Slashdot Mirror


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.

16 of 239 comments (clear)

  1. Wear them on the subway? by Ohreally_factor · · Score: 4, Funny

    Much better to wear them while you're driving. At least more exciting.

    --
    It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
  2. Smaller? How about improved resolution. by ergo98 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I 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.

  3. Skip the spam by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
  4. Only if it has games and porn... by Jackie_Chan_Fan · · Score: 5, Funny

    no technology can survive without games and porn.

  5. Mind the Gap by datafr0g · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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
  6. I will only do it until I need glasses... by bananahead · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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. Re:I will only do it until I need glasses... by vialation · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The projection onto the lens will be at a focal length that is much longer than an inch. So just because you are looking at something an inch away, you're not focusing at an inch. Very much like if you get close to a mirror, and look at the objects that are behind you in the mirror. The image is a few inches away, but the objects are that few inches away plus the distance between the mirror and the objects. It's perfectly safe.

  7. HD version of this would be nice. by emj · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  8. I Can Hardly Wait ... by richg74 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Gee, this is really great -- but forget the subway. I'm a cyclist, and I have a "collection" of cool things I've seen people do to take their minds off the boredom of driving, including:
    • 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.

  9. they tried too hard.. by ZSpade · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.
  10. 40 Inches at Seven Feet? by setirw · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.
  11. Re:I'd use them by Ohreally_factor · · Score: 3, Funny

    Also, ideal for eating dinner at a Japanese restaurant, once the rice comes down a bit.

    FTFA:

    Mirage claims its NanoPrism technology will alter the rice/performance of personal displays while solving the problems plaguing traditional personal displays, which include unacceptably large weight and form factor.

    --
    It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
  12. Think of the possibilities! by Ruff_ilb · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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
  13. Not inverse square. by nonlnear · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.
  14. Yes please by pesc · · Score: 5, Insightful
    If this means...
    • The size of my laptop can be reduced to the size of the keyboard
    • The weight of my laptop can be reduced significantly
    • The battery time can be extended since the wearable display uses less power than the LCD backlight
    • The cost of the whole laptop can be cheaper since massproducing a micro-LCD device should be significantly cheaper than producing an 12 - 17 inch LCD.
    • I can get a laptop with a 30+ inch display in a format more compact than a 12 inch laptop.
    ... I can hardly wait! Bring it on!

    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
  15. No thanks. by edunbar93 · · Score: 4, Funny

    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