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Intel

A Look at Vaunt, Intel's Smart Glasses That Use Retinal Projection To Put a Display in Your Eyeball (theverge.com) 106

Posted by msmash from the future-of-things dept.
Chipmaker Intel is eyeing the smart glasses market, too. The Verge was invited to the company's lab where it got to play with Vaunt, a prototype of the company's smart glasses. The Vaunt looks very much like a normal pair of glasses, and uses retinal projection to put a display in your eyeball. The Verge: The most important parts of Intel's new Vaunt smart glasses are the pieces that were left out. There is no camera to creep people out, no button to push, no gesture area to swipe, no glowing LCD screen, no weird arm floating in front of the lens, no speaker, and no microphone (for now). From the outside, the Vaunt glasses look just like eyeglasses. When you're wearing them, you see a stream of information on what looks like a screen -- but it's actually being projected onto your retina.
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A Look at Vaunt, Intel's Smart Glasses That Use Retinal Projection To Put a Display in Your Eyeball More

A Look at Vaunt, Intel's Smart Glasses That Use Retinal Projection To Put a Display in Your Eyeball

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  • Great, now I can get text messages sent directly to my eye! Seems fairly useless for anything more sophisticated than that, though.

    • Re: 400x150 resolution (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      This Internet thing sends electric mail? I can already send mail at the post office. Sounds pretty useless to me.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Great, now I can get ads sent directly to my eyes. FTFY.

      • ob: DLALWRE (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward
        obligatory DON'T LOOK at LASER with REMAINING EYE Sturgeon General's warning.

    • Have you ever done a video chat and been a bit distracted by the participate never look at you? Rather, they are looking at their screen. It's just a bit strange and unnatural. It's like talking with someone who is looking at their coffee mug instead of you.

      They need to make a display that has a video camera in the middle of it. Better yet, some sort of arrangement where the display figures out where the eyeballs of the participants are and makes that the focal point of the camera looking back. THEN video c

      • I thought someone was doing that. Adding a pixel lens with every pixel in the display. So your monitor was the camera.

        I haven't heard much about it in years though.

        • And as soon as this hits the market, I'm buying my last-forever monitors.

          • Found it. Apple has a patent application in 2009 and Samsung has one in 2015 to add a pixel into the LED pixels that captures light. It is one way they are doing fingerprint reader in the screen approaches.

            So keep your eyes out they have been working g on tech like this for 9 years plus.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              Fingerprint reader on the back is best anyway. Of more interest is the folding screen that Samsung just teased. A phone that folds out into a tablet...

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by Myrdos ( 5031049 )

              So keep your eyes out they have been working g on tech like this for 9 years plus.

              I see what you did there.

            • "working" = cookie-licking. [urbandictionary.com]

              "This is mine. All mine. I saw it first. In my mind's eye I saw it. No one else can have it. Not for the next 17 years. Maybe longer. Lawyeerss!!! Take that world + dog! "

              "Now where is that watch/car/TV thingy I was working on?"

    • Never mind the texts, think of the porn!

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Its true. And the sad thing is that we all know technology springs forth completely made, and is not done in incremental steps of progress. Basically it goes like this:

      a) Farm idea from comment section on slashdot
      b) Create fully working production model
      c) Produce announcement
      d) Check slashdot comments to see if you did a good job
      e) PROFIT!

    • It'd be good for turn by turn directions.

    • Re:400x150 resolution (Score:4, Insightful)

      by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Monday February 05, 2018 @10:43AM (#56070727)

      "Great, now I can get text messages sent directly to my eye! Seems fairly useless for anything more sophisticated than that, though."

      You young whippersnappers. We played space quest on a CGA cards on 160*100 16 color mode and we liked it.

    • This is pretty damn cool technology that will probably be mainstream in 5 years or less. Leave it to slashdot commenters to completely miss the big picture and pick apart some stupid technical detail.

    • The Apple watch has a screen resolution of 272x340, and many people find it to be useful. This is about 65% of that on the first try, but you don't have to look the 12 inches or so down to your wrist - it's just there in your eyes.

      This would be very useful for any form of notification service - yes, your text messages, but also turn-by-turn navigation, news updates, email subjects, emergency services warnings, weather updates, etc.; things that people are buying smart watches for today (less the athletic r

  • Medical device. (Score:3)

    by ledow ( 319597 ) on Monday February 05, 2018 @09:21AM (#56070239) Homepage

    First blindness lawsuit filed in 3.... 2... 1...

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Just install a nice retina saver like flying toasters or GLFlury to keep retina burn in to a minimum while not in use.

  • intel I don't want them to read my mind!

  • Glasses even have predictive execution (Score:5, Funny)

    by JoeyRox ( 2711699 ) on Monday February 05, 2018 @09:25AM (#56070253)
    They can tell where your vision is directed and automatically bring up search engine results using advanced machine learning. The only problem is this predictive execution can occur across protection domains, which means its vulnerable to Meltdown attacks that would allow someone to read your inner thoughts every time you stare at a cup of coffee.
    • I can see it now, the "are you gay" app - it shows you images of porn and gauges your sexuality based on which genitals you look at.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DeBaas ( 470886 )

      I can predict that you're thinking about sex. Don't need no machine for that...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Mal-2 ( 675116 )

      When you stare at a cup of coffee, it's generally the case you're thinking about getting more coffee, and whether or not that is a good idea. No technology required.

  • Sounds more like a toy than something revolutionary at this point; but, I can easily see it evolving into something better. I will let overs pay the exorbitant early adopter fees and pick one up when it's only $50 more than a regular pair of glasses.

    I'd also like to see the long term safety impact of wearing the glasses before being an adopter. So- I'm not getting them in the next 20 years. After that, maybe... but in 20 years we might be ready for something completely different entirely.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by idji ( 984038 )
      You can see the red dot below their eye, so you know they are looking at something.
      Why were they spending so much time talking about AI and stuff. Just make the glasses and let others decide what to build. I don't want Intel deciding how it works, i want the app i choose to decide that.

    • I'd also like to see the long term safety impact of wearing the glasses before being an adopter.

      Yeah...I got that laser surgery for my eyes. Who knew that 20 years later, your eyeballs fall out?

      • I'd also like to see the long term safety impact of wearing the glasses before being an adopter.

        Yeah...I got that laser surgery for my eyes. Who knew that 20 years later, your eyeballs fall out?

        Obviously you're joking, but Lasik has turned out to be less successful than was expected early on. A lot of people do have very bad side-effects from Lasik. My sister-in-law is one of them. Side effects are bad enough that my wife is happy she never got it done. (coming from same gene pool and likely would have similar reactions).

    • So far as I know this is the first of it's type, and as such it's more of a proof-of-concept than it is anything else. If there's sufficient interest, and it doesn't exhibit any serious drawbacks in actual use, then it'll be developed more -- and there's no reason it couldn't be, with higher resolution and full color. Just takes money.
    • Oh and the laser power is probably just a few milliwatts at best (if even that much) so it's not like it'd be hazardous to your retinas.

      • Oh and the laser power is probably just a few milliwatts at best (if even that much) so it's not like it'd be hazardous to your retinas.

        Shouldn't be, but I wouldn't want to be an early adopter on that. An example would be, even low "safe volume noise" can be hazardous to your hearing if continuous.

        In reality, there probably is nothing to fear... but I'll let someone else go first.

  • Good idea (Score:5, Funny)

    by 110010001000 ( 697113 ) on Monday February 05, 2018 @09:33AM (#56070291) Homepage Journal
    This is a good idea. There is no reason you should be wary about projecting a stream of light on your retina. Just remember to run a screensaver, otherwise you will have the "Intel Inside" logo forever burned into your vision.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Having light directly hitting your retina is not unusual among people who can see.

      • Re:Good idea (Score:4, Funny)

        by Oswald McWeany ( 2428506 ) on Monday February 05, 2018 @09:42AM (#56070357)

        Having light directly hitting your retina is not unusual among people who can see.

        Most people who can see end up no longer being able to see within 115 years of being born.

      • True. Therefore is OK to beam a laser directly in the eye. It is also OK to look at the sun. Thanks for the tip.

        • It is also OK to look at the sun.

          But only at night.

        • The only parameters that matter in this equation are:
          * Wavelength of light
          * Effective power
          • (Damnit, hit 'submit' before I was done!)

            If the wavelength is not in the visible spectrum (especially ultraviolet) or the effective power, as it hits your retina (any section of it), is too high, then damage could occur. Doesn't matter if it's reflected light from the scene around you, or if it's literally projected an inch away from your eye.

    • Just remember to run a screensaver, otherwise you will have the "Intel Inside" logo forever burned into your vision.

      I think there probably would be some idiots in Inte's marketing department that would regard that as a feature instead of a bug...

      • Just remember to run a screensaver, otherwise you will have the "Intel Inside" logo forever burned into your vision.

        I think there probably would be some idiots in Inte's marketing department that would regard that as a feature instead of a bug...

        Give it 20 years and the "Intel" inside your brain will make it so you can't delete the "Intel Inside" you see continuously in your vision. Hopefully, much like your nose, you will learn to not see it.

  • color

    I assume that with the addition of a (very) low powered green and blue laser that it would be possible to have full color images displayed. Also, I assume that, on command perhaps, the images could show up on a larger more prominent portion of the "display" (like directly ahead). Presumably the default "minimized" mode could be achieved by keeping most of the image "black" most of the time.

    That with ultra-miniaturized cameras and 3D sensors built into the frame of the glasses, should enable when desi

  • You get #metoo tweets displayed to you every time you look at something you shouldn't ...

  • ... to screw this tech up somehow.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HiThere ( 15173 )

      In it's current state the only way Intel can screw up the technology is by getting patents...so you're right, you can trust Intel to do that.

  • Finally (Score:4, Insightful)

    by nagora ( 177841 ) on Monday February 05, 2018 @09:50AM (#56070403)

    Glasses+gaze detection+deepfake = X-Ray Specs

    Childhood dreams: realised!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by abies ( 607076 )

      I share the sentiment, but there are two issues here:
      1) Deepfakes put face of unattainable on naked body you can see. You will need quite the opposite here, which makes it a lot harder compute-wise
      2) To get reasonable quality for few hundred pixel x few hundred pixel face you need days of specialized GPU time. To put retina-quality full body in realtime, you would probably need to rent entire Amazon cloud

      For time being, it is a lot cheaper to just ask them to undress for money ;) So called 'Weinstein soluti

  • Eye health? (Score:3)

    by SumDog ( 466607 ) on Monday February 05, 2018 @10:04AM (#56070497) Homepage Journal

    Didn't IBM abandon their tech that projected stuff onto your eyeballs back in the 90s because it ended up damaging your eyes?

  • So, basically, a really crude version of Virtual Light glasses? Interesting.

  • I was somewhat surprised to see that the interface will be JS. I guess it will do the job, but it doesn't seem like a solution that will scale well when the technology goes forwards and more sophisticated graphics capabilities are required.

    I have nothing against JavaScript except that it seems to be the default for intelligent operations without any regard to its capabilities, limitations and weirdness.

    Could it be because an Android or iOS SDK would exclude Windows, making things awkward for Intel's relati

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      And why do you say that? Javascript can do some pretty impressive stuff these days - https://www.babylonjs.com/

  • I'll just leave this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
  • Is the Mom Corp "Eye Phone" the first thing that comes to anyone else's minds or is it just me.

  • Looks interesting, but I'm not sure I'd be able to see the red very well, being among the 8% of men who have red-green colorblindness. One hopes they are considering that, but I didn't see it addressed in the article.

    - Necron69

  • I'm incredibly sensitive to light. The light that the optometrist uses to view the retina causes me searing pain. Damned if I'll let some tech company shine a friggin' laser in there. Short - I don't trust them.

  • The glasses, dey do nothing...

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