get a date while wearing them.
Sadly, with these that will never happen.
The ______ Agenda
It does.
If you think the guy in the illustration looks cool, then perhaps it's you that needs a pair of *real* glasses.
They look like Aviator Sunglasses, They probably cost about as much as a MIG Fighter Jet on Ebay. On the other hand, they look Dangeresque!
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
and the post office stole Mr. Zip from roger meyer studios...
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
I used to work for a company that had, as one of it's products, several similar type heads-up type displays (around 1995 or so). The problem we ran into with all our models, prolonged use (a couple of 8 hour shifts, a few days in a row) would start to cause eye strain. We eventually had to pull all the products from the market, because the risk/reward ratio for using them was just not worth it. I'd be curious to see if the next generation of such devices still have similar issues.
--- It's not my fault this post looks redundant. I just type too slow.
and that's only the part that says '...not to be used while operating heavy machinery or during pregnancy'
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
I've been waiting for Virtual Reality Goggles ever since I saw the "Virtual Retinal Display" (VRD) on Tomorrows World in 1997. It's been nearly 10 years and they still haven't hit the high-street. One of the exciting things about the VRD was that they could potentially have a different focus for each pixel so it would be much more natural for your eyes.
i tsubishis-scopo-wearable-display/)
However, things seem to be moving a bit more quickly now and I've seen a number of possibilities, of which this is just the latest.
Also relevant is the Scopo by Mistubishi (http://www.engadget.com/2004/10/15/scoping-out-m
And the Z800 by emagin http://www.3dvisor.com/faqs.php#Features
Particularly interesting is a UK start-up called light blue optics. They do not talk about video glasses, but their laser projection technology could obviously be adapted for that use. They have made a matchbox sized laser projector which works by bouncing a beam off a Fourier transform of the image to be projected. There is no mechanical raster-scanning of the beam as is the case with the Virtual Retinal Display.
With the amount of money flying about in the mobile phone market, I don't think there is any question that there will be affordable video glasses before long. Things that are now impractical to do due to the small size of mobile device screens will suddenly become possible. A portable big screen could open up new revenue possibilities.
Aside from mobile phones, I see more and more people on the train with PSPs, Archos AV500's and various other personal movie players. That seems to be a growing market and high-res large screen video goggles would attract more people to the product.
Another possibility is virtual desktop screens. You could sit at your PC with video googles on and conjure up as many virtual screens as you like, all floating around you (obviously you need some head tracking). When you look at a screen directly it would snap into view to give a perfectly crisp picture.
At the Tantalus Colony we all wear video glasses when watching A Clockwork Orange.
Bored? Goto http://arcadejunkie.com/
Need to Find something? Goto http://u1i.com/
Heck, you could get a HUD for real life, or zoom in on a far away object... especially with the shrinking size of high-resolution cameras, the possibilities seem almost endless.
And while you're at it, go ahead and change your first and last name to "Borg".
I was just talking to my wife about this today. We were driving around a section of town where we know a few good restaurants. The area is packed with restaurants, and I was thinking how nice it would be to have a HUD that would display a user-feedback-style star rating above each building as we drive by. Not only would that make it easier to pick new places to try out, it would have saved us from the lousy place we had just gone to for lunch.
I've seen pretty much all of the components of such a system demonstrated at some time, somewhere (GPS, recognizing images from the eyeglass camera and relating it back to cartographic data, high-speed Internet access from a moving vehicle, etc). Once we get the basics for a mobile HUD in place, I think people will go wild coming up with new ways of tagging objects, structures, or people with metadata.
The privacy nuts are going to have to pool their money together and buy themselves an island somewhere...
"There isn't a real-world problem I've come across that doesn't have common human ignorance at its core."
I think they should add borders to the lenses, or something to proclaim that "No this guy isn't just wearing the most retarded sunglasses you've ever seen, but actually a nifty piece of technology.",
Perhaps they could sell them only in "white".
According to the article, "[Mirage Innovations Ltd.'s] technology is based on the principle of transforming a thin transparent plate into a complete wearable personal display system. The diffractive planar optics is combined with a microdisplay source, such as micro LCD, LCOS or OLED".
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
As a /. reader, I'll be glad to take questions here.
I've been waiting for affordable display glasses since I saw the concept in Flash Gordon. Fwiw, the company mentioned is hardly the first to develop this kind of device -- MicroOptical Corp and Icuiti to name two, and Icuiti's is shipping (i.e. non-vaporware) -- as Slashdot well knows, having posted numerous entries on the subject before. So the implication of the article that this is some kind of new development is odd and inaccurate.
HMD:s the size of normal sun glasses is old news. Take a look at http://www.stereo3d.com/hmd.htm
I saw a cooler set at Cebit. Better yet, it plugged into the phone so you could watch music videos.
MicroOptical has better stuff, IMNSHO.
Read a preview of my novel CYBERCHILD at www.smartalix.com/cyberchild
We're pretty much done creating that 'bizarre' society, actually we're refining it now. If you lean back and look at the big picture you and me and everybody else, we're living in a society which is somewhere in between George Orwell's Oceania of 1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.
... I really wish I had more people and less Borgs to talk to.
This world is downright ugly once you look under it's veneer of Hollywoodsoma and CNN and compared to the "uneducated
masses" of say even the 1930s we're Borgs, take my word on it.
The thing to do of course is to cut the connection to the Borg Collective, first and foremost get rid of your TV.
You're right about one thing though
You never know what the next trend will be. Apple could make a version of these and make it seem cool...
You are right about the nature of the problem, but I think wrong about what is being accomplished: Wanting investors. FRAUD???
All this time, I thought that it didn't matter *where* I sat, my TV would have the same number of pixels. I had no idea that sitting far away would reduce the number of pixels present!
Is it permanent? Will my TV always have fewer pixels? Or can I move the couch closer and reverse the process? Do they come back slowly over time, or will it be a sudden increase in resolution? Will the new pixels all show up on one side in a clump, or do they reappear evenly spaced among the existing pixels?
And if apple did it, it would look more like this than this.
Those glasses will never be cool without a major re-design. They're far too ugly.
The ______ Agenda
has a tiny font on my 2048x1536 display, and no option to resize the font. Attention to visual display people. I am part of your potential early market here...
__
Arse
RUFF_ILB: My name is Borg Borg.
VIKINGS: Borg, Borg, Borg, Borg, lovely Boooorg...
http://outcampaign.org/
One thing I haven't seen mentioned is how this is a step on the way to mediated and/or augmented reality. Not to mention full on virtual reality.
Get Terminator type HUD data, block out those pesky billboards, interact with your fellow humans even less then before!
Let's shift to the next user interface paradigm: make the screen touch-sensitive! I can't wait to be able to control my wearable computer by poking into my eyes with a pointy stylus!
Nuffsaid
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Don't know about his cat, but Schroedinger is definitely dead.
In fact, one of biggest factors in increasing immersion was in "is the field-of-view (FOV) large enough". Once you get past a certain point (IIRC, it was around 60 degrees horizontal, 45 degrees vertical), immersion was nearly automatic. At that FOV setting, the image is starting to get into the peripheral vision area - the further past that you can push it, the better (at least until it is out of visible bounds, of course).
Unfortunately, these glasses and other "new" HMD designs typically fall very short on the FOV angle. I can guarantee that these glasses would be like wearing a couple of toilet-paper tubes over your eyes. For augmented reality needs, or video watching, they may be suitable, but for immersive 3D action, they won't be very fun. Such glasses could be used for 3D gaming, but it would never be the same as a good immersive HMD with a large FOV. Also, note that a large FOV tends to mean lower visual acuity (because the pixels are enlarged and spread out more). So, you typically see HMDs with excellent FOVs, but horrible resolution (640 x 480, or worse). Even so, it isn't as bad as you think - with enough action, and you "moving around", once you get into the game, your brain fills in the gaps. Back in the day, this was termed "seeing beyond the pixels" - in fact, this is how your eyes and brain work in every day life, you just don't notice it. However, in order for this to work properly, you have to have full 3D tracking of the HMD. Inevitably, it just makes the whole thing more expensive. Furthermore, if you stop moving to look in a direction, the lack of motion can break the processing your brain is doing, and the image can become horrible very quickly (in some cases, even causing simulator sickness - but that is another topic).
Even so, such HMDs aren't cheap - expect to pay somewhere around $1500.00 to $5000.00 for large FOV with OK resolution (at the $5000.00 mark, you might find a few 1024x768 devices - but most will be 800x600 - the cost is mostly in the optics for big FOV, pixel blending, with low distortion - tough and expensive to do in optics). Extremely high resolution, high FOV HMDs do exist out there, but they are niche market devices, with VERY LARGE price tags (even a second mortgage on a house might not cover the cost!).
If you really want a nice HMD with OK resolution and good FOV - look into finding a used Visette Pro or Visette 2 HMD. While they only take PAL video (meaning you will need a scan convertor in the States), they can be found on the market used for little money (less than $500.00 if you shop right). They have an FOV of about 60H x 40V, with a resolution of around 640x480, all the optics are adjustable (independant focus and IPD adjust), built in headphones and microphone, and nose weight is low (fairly well balanced).
If you can find one of those, my all time favorite consumer HMD is the Forte VFX-1 - resolution and FOV sucks, but the FOV is just big enough that after playing for a little while, your focus and the FOV seem to "expand" (this may be another trick of the brain, but while I have experienced it, I haven't read anything on it). The really cool features are the great headphones and the flip-up visor (excellent for 3D game development work for HMD use). The bad part about the device is that it used the VGA feature connector, which is all but missing on current generation cards - plus the interface was EISA, so new motherboards are completely out. Not sure how you would get around that...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon