A Computer Display in Ordinary Sunglasses? 182
DonaldP asks: "I've been making head-mounted displays for wearable computers for a couple or three years now; I think my latest and greatest 3rd Generation display is a big step ahead! It fits inside a normal-looking pair of sunglasses. Why would I do something like this? As far as I know, this is one of the only ones available out there - the only others that come close are made by MicroOptical Corporation, but it's been years and you STILL can't actually BUY any of their products. With large companies like Xybernaut holding plenty of patents on wearable computers and going strong, is there a place for my little one-man company? Any tips for making it on my own? Or is my best hope to hook up with a giant?" I've been waiting for a nice and portable HMD for years, and this has the advantage of not making you look like a Borg reject (although some of you might like that look). HMDs still have a way to go to be practical for everyday use (many still require perfect vision or contacts because they are clumsy with glasses) but I'm sure these drawbacks will be fixed with time.
Mann already did this (Score:3, Informative)
Also see this paper [wearcam.org] at wearcam.org [wearcam.org].
Re:Twiddler2 (Score:2, Informative)
But I got a bit nervous when I checked the security certificate information for their SSL connection like I always do, and noticed it was some other webiste I'd never heard of.
Well that could just be their purchasing service, but just to be safe I decided to call their listed phone number (631) 474-4405 and that turned out to be no longer valid. I didn't call the new number given yet; I know I'm paranoid, and frankly I like it that way, but does anyone know if this is the legit link?
Re:Twiddler2 (Score:2, Informative)
Try this [handykey.com]. Apparently they're moving right now.
Re:Here's a "Why" for you (Score:2, Informative)
It is not caused by "eye strain", but by a specific mutation in the rhodopsin gene.
My cat hates you.
The Eye Strain Problem (Score:2, Informative)
glasses is as discussed above eye strain.
Imagine an standard but small LCD display in
front of your eye. To focus on it, is the same
as focusing on any object 2 cm away from you
eye, downright impossible unless your extremely
short sighted. This is easy to fix you put a
lens in front of the LCD so that to correctly everything
is focused at infinity or maybe 20 feet away,
i.e. your
eye has to focus as if the image was at infinity or 20 feet. But this is still is not good enough.
The eye (and brain) is built to be continously
focusing on different objects at different depths,
and keeping it locked at in single focal depth for
very long produces eye strain. Worse still is that
if your viewing a 3d image, the parallex clues the brain gets to what distance an object is
at, have nothing to with what depth the eye has
to focus at, and this could cause further problems
with eye strain, that you wouldn't normally get
just by staring somewhere for a long period of time.
True when you look around a room you don't tend to
notice objects coming in and out of focus, but this is
in fact because the Brain uses the eye
to update the model of your surroundings and it
is this model you normally perceive.
Until someone can design a system that has
different virtual objects at different focal depths, eye strain will painfully prevent such
displays becoming popular consumer items.
MicroOptical's HUD *is* available (Score:2, Informative)
Re:isn't it bad for your eyes? (Score:3, Informative)
That would be true, except that the lens changes the focal length of the display to appear "normal" - ie at the same depth as other things around you.
You can see this effect for yourself with a magnifier lens of some kind. Preferably a jewele's loupe or some other small magnifying lens.
Hold the lens up to one eye. Keep both eyes open. Hold a paper with writing up to the eye with the lens. Move the paper back and forth until it comes into focus. You'll see what I mean.
It's just like looking into a video camera's eyepiece.