Slashdot Mirror
Computer Monitor In Eyeglasses
ozancakmakci writes "We have all seen science fiction ideals of computer displays concealed in eyeglasses. One of the earlier spectacle-based designs was created by David Bettinger and disclosed in US Patent 4,806,011. Advances in fabrication technologies are now allowing complicated surface profiles to be manufactured. Exploitation of a complicated surface profile leads to low element count designs. Researchers at the University of Central Florida, CREOL/College of Optics & Photonics have designed and fabricated a computer monitor in eyeglasses that uses sophisticated surface profiles to achieve a compact design. The current specifications include an 8mm exit pupil, 20-degree field of view, 15mm eye clearance, and a resolution of 1.5 arcminutes. Follow the link for two pictures of this latest prototype." Read on for some of the challenges in designing a workable eyeglasses-based display.
Regardless of market potential, there are several optical engineering challenges that need to be overcome before displays in eyeglasses become pervasive. From an optical engineering point of view, the design space is large enough and designers have to make choices. A good example of such a choice is choosing just the right field of view while maintaining high image quality and a large exit pupil. Exit pupil of an optical system is analogous to the windows at your home, the larger the windows, the easier it is to see the outside world. It has been challenging to design and fabricate a large field of view and a large exit pupil for an eyeglass based display.
seeing how reading books for extended periods of time will deteriorate your eye sight, since you are putting too much straign on your eyes by focusing so close, would using these things as your computer monitor be really feasable for more than a few minutes? I mean focusing your eyes so close seems like a big streign, is this thing even practical?
I'll be happy if they could make a it so I could have glasses (even though I have 20/10 vision), that would allow me to see normally, and had a light opaque computer screen which would serve as a monitor. HUDs displays won't be good until that feature happens seamlessly I think.
Regards,
MBC1977,
greetz from #linuxwarez@efnet
Why UNIX?
Since the submitter is the author of the article, I find it a bit upsetting that he does not show more links to information on his 'invention' or background written by others. Now it looks a bit like a bad egotrip.
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
I can already see this weaponized as a HUD for ground soldiers.
Green outlines maker terr'ists pretty.
Can I play quake with the glasses? If not, I'm out!
3d floating images direction/motion senstitivity
then it will be something new and shiny
If there were more pictures, simulations, descriptions of applications already working on it. The amount of possible applications once the kinks are worked out is amazing, but the technology still seems far off.
Can I read Slashdot while walking through this mess of cables without falling down and taking half the room with me?
The world is my oyster. That's why it's always in a stew.
For the people who wear glasses they should cram OLEDs down so they are small enough to be integrated directly into regular eyeglass lenses, with wireless and batteries to power it all. For people who don't wear glasses though, we should look into directly stimulating the optic nerve, but find a way to do it without actually having something that touches the eye.
1. How does this differ from the wearable glasses that have been on the market for 20 years?
2. How do you get a patent for something that's 20 year old technology?
AFAICT, this is just the same old 640x480 that nobody wanted. Where's the innovation? My guess is that he's filing for a design patent; however he thanks someone else for doing the optical design.
...at least in prototype form? http://www.media.mit.edu/wearables/lizzy/index.htm l
The article doesn't articulate how the new technology is different from previous projector-based systems.
oh yeah, that's what we need people doing in addition to talking on their cell phone while eating breakfast while driving. Come on, you know that you know at least one person that would check their e-mail on their fancy new monitor-glasses connected to their laptop while they were driving :P
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
Would the iTheater count as Prior Art?
p ortable-video-glasses/
http://www.coolest-gadgets.com/20060820/itheater-
While watching a movie or something seems to be the most obvious use of this type of system, I think the most interesting uses would be those that involve leaving most of the screen clear at any given time. A HUD for a soldier, sure... or a little digital clock and mini forcast (like forcast fox) whenever you look up and to the right or something for a civilian. You could even use it to add a 3D picture of something to every day life, if you added a camera or a motion sensor... I just can't wait until someone makes a popup virus for one of these... hijack wireless or bluetooth connected to the device and an ad appears 10 feet in front of you every 5 minutes... that would be interesting, especially if such a device were required for some tracking system :P
Does a line appended to your comment give your post meaning in and of itself, or only in relation to those without?
These glasses would be quite useful for sky divers, they could see their altitude and current speed in their glasses as opposed to asking a mathematician after they land. Every time I've been sky diving the mathematician in the booth at the landing site charged nearly $100 just to tell me how fast I was going. Then once I brought along a calculator and started calculating my velocity right there. Then the mathematician got really pissed off and tried to take the calculator away from me. Then the other sky divers grabbed him and wrapped him up in a chute and rolled him into a near by river. I did all the calculations for the other sky divers for free.
The trouble was after that the mathematician went and told the National Mathematicians Union about what I did. So the Union went to the Sky Divers Collective and told them if they kept up this 'bastard math' as they called it, they'd completely blacklist the entire skydiving community. This was a tough call on the part of the Collective, since they had something of a symbiotic relationship with the Mathematicians Union. Instead of trying to call the Union's bluff the Sky Divers Collective just blacklisted ME from ever sky diving again. I think that was a real kick in the teeth, since the conditions of the blacklist meant I wasn't even allowed to use a chute to save my own life.
These computer monitor glasses would be a well deserved kick in the teeth for the National Mathematicians Union which I think has gotten a little too big for its britches. I imagine they'll probably be the biggest opponants of the computer glasses.
I don't own a snook, and if I did I wouldn't leave it cocked.
Is there any word on when these might be avialable for general production?
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Oh, wait.
i'll believe in this technology the day I see it in my livingroom
as well
i'd bet not one percent of the wonderful inventions we've seen at slashdot ever becomes affordable and available
Head mounted displays have *not* been fiction. Steve Mann has been building these things for decades. A number of commercial solutions, based on several generations of products exist. I count a total of 17 basic wearable display product lines at Tekgear, a distributor who focuses on wearable computing hardware. This sort of thing is so common that an Open Source toolkit has been developed to deal with the real problems with these displays -- not the graphics display, but the user input. The ArToolkit is an object-recognition system which allows easy, keyboard-less interaction with a computer mediated augmented reality display. It's rather far along.
Either Firefox's implementation of dynamic resizing needs to be tightened up, or (if resizing 3264x2176 images is not how these tags were supposed to be used) the author needs to replace the pictures on the main page with smaller versions, which can open up the larger versions if you click on them.
I don't know if this could work, but what if you would build a "lens" with integrated LEDs. Each LED would have a another lens in front of it, projecting it's light onto a small spot of your retina. When the lenses and the LEDs are small enough you wouldn't notice them when looking throught.
Anyone else getting a probe on port 500 when visiting the article link?
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
... Now I can look like Geordi LaForge!
Fighter pilots have been using devices of similar gist for many years. Now, I am not a professional in this field, but as far as I know this technology never found its way to the consumer world because it is notorious for giving the viewer a nasty headache when used too long. It is not clear if they figured this issue out; until they do, I refuse to be impressed. P.S. In case the people involved are actually reading it: did you ever try using it for more than 10 minutes straight?
they could adjust focus of the display from near to far on a cycle, and get rid of the need to take a break visually...
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
As you can have the answers on your Eyeglasses
IANAO (I am not an optician) but as far as I know, the proper exercises can fortify your eyes and even ameliorate your vision.
The biggest problem with reading (and computers, also) is CONTRAST.
Black on white is awful on your eyes. A yellowish or brownish page with blue ink would do marvels for your extenuated sight. Black on White will just strain it more and more.
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
Here's how you'll look wearing them.
And this is not new technology and neither is it original research. He simply used commercially available HUD systems and integrated it into his own system. Still pretty freakin hard and cool but I dont love how he says its due to new fabrication technology since its not like he developed that tech or anything.
Also, don't forget that light play an important part in deterioration.
/.ers, the optics are made so you focus on infinity when looking at the image, there's not much risk for the eyes.
Well lit environment preserves the eyesight. Light using a good bright white light source when reading a book.
In contrast, badly lit environment will favorise eyesight deterioration. Like a dimly lighted environment near the computer in a geek's basement. The geek tend to prefer low light (so the display is more visible), but this deteriorate his eyes faster.
If the head-mounted display has a correct brightness and, as mentionned by other
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
And I certainly don't care that much if he is mentally wrecked from designing his display. mental instability is something you can claim for the judge and if granted gets you undefunite loonie-bin time instead of jailtime. The rest of us try to judge anything by its merits, not the mental state of the creator.
If you are a student you may make some mistakes in your time management, but if completing your studies makes it certain your mental state will suffer a lot, you and your uni are making some very serious mistakes. Personally I don't think it is that bad.
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
May the Maths Be with you!
Informative.
"I seem to have mastered a certain amount of control over physical reality."
Thad Starner and his team that was researching Wearable computing at MIT had them a LOOOONG time ago. Thad is currently sporing some today that are near impossible to detect.
Nothing new here but someone patenting something that has so much prior art that taking the patent down will be incredibly easy.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I still want one when it's commercially available. Especially when it's integrated into a device the size/power of our average PocketPC PDA.
"I've spent my whole life figuring out crazy ways to do things. It'll work." -- Montgomery Scott, "Relics"
Underrated
I read / skimmed through the comments as much as possible so if someone already mentioned this I apologize. I remember reading an article (I think last year) about oLEDs in SciAM and how sheets of them could be produced to be used as displays (for cell phones/computers/other) which would be transparent when no current was running through them. Not exactly sure where this technology is at these days but I would think that they could be made into practically any shape (to accomodate the many different styles of eye glasses). You could have a little button or something on the side of your glasses to cut the power to/from the display so that they could be normal glasses except when you wanted to view something (like the skydiving stats). Also "bastard math" is one of the funniest terms I've heard in a while.
Wow - a story on something that has been around for 30 years and commercially available for at least the last ten. When it doesn't make you look like Jordi from Star Trek (or the borg), I might consider dropping some cash on it, or gracing it with the presence of my head.
or else!
Great, now everyone can watch porn while driving.
What could possibly go wrong?
Cress, cress, lovely lovely cress
To make talking on the cell phone while driving look comparably safe. Imagine a driver with a pair of these... You've got mail = 5-car pileup.