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Handhelds Hardware

New YOPY Cousin To Use Head-Mounted Display 36

Posted by timothy from the when-when-when- dept.
Dan Mønster writes: "G.mate, the company behind the Linux based YOPY PDA, have given details on a new PDA -- this one with a head mounted display, but otherwise similar to the YOPY. The site also has a lot of new pictures of the YOPY." Check out the neat swoopy camera module, too. Question is, can they make the Yopy similar or lower in price than the similarly-spec'd iPAQ? And when can we get our hands on one?
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New YOPY Cousin To Use Head-Mounted Display More

New YOPY Cousin To Use Head-Mounted Display

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  • Monocular HMD and Yopy (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I was in the Daeyang/Yopy Booth at Comdex. They showed a monocular display hooked up to the Yopy. Here is a picture it: monocular headset [bestweb.net]

    Daeyang is making the Yopy headsets. They are the first portable products to use a new kind of display technology: LCOS.

    LCOS stands for Liquid Crystal on Silicon, and is essentially liquid crystals smeared on the top surface of a computer chip, with coverglass ontop of this sandwich. It allows very high resolution displays, with small diagonals and thus low cost. The power consumption is also very low (as low as 20mW for an SVGA-like display). Daeyang is using LCOS devices from my company: MicroDisplay Corp. [microdisplay.com]

    We, MicroDisplay Corp, are making these LCOS chipsets in the East Bay of San Francisco and are the only company in the world shipping LCOS product out the door daily!

    Also, at COMDEX, Daeyang previewed their line of cell-phones that will be released running IMT-2000 mid-2001: SVGA resolution cellphones [bestweb.net]

    The yopy is listing for $500. The binolcular HMD by Daeyang is listing for 800$. They have a new monocular and binocular headmount that use folded optics; the monocular one will be priced at significantly less than the binocular product: prism optics [bestweb.net]

    Here is a picture of the binocular one: binocular headset [bestweb.net]

    We also supply LCOS devices to MicroOptical and other headmount companies, one doing augmented reality for surgeons.

    ___________________________

    Dr. Mary Lou Jepsen

    Chief Technology Officer

    MicroDisplay Corp

    3055 Research Drive

    San Pablo, CA 94806

    http://www.microdisplay.com

    mlj@microdisplay.com

    +1.510.243.9515 (ph)

    +1.510.243.9522 (fax)

  • One of the bullets on the features page [gmate.co.kr] is "Strong CPU of High Performance". I think I had that card in MTG but it was banned shortly after it was released...

  • Stylish wearables.. (Score:3)

    by xtal ( 49134 ) on Friday November 24, 2000 @08:01AM (#603474)

    Why can't Oakley [oakley.com] make a decent "cool" wearable set that hides the wires or is wireless, light, and provides basic text or vector graphics? That would be pretty sweet. The problem will all those wearables is you look like a goddamn freak with them on, unless you're a doctor in a hospital or something. If oakley or another sunglass manufacturer could get in the game, you'd have something that was a hell of a lot more trendy.

    This also begs the question, is there any kind of standard protocols for head mounted displays? I don't imagine so, but it would be nifty if something could be established to provide a wireless link to the device you're using for a data source (be it a palmpilot, wearable, or even a cell phone). For the first generation of true wearables, I'd be happy just to see a good-looking, extrememly light product that did extremely crisp text display and maybe primitive vector graphics. I could use something like that for all sorts of memos and related information, not to mention it would make a great display for driving - speed, et al - and racing, too.

    Too much emphasis on fancy right now.. take a lesson from the Palm; Start simple, and do it well.

  • GNU Emacs and either nvi or Vim come standard with most distributions. What's the problem?

    Oh, wait, you didn't want to have to learn HTML... well, doesn't Netscape Communicator come with a "WYSMBWYGBINTTBWNJLH" editor? (What-you-see-may-be-what-you-get-but-if-not-that' s-too-bad...-why-not-just-learn-HTML?) Communicator is available for GNU/Linux.

    My personal belief is that if someone doesn't "have time" to learn the baseline HTML needed to create a viewable document, they have no business publishing on the WWW. Even "Geocities" HTML (the type of code seen on amateur pages that would make a W3 standards document start laughing and then kill itself), generally produced by novices with Notepad, is better than most Frontpage-generated code.

    I understand that some of us just aren't "computer people", and have difficulty understanding that computers are fast but dumb, and only understand things told in certain ways. A person in a foreign country can get by without knowing the language because people, while not fast, are smart. They "know what you mean" if you rub your belly and mimic eating... computers, much to the chagrin of business people, aren't yet smart enough to figure out "what you mean" by context, and that is why markup and programming languages have strict, well-defined syntax.

    BUT... it's not as if current browsers don't give you plenty of leeway. I mean, it's not as if we're asking webmasters to use a real markup langauge like SGML or XML, or God forbid, a compiled programming language. If you aren't willing to learn the baseline needed to create basic HTML documents... (essentially text layout, images, links, tables, and frames... remember, this is just the baseline)... then you shouldn't be publishing on the Internet.

    Yes, I realize I'm being unfair. As the WWW's community expands, we're going to see more such shite, not less. A person or small business unable to learn HTML can't afford to outsource the work, yet need a "web presence". The Yopy page in question was likely thrown together by their marketing person, and most of them are non-technical. The engineers surely can't be blamed. So I admit that such tools have a place...

    ...but Frontpage?...

    I hate Frontpage code. I'll stop bitching the day I see one non-trivial Frontpage-generated site that isn't a complete mess of non-compliant, piss-poor goat shit littered with proprietary tags and whatnot. If you really can't get by with just a text editor, then buy a copy of O'Reilly's Definitive HTML and Allaire Homesite.

    I'm not saying Microsoft should FOAD, I just think they should stop trying to give the impression that Frontpage produces HTML. It's not HTML unless it validates. They tried the same fucking thing with Java and Sun beat their ass to the floor. It's a pity that the W3C doesn't have a faceless corporate entity to enfore its standards.

    I don't know what to think anymore. I know that most people have no business writing HTML, but when the "standard tool" alternative is a half-assed Microsoft product... well, it's a sad state of affairs, that's all. For what Frontpage costs, there are much better tools available.


    All generalizations are false.

  • For the first generation of true wearables, I'd be happy just to see a good-looking, extrememly light product that did extremely crisp text display and maybe primitive vector graphics.

    Teehee... so would we all, but the technology just does not exist yet. Wearable HMDs are either bulky, expensive or low-resolution -- pick any two. MicroOptical [microopticalcorp.com]'s stuff is the best on the market right now, but you'll still looking at $5000+ for those 320x200 eyeglasses on the front page. Limited betas of their new 640x480 display (woohoo!) will be available to qualified OEMs starting next year... but at least you won't look like a freak with one, you'll just look like a nerd.

    Cheers,
    -j.

  • Yopy =Vapor (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm sorry to burst everyone's bubble, but Gmate is yet to deliver ANY Yopys (but man, do they ever promise: shipping in March, then May, then August, then October, then 2001, then...). And now, they are pushing a Wearable? I think this is just a response to recent developments in the iPaq community. There is a new expansion sleeve due out after the first of the year for the iPaq. The new sleeve will have 2 PCMCIA slots and a CF slot. Here [microsoft.com] is a picture on the evil empire site. Put a wireless card in one slot, a vga card in another and a microdrive in the last. Add a chording keyboard and a HMD and you have a WEARABLE! The Yopy had potential, but they screwed the pooch taking too long to ship. And the iPaq running Linux is so frickin' cool! I have been freaking out my relatives with video clips and xmame games running on it. Check out handhelds.org [handhelds.org] Cpt_Kirks

  • IIRC, YOPY expected pricing has already been announced, and is in the $500 range. I expect that price to drop rapidly whether or not YOPY is a success.

    YOPY should be much cheaper than the iPaq, for several reasons:

    1. The biggest single cost component of the iPaq is the display. While this reflective high-contrast color LCD is wonderful, it adds literally several hundred dollars to the price.

    2. There is no WinCE license fee for YOPY.

    3. I've heard rumors that the iPaq is a bit overbuilt to make the WinCE port possible/easier, although I have no details. This is obviously not a problem for YOPY.
    I'll seriously consider a YOPY once they're actually available (not just pre-orderable).
  • I can testify as to the usefulness of palmtops -- having a convenient, configurable computer always on-hand is like having a Swiss Army knife for your mind.

    They can turn many a moment that would otherwise be wasted into time well spent, and also serve as a backed-up adjunct to the memory in the way that a paper notebook can't match. You can play chess, write novels, even develop software on them.

    I carry a Palm constantly; it's already 'wearable' in the sense that it's in my pocket. A goggle-based display, though, seems like it would only be useful in circumstances where you didn't need to use your eyes for other things.

    Quartus Handheld Software! [quartus.net]

  • It doesn't seem to ve mentioned anywhere, but when I saw this Gizmo at Comdex, they was silkscreened with the name 'CyGate' on it, to go with the HMD that is called the 'CyVisor'. Talking with one of the enginers, I was led to believe that it was technically identical to the Yopy exceptiong no LCD display and it had built in circuitry to drive the head mounted display, with normally requires a converter box.

    And among this parade of names is another company, Daeyang E&C, who appears to be a distributor or marking arm of GMate. And for those of you who care, the HMD LCDs are made by a US company by the name of MicroDisplay Technology. the HMD web site is at www.personaldisplay.com [personaldisplay.com]

  • You know, this would be great if it ever came out with a real product. I do, however, have a problem with the picture of their HMD. That thing is just plain UGLY.

    What I would like is a HMD that displays to one eye. Sorry, I still want to see the real world too.

  • Linux based? It's running Windows CE

    http://www.gmate.co.kr/english/products/photos-0 5.htm

    http://www.gmate.co.kr/english/products/photos-0 6.htm

    http://www.gmate.co.kr/english/products/photos-0 8.htm

    http://www.gmate.co.kr/english/products/photos-1 0.htm
  • that doesn't look like windows CE ... obviously you haven't use linux lately ... most WM's have a start button now and a clock in the corner ...
  • I'm sick of hearing about this thing. We've been hearing about this thing on /. for over a year, haven't we? All those so-called "photos" look like artist conception renderings to me.

    GMate, ship or shut up!

  • Vaporware (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Sounds to me like a lot of vaporware. They didn't even start to make the Yopi and now there's a "brother"? Come on, people, this is really starting to get boring...
  • So far, Gmate has had trouble just getting the Yopy to ship even. Lets see gmate get the yopy shipping before hyping up another vapour pda device. If you follow the yopy mailing lists, most people have given up on it for the Compaq iPaq, a device that is available right now, can run linux and wince, and has support via handhelds.org.
  • From the movie Hackers that HMD that Zero Cool/Crash Overide (Johnny Lee Miller) had when they were in the phone booths was kick-ass. Where can I get one of those? That, a velcro-ed chord keyboard, and a ricochet modem is all i need. =)

    hook it up to a laptop, or a beefed up palm, and you're good to go!

  • I'm considering buying one of the new Palms for exactly those reasons... being able to jot down prose, code, et cetera, while not having to lug around my Thinkpad and three batteries. The Palm is small, light, and can be used while standing up, or on a bumpy train that might damage my laptop.

    But... I'm not sure if I could get used to the stylus-based input.

    This [pfuca.com] is a possible solution (hey, cool, the HHKB now comes in black...), but if I'm going to carry around the keyboard (which is my preferred input method anyway) and cradle, I may as well just bring the laptop.

    Do you think I'll be able to adapt? Otherwise, I agree with Flavio -- it's either a laptop or pad o' paper for me.


    All generalizations are false.

  • This is a possible solution (hey, cool, the HHKB now comes in black...), but if I'm going to carry around the keyboard (which is my preferred input method anyway) and cradle, I may as well just bring the laptop.

    Then maybe you should look at the foldable keyboard [palm.com] instead. It's about the same size as a Palm III/VII, and it's actually a very usable keyboard. It feels very similar to the ones on laptops. You need a hard surface to place it on to keep it from folding in the middle (I guess a briefcase would do) but other than that it's great.

  • Actually, major progress is being made recently in just this sort of thing. It's not a commercial solution, but Matt Carlson (of the wear-hard mailing list) created a pretty sweet hack [inetnebr.com] of the M1 personal display into a covert glasses mount display. Several others on the wear-hard list have done similar things, and I will be soon as well, as soon as I can gather the 500 or so dollars I need to get a display to hack open
  • How can you demand an extremely trendy, light, crisp, wireless solution from Oakley (of all people), but then advise them to not stress on anything "fancy" and to start simple.

    I suppose you would also like to see it Extremely Cheap as well why they are at it.

    There are these things called Post-Its (most chicks call them "stickey's" so you might also know them by that name), they kick ass for memos and related information.

    We need to reduce the amount of distractions for the morons driving today, not give them another reason to rear-end, swurve into, and generally get their minds off the road. I can just see the tech-sauvy driving to work wearing this thing checking what meetings are on the schedule to miss and talking on his/her cell phone.

    The nightmare begins

    Lost in Time, Surrounded by Evil, Low on Gas

  • Ohboy, I'm tired, and I'm going to have some real fun with this.

    How can you demand an extremely trendy, light, crisp, wireless solution from Oakley (of all people), but then advise them to not stress on anything "fancy" and to start simple.

    Ok.. not to diss Oakley - they rock - but sunglasses aren't rocket science. They might make it SEEM like rocket science, but they're basically colored plastic with nifty colors. I think they may have just started offering polarizing lenses recently. If you read my post - I wasn't refering to the container of the HUD when I was talking, it was the HUD itself. 80x20 or even 40x20 or something more primitive, ascii display. That's a good base target. Most of the commercial and military offerings are insano expensive, and a large part of that is the resolution of the optics.

    I suppose you would also like to see it Extremely Cheap as well why they are at it.

    Your definition of cheap and my definition of cheap are most certainly different. HUD technology isn't that exotic. There's lots of different ways to do it. I'd settle for "available on open market" or "possible to interface to without custom electronics", even.

    There are these things called Post-Its (most chicks call them "stickey's" so you might also know them by that name), they kick ass for memos and related information.

    *tee hee* You're so smart and witty! Math is hard! Let's go shopping!

    We need to reduce the amount of distractions for the morons driving today, not give them another reason to rear-end, swurve into, and generally get their minds off the road. I can just see the tech-sauvy driving to work wearing this thing checking what meetings are on the schedule to miss and talking on his/her cell phone

    Here's where you go from person missing the point of my post to being an absolute ignorant moron. I autocross on occassion and taking your eyes off the course to check RPMs is a problem. Do you know why fighter pilots use HUDs? Or why high end cars are starting to come with them? Or, for that matter, why Kenwood offered a consumer HUD to run their car audio? That's so you can get important information - such as speed, RPM, engine temperature, alerts for road temperature (near freezing), etc etc ET AL so you don't HAVE to take your eyes off the road. Anyone who does their Email or schedules while driving has an appointment with Darwin.

    Besides, for the sake of arguement if I want to talk on my phone on the freeway, fsck you. It's legal, and until someone says otherwise, there's a place and time when you can use a phone, and when you can't. Millions of people do it every day without problems. Cell phones don't make ignorant drivers, just like beer doesn't make drunk drivers.

    Cell phones and HUD technology are completely different. HUD technology can make driving a lot safer - and maybe make my life a little easier.

  • Wearable PCs (Score:4)

    by buttfucker2000 ( 240799 ) on Friday November 24, 2000 @05:43AM (#603493) Homepage Journal
    If you're interested in wearable computing, there is a very detailed FAQ here [linuxdoc.org] - it even tells you how to turn your Palm Pilot into a wearable PC.
  • Worked fine for me... a bit slow, but I was able to get there.

    What is .kr though? Korea?

    Kierthos

  • yoppy you (Score:4)

    by photozz ( 168291 ) <photozz&gmail,com> on Friday November 24, 2000 @05:45AM (#603495) Homepage
    this one with a head mounted display

    Great, one more reason to run randomly around the house slamming into walls.

  • I have an aging Palm III, and really can't wait until Linux based PDA's are available.

    Wearing the thing on your head though, would seem to be somewhat dangerous :) Especially if you decided to check your e-mail while driving.

    Price will be the key, of course, but I see Linux PDA's as really offering something the Palm and CE platforms can't: TRUE scalability. Only the Linux kernel can run on your PDA, your desktop, your professional workstation, and your server. This is the OS's best advantage.

  • Cool, but not something you'll see me wearing (Score:3)

    by Flavio ( 12072 ) on Friday November 24, 2000 @05:49AM (#603497)
    For someone who's had a Palm Pilot (the original 512 kb one) and has played with some future generations of these PDA's and dislikes them, I can safely say I'll not be using one in the near future, even if it has a head mounted display.

    Sure, the new displays makes it closer to the ultimate geek device and I would like to play with it in a non-public place if it had a decent resolution and decent processing capabilities, but nothing beats a laptop.

    If I need decent processing capabilities, I can wait and get to a desktop. If I'm on a plane or on the road and don't want to waste time, I can certainly carry something as heavy and big as a laptop. If I'm bound to stay up all day and can't handle something as big as a notebook computer, I use paper.

    Am I that different from the rest of the world?

    I don't think I'm alone when I say these small machines are unpractical, even though most people claim that's exactly what they aren't.

    How sure are you guys that you haven't just followed marketing schemes all along?

    I agree that the technology behind these things is very nice indeed and that these are very well built machines, but do you truly need them?

    Flavio
  • Hey! It's great to know that I can still blow up demons while on the subway to work. Now, everyone imagine a really good motion sensing input device, put on those goggle things, and really freak out everyone on public transit as you dodge fireballs and peek around corners looking for zombies and gatling-gun wielding mechanical spider-brains!
  • While I don't doubt that a choice number of highly drool-worthy prototypes have been put together at great expense to assist in the wooing of venture capital and boosting the geek factor of the principals of this organization, I have to wonder when and if they plan to get even a remotely affordable and relatively available model of any Linux based PDA on the street, where it counts.

  • ...and WAP's gonna work great for that provided your idea of augmented reality is some very small very boring text hovering 3 feet in front of you ;-) It would really need something much higher bandwith, like 3G or maybe even bluetooth.


  • Can you get this thing to run WAP? (Site is /.ed, so I can't tell). The idea of any sort of immersive VR is really problematic and largely useless when it comes to wearables, but augemented reality is something to be very excited about. However, augmented reality really needs net access to work.
  • At least, I assume so, as IE wanted me to download korean text support for my browser.

    Hmm, for some reason I just encountered the lameness filter: "Ascii Art. How creative. Not here though." Maybe if I add "Yes" to my subject line...
  • Yep, it says "HTTP Error Code # 404" in Korean. Damn, I knew the army was good for something!

    .kr =South Korea, BTW
  • If this yopy thing could run ssh and/or make a remote xwindows session I would definitely get one.
  • One question: Does the YOPY really exist? I know there are webpages, mailinglists, development toolkits, etc. I tried to get as much information as possible and so far my success was very limited. The creator of one mailinglist lately even announced that he now went with an iPAC and there is probably no such thing as a YOPY.

    Personally, I don't need a PDA now and I'm willing to wait a little bit longer until the first Linux PDA comes along (or any other interesting non-WinCE PDA).

    I just refuse to buy a WinCE PDA when my first action would be to replace the operating system.

    There is no WinCE license fee for YOPY.

    Is this true? It sounds quite unbelievable. Do you mean one can buy an iPAC without a preinstalled OS?

  • iPAQ;)

    Sure, it comes with WinCE on it, but enough people and their Web pages are willing to tell you how to convert it to Linux that it's hard to complain that none exist.

    Affordable ... well, an iPAQ is around 500 bucks, but for that you don't get a PC Card sleeve, modem, or other things you'd probably want. (But then, you don't get a CD drive or a number of other things with many ultra-tiny laptops at much higher prices). For under a thousand dollars, you could get the equivalent of an MP3 player (strongarm 206 Mhz should be enough, right?), palm-thingie (less the all important long battery life -- we can dream, I guess), gameboy (if you can live with the available games*) and many functions of a notebook, including ethernet access, plus handwriting recognition. (Add USB keyboard for sitting-still enjoyment.)

    Whether that's affordable is hard to say -- it probably is close to affordable to folks with their own houses, expensive cars and nice suits because they have jobs in IT for successful businesses; it's probably not affordable to starving artists, students and a lot of other people! (Like commercials that talk about "the most affordable [fill in expensive car name] yet." -- context is all important;) ) I am not about to drop a thousand dollars on a palm-sized computer, but in a few years I might, maybe sooner. If I win the lottery, I'll happily change my mind;)

    Note that I don't have one or have any vested interest in anyone getting an iPAQ, a YOPY or any other device, except in making them ubiquitous and thus cheaper;) [That way I can get one, too;)]

    timothy

    *As not much of a gamer, I could -- I like X-bill and snake just fine, since I usually see games as simple mind clearing rather than ends in themselves -- though the great ones are amazing art. I wonder what tuxracer would look like at that resolution ...
  • Hey,is that you in the pic, Doc?! Seriously though...what are all those diplays you ship going into? Are we in for some suprises at Christmas this year?

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