Would You Wear Video Glasses? 239
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.
Smaller? How about improved resolution. (Score:3, Insightful)
Mind the Gap (Score:4, Insightful)
Because it's cool to wear shades underground.
I will only do it until I need glasses... (Score:4, Insightful)
The glassed need two things (Score:1, Insightful)
2. Sensors to detect where I'm viewing. Whether my focus is on the screen an inch away from my eye, or if I'm trying to look out past the screen. If I'm trying to look out past the screen, the video should shut off immediately (or at least become translucent).
Reason not to wear them - Muggings! (Score:3, Insightful)
1) Expensie tech (As in a couple of hundred)
2) Not physically large
3) Highly visible to everyone else that you are using it
4) Blocks out significant part of your own visual field (and also audio)
5) Designed to be used outside of your own home (as otherwise why use it)
In a private situation (or on a plane) these glasses would be OK, but wear them on the subway, or sit in the park and you might as well put up a banner that says "Mug me!!"
But a solution would be to put a web cam on top of the glasses, and feed it back into the system as a "picture in picture" so you can keep track of the outside world while you gasp at the unblelievable plot quality of m:i:III
Re:space goggles? (Score:3, Insightful)
the man looks like a 5 feet superfly with enormous goggles.
but now imagine, going to bed with your wife when she is 50, then wearing the glasses and looking at some good old german 'romance' movie wouldn't be that bad at all
Re:I will only do it until I need glasses... (Score:5, Insightful)
I Can Hardly Wait ... (Score:5, Insightful)
- 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.
Re:HD version of this would be nice. (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah.
I saw a couple manufacturers of video glasses at CES. One set wouldn't fit over my glasses at all. The other set was supposed to fit, but didn't. I seem to have a head on the larger end of the spectrum, but still.
And the kicker... IIRC both devices had QVGA resolution. Rather useless for hacking, and not really that good for TV anymore either.
If any manufacturers are listening... I want a set that has large image size, and high resolution. 1280x1024 is barely acceptable, and 1920x1280 would be good. Then you can watch HD, and have enough real estate for a bunch of terminal windows. And yeah, that would be expensive, but surely not nearly as expensive as a 50 inch physical display using LCD, plasma, OLED, or whatever.
Only at home... (Score:3, Insightful)
And even then, what would be the point? For the same money, I can buy a decent TV that 1) won't hurt my eyes, 2) friends can also enjoy, 3) doesn't requirement me to hide from the world because of how moronic I look.
Yes please (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Only if it has games and porn... (Score:1, Insightful)
Stage 1) The practical justification for the technology. Attach a sensor so the glasses can be aware of what you're looking at and display vital information about what you're looking at.
Stage 2) The cute entertainment for the technology. Not only does it display vital information, it also adds funny captions depending on who or what you're looking at or add cartoons.
Stage 3) The risque entertainment for the technology. The captions become sexy and suggestive when looking at women.
Stage 4) The soft porn for the technology. The glasses use extrapolation to show you how the woman you're looking at would look naked as they move in front of you. People buying the glasses would never admit to buying it for the soft porn and claim it's for entertainment or practical use.
Stage 5) The soft porn for the technology. The glasses gather all the soft porn images and uses them to extrapolate sex scenes.
Anyone willing to place bets on this *not* happening?
Laptop display (Score:2, Insightful)
Any laptop screen that is backlit is necessarily hugely inefficient. Only a tiny amount of the light that it produces will pass through your pupil into your eyes. A far higher proportion of the light these glasses produce would be likely to reach your eyes, so they could be made very bright yet draw only a few milliwatts of power.
Microprocessors and peripherals could in theory be made to be many times more efficient than they are today, but a 15" screen with a given brightness could not be made much more efficient than current OLED devices.
If these things really are comfortable, the next generation laptop could be made as small as its keyboard - and work for many days on a much lighter battery.
If this were really JUST like a pair of sunglasses (Score:3, Insightful)
Sadly, with these [primidi.com] that will never happen.