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Wearable Computer With Lightweight HUD
zeazzz writes to mention that the folks over at UMPC have a very cool little writeup and pictorial of a user's latest wearable PC. With the surge in smart phone adoption it seems that enthusiasm for wearable computers has dropped off a bit, which is too bad. I certainly look forward to my augmented reality HUD instead of depending on my iPhone for everything. "Essentially he took the MyVu headset, removed one of the eye pieces, and mounted the other to his glasses to that he could see his surroundings and the UX's screen at the same time. The MyVu is attached to the UX through the A/V output port on the UX's port replicator dongle. With some additional addons he provided his UX with extra battery life via an external battery, and several input methods to communicate with the UX while the rest of the kit resides within the backpack."
OK, the bluetooth headset seems to be winning out over the HUD as the main UI device. Other than that, how is a smartphone not a wearable computer?
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While this may be fine for watching video without getting neck strain from being hunched over, it makes computing life a pain.
Until one of these things can give me a full 1024x768 or better display, it'll always be a niche toy for computing.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
At least for what I have in mind for a personal project. I haven't been able to find a decent optical see-through HMD that is affordable for regular people.
Liteye makes a system for the military, but this seems like a rather limited system.
I wouldn't mind seeing an OLED system in this form factor. They're quite sturdy, allowing you to mount decent loads onto it, the bridge and resting pads are quite big making them rather comfortable even with a big load on them. The stems are wide allowing big mounting points for stuff like camera(s) and wires. Connect it to something like an nVidia Tegra and you'd have an optical see through display, head mounted cameras and a small computer that can handle augmented reality with apparent ease.
But I suspect I'd be better off hoping to see Megan Fox splayed across my bed.
As far as demand goes...I demand to own one of these...I mean really, the concept is just awesome, I can level up characters in all my favourite games while driving to work! Heck, I could play GTA while driving to work (as long as I don't mix up which eye is the game). What could possibly go wrong?
Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.
And I would like to see someone hack one. LOL. Can you imagine walking down the street and seeing some guy suddenly freak out because his wearable computer started blaring music and showing totse images?
Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.
"Oh, my God, you didn't turn into a gargoyle, did you?"
Immolation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Condoms got NOTHING on this when it comes to preventing reproduction!
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
When my bicycle HUD displays rear-views and navigational data I'll be all set.
I think contact lenses make a lot more sense. Then you could remove them. They'd be a lot easier to upgrade as well. I don't see any reason they couldn't have their circuitry embedded in them off near the edge, and have power beamed in.
Contact lenses might make a lot of sense as targets for a vision system like the one described in Snow Crash. Perhaps if you integrated some MEMS components into them they could contain a scanning mirror set, even, and perform a sort of DLP-esque function.
If I'm getting an eye implant, I want a lot more than a HUD. I expect telescopic vision via electrowetting lenses.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
That won't work...try to focus on your contact lens...or more likely, some bit of dirt or smudge on it. You can't; there needs to be a bit of distance between the lens and the thing you're trying to optically perceive.
Xybernaut did this back in the 90s with a monocle hud, voice recognition, and a wearable cpu. It was underpowered, but saw some demand in the manufacturing and maintenance fields. I always thought it was a good idea and hoped it would go mainstream. Sony even threatened to make a 'ComputeMan' with the tech. I would have to agree that there's not enough demand and or it's too geeky.
Instead of furiously wanking while trying to stand out from the crowd by wearing highly visible equipment, these guys should be finding a niche where mobile computing makes sense.
-Anybody working in a factory or a warehouse, where nobody cares how you look.
-Field service techs that need access to a ton of reference data.
-Anybody that climbs up a telephone pole or down a manhole.
-Anybody who needs use of both hands and access to information simultaneously to better do their jobs.
It's not exactly a "niche" market. Designing a wearable eyescreen that doesn't suck will be worth a ton of money.
Yeah, we got this dude good. Looks like the server didn't just slow to a crawl, it's been pushed completely offline. Instead of an endless wait, I'm getting an instant connection refused message.
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
Where's the +1 Hilarious Hypocrisy mod when you need it?
I still haven't seen one that truly interests me.
What I want to find is a setup that hooks up to both a long infrared (thermal imaging) and a short infrared (night vision) cameras, and overlays the images on reality through the glasses.
Imagine being able to not only see in the dark, but see the heat signatures from things.
My dad experimented with long infrared with the Army in the 60's and 70's. In some of the books that he had published, he demonstrated interesting things. The equipment was huge and static. He'd set up for a shot, take the picture, and then process it. At best, you were looking at hours to see the result. You could see a residual handprint on the wall, inefficiencies of insulation, etc.
Imagine seeing a real time feed overlaid over the world. Amazingly useful things would be seeing hotspots in a house, caused by overloaded power circuits or inefficient insulation. You may be able to see where someone had walked before you (temp changes in the footprints), touched items such as door knobs. Fire rescue would be able to see through smoke, take extra precautions on very hot doors, and very likely save more lives. Police could search darkened areas with ease, and avoid hostile suspects jumping out from the shadows. In every day use, you could see long distances ahead when you are driving at night, and even spot when someone you're talking to is lying.
It could open up a whole new world for us.
The idea wouldn't be very hard. You should be able to run a pair of fiber optic cables from the edge of a pair of glasses down to the cameras. A very small PC should be able to overlay the images in real time, and then display them through something resembling the glasses shown. I've been watching for cameras that are small enough, and are affordable. I have yet to find the kind of gear that I could afford. :(
An extra overlay of other data could be useful too, without causing an information overload. The time, ambient temperature, some GPS data (heading, speed, altitude). Things that you'd see on TV are a bit fanciful right now, such as threat detection. Determining a car is on an intercept path and may cause an impact is a bit beyond what a portable PC can do, but a human can determine it quickly by seeing it.
For fire/rescue and law enforcement, I would see it being amazingly useful to transmit that data back to a central location. Where or what happened? It would all be available.
I know a lot of people hate cops, but a lot of them are actually doing something very useful for our protection. We simply don't see it all the time, because most of our interaction is with traffic cops who may or may not be right, but they'll write the ticket anyways.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.