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Companies To Invade Your Retinas As Soon As Next Year?
Engadget is one of many reporting that Brother and NEC both seem to have retina display technology in the works for release next year. Brother, at least, seems to have a fully functional prototype, while so far NEC is mostly talk. "Naturally, there are a few considerable limitations compared to more traditional displays, but the company's as yet unnamed goggles do promise to beam an 800 x 600 image directly into your retina that'll appear as a 10-centimeter wide image floating about one meter in front of them -- which is certainly no small feat, even if it may not be the most practical one. Slightly less specific, but also working on a retina display of its own is NEC, which apparently hopes to incorporate a microphone into their display and use it as a real-time translation device that would quite literally display subtitles as you talk to someone."
I for one welcome the retina-porn overlords
...a real-time translation device that would quite literally display subtitles as you talk to someone.
Wouldn't it make more sense to display subtitles as someone talks to you?
I think "Liberation" would be a better word. The companies will enter the eyeball (in small numbers), and will be cheered by all the cells... at first. But then they'll get caught up in the bitter rivalries, with renegade Rods lobbing bombs at the Cones, who will in turn blame the support cells in the Sclera for fomenting dissent.
This can only end badly.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Do not look into goggles with remaining eye.
Seriously, though, does anybody else find the idea of projecting directly on the eye a little disturbing?
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
I always remember faces, but names are tough. Here I could finally know everyone's name (combined with some facial recognition software).
Replace that low power LED with a super-high-power multi-Watt LED!
Hilarity ensues!
(As does screaming, and permanant blindness.)
Also the retina isn't that big. You are practically forced to look just right into the display to see something at all.
I'm working at a device to make pictures of the retina and it's pretty hard to make good images of the retina. These guys projects something on it that must be sharp enough to be useful. Kudos if they pull it off, but I'm skeptical. Show me the goods. This is just marketing blabla.
This will be awesome for 3d games (first person shooters).
One image per eye, producing a 3d scene.
I imagine generation 1 will look weird with all the images being in focus, even though the Z distance varies.
With a little more work, generation 2 could detect what you are trying to focus on - like those eye test machines do - and produce a more realistic scene - blurry in the background, sharp foreground.
It would be cool to hit a key and have the scene zoom on what you're looking at.
How is this "invasion" if you need to willingly put on a special pair of goggles that enable it?
It's sort of like calling someone accepting a gift at Christmas robbery or theft..
Imagine a world with many "blank" surfaces ... dull? Not without your wireless network retina vision (WNRV) - projected advertisement on "billboard surfaces" just around the (metaphorical) corner!
L'esperienza de questa dolce vita (The experience of this sweet life) - Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
The Engadget article says "10-centimeter wide image" where as the Register article that Engadget uses at its source says a 10cm^2 object.
That's quite a difference. If the image displayed is also in 4:3, that makes the Engadget image 7.5 times larger (10x7.5 cms).
I'm sorry to be the first to inform you, but you have been judged as having an imagination which is unfit to be used in conjunction with this website. Please remove this URL from your favorites and hand in your geek card on the way out.
Thank you.
Naturally, there are a few considerable limitations compared to more traditional displays, but the company's as yet unnamed goggles do promise to beam an 800 x 600 image directly into your retina that'll appear as a 10-centimeter wide image floating about one meter in front of them -- which is certainly no small feat, even if it may not be the most practical one.
I would've pointed out that this is currently vaporware.
In other words: THE GOGGLES! THEY DO NOTHING!
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
See, that's the awesome thing. They put a tiny camera on the other side, then project what the camera sees/the device obscures right onto your retina, plus some extra info. It's like the projector isn't even there!
Sure there are some parallax issues, and one day you forget it's there, go to bed with it on, roll over, and gouge your eye out, but hey, that's the price of progress!
The goggles (from NEC), they do nothing?
HEY WORLD: GET IT RIGHT.
"My eyes! The goggles do nothing!"
Hah, owned. I even did a Google search for "goggles nothing" to make sure I had the right phrase, but I didn't scroll down or follow any of the links. Sloppy.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
A CRT also has "no real equivalent to the image." It's just a scanned electron beam that lights up an area of phosphor for a small fraction of a second. Any image you see is just the result of light from multiple directions (the area of the image) entering your eyes within a small window of time.
Also, no practical HMDs use just a point light source scanned over the retina, since this results in a "eye box" that's much too small. The eye box is the volume of space that your pupil must be in in order to see the image. In order to be practical, a scanned point light source needs to pass through a beam spreader of some sort in order to enlarge the eye box. It's difficult to make an HMD with both a large eye box and a large FOV. (It's actually difficult to make an HMD with a big FOV period.)
As far as safety goes, there are typically several levels of fail-safes built into laser-scanned displays, including a "dead man's switch" which cuts power to the lasers if the scanner stops scanning. Hopefully, no manufacturer is stupid enough to depend upon software alone to control the laser power.
Either someone's having a bizarre laugh at my expense, or the standards for positive moderation near the top of the thread are just really, really low.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").