Slashdot Mirror
Where Are the High-Res Head-Mounted Displays?
vivian writes "Ever since 1996, when I first set eyes on a Sony GlassTron head-mounted display in Japan, I have been awaiting a lightweight, head-mounted display that actually has decent resolution and doesn't look like a brick tied to your face. The closest contender to date seems to be the WRAP 920AV from Vuzix, and they are partially transparent too, which is great, but as with every other unit I have found, they only offer video quality — 640x480. Given that there have been a number of other discussions on Slashdot, I can't be the only one here who is eagerly awaiting something that could actually be a viable alternative to a PC monitor — especially for gaming or 3d graphics work. Perhaps we could petition a manufacturer to make what we actually want? Something with a minimum of 1024x768 @30-60hz refresh, say, and capable of stereo vision. Extra karma if they incorporate head tracking."
The VR of the 90's is dead. Long live augmented realtiy.
Augmented reality != Isolated VR rooms as you have described above.
Augmented reality requires transparent HMDs or something similar so that visual reality can be augmented with extra information and not hugeass displays in a room somewhere.
I think what you're saying is that until PORN comes available on HMD, it isn't going to take off. You'd be amazed at how much porn drives technology.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
People just don't want to be teased with "hey Geordi" everywhere. It's bad enough at my job... I have a Linux box and a Windows box, each with dual monitors (not particularly big ones) and it's always "hey Houston, are you sure you don't need another monitor?" Everyone else
I always thought HMDs sounded like a great idea, too. I guess they won't be socially accepted until they're integrated into eyeglasses without any noticeable extra bulges anywhere, and wireless too. How to get the battery into such a small form factor will be quite a trick to pull off.
You know, I've been wearing glasses since I was 12 or so and all of this time they have always been a hindrance. They fall off, get crushed by a passer-by when I'm swimming, get scratched up, press up against my face when I fall asleep in the chair, fly off when I get on a roller coaster, get in the way when kissing and cause all other kinds of trouble. It would be nice to get something extra out of the bit of wasted realestate on my face.
Nerd rage, baby!
Because it just hangs on the wall, probably doesn't provide 3D, and I stop seeing it the moment I turn around or leave the room.
That's a very restricted solution. It works if you have a room to dedicate to it, and you're happy enough to interact with the system in one unique place. I think that's a pain and very limiting. Technology advances towards being portable. Making a huge investment in something I can't use most of the time seems the wrong way to go for me.
Er, a room covered with displays is exactly the old concept of VR. You're replacing reality completely there, except that instead wearing hardware it's all around you.
My understanding of "augmented reality" is precisely an HMD that mixes reality with VR. Things like:
Constant Internet connection that can be used at any time in any place
GPS overlay right over your vision while walking on the street
Vision enhacement - take the normal vision and modify it, by highlighting important things, removing ads, allow attaching a virtual sticky note on any building, extra cameras that allow to see from the back of your head or in infrared, easy lookups of data about things you see.
AR games: Merge reality and a game, playing say, a FPS in a park. Create a chessboard on any surface.
Merging RL with another world: I'd really like to be able to for instance merge RL with Second Life and make it so that somebody from SL can virtually sit near me and appear to be there.
HMD's are so retro-chic. Don't you know that all the cool research is now tapping the brain's retina layer to augment/alter vision?
These days, I'm waiting for the hat/camera/socket that allow for text overlay, enhanced-spectrum cameras, and novel perspectives to our existing firmware.
Remember, when dreaming go big.
a 2" screen a half inch from your eye was not the way the human eye was intended to work. no offense to how cool it would be though, but our eyes just have not evolved for that type of input.. things like depth perception, spatial awareness and stereoscopy break down. the best we can do is overlay projections which have been used in broadway musicals for years, and HUD which has been used to help old people drive cars and young people blow up third world countries.
Good people go to bed earlier.
That's depressing. I can't recall having been so disappointed in /.'s "geek" credibility. Anyone who reads/posts here has NO business being confused about a) why a head-mounted semi-transparent display is FUNDAMENTALLY different than a large wall-mounted LCD or b) what augmented reality is.
The 60" figure is just some market-drone BS they made up of what its equivalent would be if you imagined you were looking at a TV in your living room (i.e. sitting 9-12 feet from the screen). But bigger != better. There's a reason nobody wants a 640x480 display: it looks like total crap, and it's the exact same tech they had for sale at the sharper image in the late 80s. I didn't want it then, and I don't want it now.
The trouble is: bigger means worse in this context. If you have 20/20 vision, then you would have to sit about 20-25 feet from a 60" 480p screen to avoid being distracted by pixels. Make these things 1080p and shrink them a bit so it's like a 50" (yes, smaller) screen at 9 feet away, and then people won't be bothered by the pixels, and people will actually buy these things. In short, it need to have about 9x higher pixel density.
Attention wearable display makers: Give me a 1080p resolution wearable display for under $500, or go jump off a fucking cliff.
Because I'd rather they hacked my glasses (which I can take off) than my brain?
(Find me an OS or similar level project with zero security breaks, and I'll consider letting that team of programmers near a system I'd install in my head.)
'Sensible' is a curse word.