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Displays Technology

Big Screen Viewing Effect For Mobile Phone Videos 230

Clarinase writes "Cellular phone subscribers can now view TV, movies, photos and broadband Internet content with a big screen viewing effect with Kopin CyberDisplay video eyewear from MicroOptical. This sleek eyewear allows users to privately view large-size video or pictures equivalent to a 12-inch screen as seen from three feet away, delivering crisp, full-color video with a 17-degree field of view. This eyewear is connected to a cell phone through a thin cable, and allows up to five hours of video with three AAA batteries. Since it accepts composite video input (NTSC or PAL), the eyewear can be plugged into other devices with composite video outputs such as portable DVD players."
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Big Screen Viewing Effect For Mobile Phone Videos

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  • No thanks. I'd rather have a cable that doesnt snap under any tension, especially when paying this much.
    I've lost far too many earbuds and headphones due to weak cables.
    • Um. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by autopr0n ( 534291 ) on Monday July 11, 2005 @01:10PM (#13034867) Homepage Journal
      You'd rather have a huge coax going to your head? If you want I'm sure you can find some conduit or whatever to run it though if you're that scared.
      • Re:Um. (Score:3, Funny)

        Heh. When I was at school, I used to listen to music while walking to/from class. I can't count the number of times I slung my heavy backpack full of math and science textbooks into the car, only to find that I'd accidentally wrapped my extremely resilient headphone cord around one of the straps. Headphone cable came out of the left side, phones wrapped around the back, but the mp3 player was on the right side, because I'm right-handed. Bag moves forward, pulls tough wire tight around neck...GAAK!

        Have sinc
    • by justforaday ( 560408 ) on Monday July 11, 2005 @01:13PM (#13034904)
      Why does it not surprise me that the irc.goatse.cx troll wants thick cables?
    • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday July 11, 2005 @01:18PM (#13034957)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • people don't make money with these sorts of products, though.

        They make money by making these kinds of products, and having people replace them every couple months.
        • Guess you never owned a pair of Sennheisers then. While their cords are anything but thin they have designed their headphones so that the cord can be easily replaced. This is to ensure that the headphones are long lasting, which is just one of many reasons why their product commands a large enough premium for them to make plenty of profit without designing things to break every few months. Hell when my son stepped on my headphones (which he had dragged to the ground) and it broke the jack in the headphones
          • I've replaced the cord in my sennheisers twice now, and earpads once. the replaceable accessories have now cost almost as much as the headphones alone when I bought them. Though the headphones have lasted for over 10 years now, I decided no more part replacing for those.
            Perhaps it's time to move to cordless ones when the new parts fail.
            That'll be 3 years from now, if the current wear-rate continues.
            Things that kept me going wireless before was bad battery life and bad wireless units that caused noise in
      • I had a pair of Sennheisers that I tried this with, with disastrous results.

        Firstly ... the really thin cord once left me with a bright purplish-red birthmark-looking thing all the way around my neck. It looked like someone tried and failed to decapitate me, which I guess is true enough.

        Secondly ... the other thing that happens often with a really light, thin wire is that it snaps. You sit down on a bench, it's dropping down a bit, someone walks by, it snags on their coat and *chik* NO AUDIO AAAAAAAAGH M#
      • "Score: 4, Insightful!? Aren't we supposed to be geeks? Aren't geeks supposed to like problem solving?"

        When there's karma involved, we're all cynical whiney bitches. "ooo! The article says it's cool! So if I point out just how silly and uncool it is (even if I have to really really reach), I'll be labeled as insightful!!"
    • I am sure that wearing these on the bus/train/lunch room will get us all the ladies...
      How long before we read about someone driving with these on?
      I would like to see this type of thing for two functions (there were somewhat similar devices in the military)- 1) a picture in picture type display so that I can listen to my wife yell at me while there is a small display in an upper corner of my glasses showing sportscenter, or one of those E best bikini beaches shows or 2) a stop watch function in my field of
      • coax is pronounced like co-axe in this part of the world. I'm failing to see what that'd sound like mumbled (quacks?), though I can see how a misspelled variant might be slightly amusing...
  • by gbulmash ( 688770 ) * <semi_famousNO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Monday July 11, 2005 @01:09PM (#13034855) Homepage Journal
    I can't decide if these make you look more like Geordi LaForge from TNG, or a Cylon from the original "Battlestar Galactica". Since video glasses are nothing new (I remember a friend planning to buy a pair for a wearable computing rig in the late '90s), I can only assume that these are newsworthy because they look so ultra-geek.

    Greg

  • Overkill? (Score:5, Funny)

    by imaginieus ( 897756 ) on Monday July 11, 2005 @01:10PM (#13034866)
    Does anyone else think that 12inches is overkill to see the number youre dialing?
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Well, it's a matter of perspective. It's also the equivalent to a 300 foot screen 900 feet away, or a 1 millimeter screen 3 millimeters away. A 1 inch screen on a phone 3 inches away is what this'd look like, which is close, but definitely easy to read.

      -Jesse
    • That, and NTSC / PAL are kind of short changing things for anything other than playing video. That would probably be about VGA resolution, making this no better than any other goggle or eye video device available now. The site linked by the slashvertisement is down, so I am just guessing on this one.
    • 12 inches is nothing.

      I can get a 100 inch cell phone screen for 9.99 off eBay using nothing but basic materials available at any hardware store...

      I think they have a website, 100inchcellphonescreen.com or something and the testimonials seem genuine!
  • plus.. (Score:4, Funny)

    by spyder913 ( 448266 ) on Monday July 11, 2005 @01:10PM (#13034871)
    you are immediately qualified to be Chief Engineer of the USS Enterprise-D!
  • by SeanDuggan ( 732224 ) on Monday July 11, 2005 @01:11PM (#13034873) Homepage Journal
    And I thought people using cell phones while driving was a menace before...
    • Well, don't worry about it for too much longer, at least here in the US because this is just the first step to Verizon Wireless getting their way. Basically, they want to rule the world and they'll start out by having all of we Americans sitting in wheeled chairs and drooling on ourselves with one of their infernal cellular devices jacked into all of our meat ports. Basically, we will work, receive all of our entertainment, stimuli, needs, through these things and pay like a gazillion dollars a month for ou
    • Nah, it's fine. Just have the feed from a dashboard camera go to an always-on-top window in the corner of the screen and keep an eye on it.

      Anyone who says that's not perfectly safe is a facist.
  • by Johnny Mozzarella ( 655181 ) on Monday July 11, 2005 @01:12PM (#13034889)
    Head tracking.

    It would be great to have something this small and lightweight if I could use it with games and 3D environments. My current head mounted display with motion tracker weighs several pounds.
    • I was thinking the same thing. Forget seeing outside the glasses. Increase the FOV and add a head tracker. Use independant feeds for the 2 displays and call Sony. I'm still waiting for the mass-market VR gear and games that are now practical.
    • One more thing (Score:5, Informative)

      by jfengel ( 409917 ) on Monday July 11, 2005 @01:21PM (#13034989) Homepage Journal
      The other thing it's missing is resolution. At 320x240, that's not really enough to see the visual details you'd want if you're going to play the game well.

      Presumably that's part of the reason it is so much smaller and lighter than your present unit (in addition to the lack of motion tracking.)
      • Re:One more thing (Score:3, Informative)

        by Gverig ( 691181 )
        Somebody, please help me... quote 1: "QVGA-resolution (320 x 240)" quote 2: "berDisplay 230K with approximately 230,000 pixel dots in 0.24 diagonal" My calculator says 320*240=76800. Where is the rest 150 000 pixels? You should be able to get almost 600x400 (240 000). Overall, seems like a step in the right direction but still rough around the edges.
        • Re:One more thing (Score:5, Insightful)

          by jfengel ( 409917 ) on Monday July 11, 2005 @02:14PM (#13035570) Homepage Journal
          Colors, perhaps? If "230k" pixels means "76k blue pixels, 76k red pixels, and 76k green pixels" that would make the math work. It's not what I call a pixel, but it's exactly the sort of thing that marketing departments are likely to come up with.
      • The other thing it's missing is resolution.

        The other other thing it's missing is cellular phones that have the processing power to do more than about 10 frames per second of QVGA video at 8-bit color depth. Sure, your Treo may be capable of semi-decent A/V playback, but your kid brother's Ultra-micro-mini-moto isn't and won't be for at least five years.

        And the other other other thing it's missing is compelling cellular-phone video content.
  • by bugnuts ( 94678 ) on Monday July 11, 2005 @01:12PM (#13034892) Journal
    Now I have to worry about people having a cellphone stuck to their EYE when driving?

    I can just see the legislators wetting themselves now.
  • pictures equivalent to a 12-inch screen as seen from three feet away,

    It's much better than a standard cellphone screen, but it's not what I'd call "big screen". What's more, 320x240 on a 12-inch equivalent screen promises to be grainy...
    • Anyway, it gives the effect of a 12" screen, it will look old sk00l, I'd like to play DoTT on this.

      No worries about people driving with these on - they can just have google minimap, combined with yahoo traffic, in a small window alerting them if they need to break or change lane. Should be safe... erp.

      fuck-tard.
  • Yes, because I like looking like a prick. Seriously, make them look like normal glasses or no-one will buy it. Not that I trust wearable screens anyway, it just seems a tad too potentially eye-damaging so I think I will wait for a few years of people burning in the technology..
    • Better yet, make them look like sun-glasses. No back-light (use ambient light) and allow augmented-reality things. Don't use this kind of thing for watching videos, use if for overlaying data onto the normal scene.

      And 320x200 on a 12" screen? Reminds me of my first PC...

  • must fail (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 11, 2005 @01:16PM (#13034925)
    this device will fail for the same reason any number of similar devices have failed: everyone has a different set of eyes with different focusing characteristics.

    Unless diopter, eye relief, astigmatism, distance to pupil are completely adjustable (making the device unacceptably expensive) this product will literally result in a big headache as your own focussing mechanism attempt to force themselves to adjust.
    • by oGMo ( 379 )

      this device will fail for the same reason any number of similar devices have failed: everyone has a different set of eyes with different focusing characteristics.

      Other devices have failed because they're bulky, expensive, and crappy. This pair doesn't look bulky, although there is little comment on price and the resolution isn't great, so we'll see.

      Unless diopter, eye relief, astigmatism, distance to pupil are completely adjustable (making the device unacceptably expensive) this product will

      • Yes, despite an operating budget of millions and multiple engineers on the job, I'm sure they've overlooked what a random anonymous slashdotter came up with 9 minutes after the post.

        I didn't see any quotes from a staff optometrist, opthalmologist, or even optician in that press-release-masquerading-as-news. If I had to guess, I would hazard a guess that their operating budget of millions (madeupnumber) does not include such an expert on payroll.
  • Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday July 11, 2005 @01:16PM (#13034934)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Re:Hello, Headaches (Score:5, Informative)

      by wowbagger ( 69688 ) on Monday July 11, 2005 @01:23PM (#13035018) Homepage Journal
      Five hours with your eyes focused at two inches away? No thanks.


      It does not work that way. The optics adjust the needed eye relief such that the focus distance is a couple of feet - so this is no worse than looking at your monitor.

      That's why these displays aren't just the LCOS display hanging in front of your eyes - you need the lenses to change the focus.
  • not sexy (Score:2, Funny)

    by ta ma de ( 851887 )
    I think this may result in the extinction of the human race. This looks so geeky that wearer will never get a date; male or female.
  • College was already a headache having to listen to people using their brand new cellphones with the latest song from Evanessence(I know I probably hacked the name) as a ringtone alarm clock cranked up to max volume. I hear people still using downloaded songs turned all the way up on their phones that sound like shit with the current quality.

    I have very little hope that video is going to be anything other than the visual equivalent thereof. But at least with this, people can keep it to themselves until they

  • They could have saved a lot of development work if they had just used a Fresnel lens out of a Crackerjack box instead...
  • by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Monday July 11, 2005 @01:22PM (#13034992) Journal
    Crapola Technologies 2005 Inc. has announced that they will put out a DVD player that fits in your mouth and a TV set that sits on a pair of wire frames anchored to the back of your skull. The hope is that the 100watt speakers that attach to your ears will be ready by the end of the year.

    "We're opting for a total TV experience in a portable unit that weighs only thirty pounds." Theodore W. Stench-Higgins, president and founder of Crapola Technologies 2005 says. "This won't be like the Internet-connected brassiere that I released just before the Dot-Com bubble. I sure don't want to spend three years in prison for stock fraud again!"

  • Hm... I wonder why they don't use a form factor more like the EyeTap [eyetap.org]. It's far less bulky and you still have one of your eyes available.
  • 320 * 240 (Score:3, Insightful)

    by wom ( 240411 ) * on Monday July 11, 2005 @01:22PM (#13034999)
    Doesn't any one think that 320*240 is way to coarse to watch videos on? And 12 inches at 3 feet? My screen here is 17 inches at about 2 ft. It doesn't seem "Large" to me.
    • Isn't that close to the natural resolution for OOA broadcasting?
    • isn't that the default resolution of most porno movie clips that are available for download... not that I have very much personal experience of porno download sites... ;) seems like this "visor" would be perfect for "privately" watching such movie clips...
  • Here's the PDF press release [microopticalcorp.com] that shows a different view of the headset and some pictures of the Samsung phone. It's in French but pretty easy to understand IMO.

    As this is a PAL/NTSC input device, it'll probably work fine with other phones with video output like the Sharp 902 [vodafone.co.uk] for viewing videos off its SD card or playing games.
  • A 12" screen at 3 feet is equal in apparent size to a 2" screen from 6". Personally, my 2" screen cell phone does not look terribly impressive from 6".

    Of course, resolution matters, but if they can fit a higher resolution in this tiny display, why not put it on a cell phone?

    • Your thoughts are running along the same vein as mine, namely:

      Who would watch ANYTHING on a 12-inch screen with only 320x240 resolution three feet away.

      Sounds like an awful user experience to me.
  • by op12 ( 830015 ) on Monday July 11, 2005 @01:28PM (#13035071) Homepage
    mugging is up 500%, as many don't even see the attacker coming...
  • by Jim Hall ( 2985 ) on Monday July 11, 2005 @01:31PM (#13035104) Homepage

    Cameras, streaming music, web browsing, PalmOS, txt chat, games ... and now, television. But I wonder how good it is at being an actual phone? You know, the kind we use to make calls.

    I was on campus for a meeting today, and had to make a call on my all-digital phone/camera/appliance. The quality was pretty bad (it would go silent for brief periods, so I missed part of the conversation.) This while I was outside, with 5 bars of signal!

    When I look at all the cool stuff you can do with a mobile phone these days, I'm unimpressed. I just want something that lets me make a clear, uninterrupted phone call.

    • Cameras, streaming music, web browsing, PalmOS, txt chat, games ... and now, television. But I wonder how good it is at being an actual phone? You know, the kind we use to make calls.

      It's the Swiss Army Knife mentality. After all, the Swiss Army Knife is one of the best tools in the world, right? A Gerber multitool is an even better example. It can do lots of things passably...but nothing well. Given a choice between a screwdriver and a Swiss Army Knife or Gerber to tighten a screw, I'll go with the
    • Well, as long as YOU keep buying the feature-rich expensive phones that don't work, I guess they will keep making them.
    • "When I look at all the cool stuff you can do with a mobile phone these days, I'm unimpressed. I just want something that lets me make a clear, uninterrupted phone call."

      You are supposed to buy what you do want, not what you don't want.
      There are phones that do work.
      Buy them.
      Don't buy the ones that don't.

      There's this thing, the Internet, where you can search for other peoples views on phone models, so you can get what you need.
      Just buying the latest models, just won't work.
      Companies sell what people buy. I
    • I use to travel in circles where reliability was compared to the dial tone of a phone... when you pick it up, it was always there. (of course except for midnight on Dec 31, 1999 when everyone picked up the phone at once to test just that, doh!)

      My theory is that the people on the computer side, realizing that it was not in fact possible to move up to that level, instead opted to bring phone quality down to a more acceptable level. And the "smartphone" was born....
  • by rerunn ( 181278 ) on Monday July 11, 2005 @01:37PM (#13035162)

    Having larger than life moving pictures in front of me makes me really motion sick.

    I'm guessing that these things will have similar effects.
    • by wowbagger ( 69688 ) on Monday July 11, 2005 @01:51PM (#13035306) Homepage Journal
      Having larger than life moving pictures in front of me makes me really motion sick.


      That is one of the things that displays like this are very GOOD for - they don't induce motion sickness as much as an IMAX would.

      The problem with IMAX is that your entire visual field is filled with the movie - your eyes tell you "we are moving" and your inner ear says "bull! We are sitting still." This confusion of input overstimulates the vestibular system, and Ralf's your uncle.

      With head mounted displays like this, you see the real world around you as well as the display - so your eyes no longer indicate you are moving, but report "This object in my view is moving - we are stationary." Your inner ear agrees, and you don't get sick.

      This is also why people are advised in IMAX theaters to look at their feet if they get sick - this brings your eyes and inner ear into sync again. The problem is that too many people don't keep looking at their feet until they are fully resynced.
      • Of course, that's the whole reason some people (namely me) even go to Imax films.. and forget these big square things everyone thinks is imax. They're just big movie screens. visit the Museum of Science in Boston, MA for their Mugar Omni Imax Theater.. nearly full FOV wraparound screen.
        • Actually, the big square things *are* IMAX.

          The domes are OmniMAX.

          Unfortunately, the number of films that are really shot for OmniMAX vs. the number of films shot for IMAX is such that even OmniMAX domes usually run IMAX films with a special lens that *almost* gets the job done.

          I wish we'd see more real OmniMAX films.
  • Monday, July 13, 2015
    Ocular Biometrics and Mobile Hemogony proudly announce Private Video Viewing, an enhancement to Ocular Biometrics's patented computer-vision-lens implant techology. Private Video Viewing allows broadcast of highly-encrypted ultra-def television directly to the eye.

    Friday, July 11, 2025
    Bioneural Telecom proudly FDA approval of Very Private Video Viewing, a broadcast television service directly to the brain using a very small implant. Implantation takes about 15 minutes, with starting
  • by JamaisVu ( 83448 ) on Monday July 11, 2005 @01:39PM (#13035188)
    Butterfly in the sky
    I can go twice as high
    Take a look
    It's in a book
    A Reading Rainbow

    I can go anywhere
    Friends to know
    And ways to grow
    A Reading Rainbow

    I can be anything
    Take a look
    It's in a book
    A Reading Rainbow
    A Reading Rainbow
  • I recently finished William Gibson's Bridge Series and have been thinking, "Why can't I have a head mounted display like those eyephones for my laptop instead of a screen?"

    The answer is of course, money, resolution and power. I did, however, find one HMD that looks like it has some potential. http://www.emagin.com/3dvisor/html/LearnMore.htm [emagin.com] 800x600 resolution,relatively low power consumption (powered by the USB port), and relatively cheap (900 bucks, out of my range, but it's better than a lot of HMDs
    • That emagin HMD isn't too bad for a consumer level HMD. The price is pretty steep, but considering the specs, it really isn't out of line. I don't really like the 40 degree FOV (I prefer a fully immersive experience, but you need to have a FOV of 60 *minimum* to start), but they probably had to do that for resolution reasons (as your FOV goes up, your resolution goes down - the pixels are spread out more - kinda akin to pixelation in an image, although that analogy isn't really accurate). The size, the reso
  • by CrayzyJ ( 222675 ) on Monday July 11, 2005 @01:45PM (#13035240) Homepage Journal
    "a big screen viewing effect"
    "sleek eyewear"
    "large-size video"
    "delivering crisp, full-color video"
    "thin cable"
    "up to five hours of video with three AAA batteries."

    Clarinase has a knack for marketing speak. This was an AD, not a story. Is /. embedding ads in the context now?

  • Biztalk (Score:2, Interesting)

    Built with nanotechnology

    Is this the birth of yet another buzzword?

  • Although I only fly 1 or 2 times per year, much to my annoyance the latest trend, at least on the Southwest Airlines run between Oakland and Houston last weekend, is to have multiple cheapo DVD players, the kind that look like little laptops, and play them at FULL BLAST through the F***ING SPEAKERS. There were at least two of these things going within earshot on each leg of the trip.

    Please make these glasses cheap and easily affordable as soon as possible for these retards.

    On the other hand, brand new 737
  • Is it just me or does any one worry about the long term effects on your eyes? I mean no knows the effects and I cannot imagine that it's good for the eyes.
  • QVGA (Score:3, Insightful)

    by sacrilicious ( 316896 ) <qbgfynfu.opt@recursor.net> on Monday July 11, 2005 @01:57PM (#13035374) Homepage
    Slashdot leader:
    delivering crisp, full-color video with a 17-degree field of view.
    Article:
    MicroOptical's video eyewear contains two of Kopin's full-color, QVGA-resolution (320 x 240) CyberDisplay 230K microdisplays.
    Just pointing out that QVGA is only a quarter of the res of a TV screen. Sounds like a step back in that regard.
  • Decade-old news (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dazedNconfuzed ( 154242 ) on Monday July 11, 2005 @02:04PM (#13035460)
    Gee whiz, this technology has, on the whole, been around for over a decade. The Virtual iGlasses did this way back when with the same resolution (in stereo!) and optional head-tracking. I'll grant that these are about 1/4th the weight and size, and run on less power - but I seriously expected we'd have near 10x the pixels displayed from a 1cc unit clipped to my glasses frame by now, and that for about $100.

    Optics just hasn't kept up with computing. Some breakthrough is needed to give a 1" display a 3' eye relief just 1/2" from the eye - and do it in 0.5oz.

    Head-mounted displays are just stuck on something. Lots 'o bucks to whoever figures out and solves it.

  • GOOD video glasses? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jaredcat ( 223478 ) on Monday July 11, 2005 @02:04PM (#13035465)
    I've seen at least 6 or 7 different video glasses advertised since the late 90's (there's one currently in SkyMall too), but the real question for me is, are any of them halfway decent?

    My primary application would be using my laptop on an airplane or at a Starbucks without having everyone around me seeing whats on my screen.

    I think GOOD video glasses should:
    - give me at least 800x600 res in 16bit color
    - VGA, SVIDEO, and composite inputs
    - simulate a screen size of at least 30"
    - have option for opaque or translucent background
    - not look completely ridiculous
    - price point under $600

    I've seen glasses that do some of the above, but I've never seen a pair that matches all of my criteria.

    Has anyone had experience with devices like this? Any recommendations?
    • by SiliconEntity ( 448450 ) on Monday July 11, 2005 @03:32PM (#13036387)
      I got mail over the weekend announcing the imminent shipping of the eMagin Z800 3D Visor [emagin.com], which looks pretty nice but is expensive. 800x600 OLED display (in stereo!), a 40 degree field of view ("equivalent of a 105 inch screen at 12 feet"), and an integrated headtracker. You can literally be inside the game, turn your head left and right, up and down, and see what's there, with standard games like UT, HL2 and Doom3, and an NVIDIA graphics card.

      It sounds pretty cool, but here's the bad news: $899. Ouch. They offered me $50 off because I pre-registered for information but that's way too steep for me.
    • How about one of these ? http://www.i4u.com/section-viewarticle-97.html [i4u.com] Price point is $649.00 which is near your limit. Though slightly above. Not completely rediculous.. but you lose the whole Laforge look I'm afraid... It's not the same type of device in the OP but I'm sure someone could make it work :)
  • You too can look like Jordy LaForge with Kopin CyberDisplay video eyewear!
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Slap one of these into a Sony OQO, running linux. Get rid of the star trek look to them (I am sure they can be engineered to look like shades) and allow you to view past the display area, you could have an instant on viewer/HUD.

    That would rox0r! lets hope they give these away for free if you buy into some ludicrous DRM'd tie in packages, and someone hacks them to give us great on the fly experiences.

    I would use one of these instead of a monitor or LCD... just sit in a large leather sofa, with two handheld
  • ...allows users to privately view large-size video or pictures equivalent to a 12-inch screen as seen from three feet away...

    So?
    My current phone does this, I simply hold the screen 3" from my eye. Works perfectly, but it does look a little funny.
  • About seven years ago I visited my girlfriend's family in Japan; while there, we visited the Sony building in Osaka, where they had a lot of new technology on display. One item of great interest to me was a set of glasses like these that attached to a portible DVD player, and make the screen appear as if it were a big screen tv across the room. I watched part of "Terminator" on it and thought it was way cool.

    For a year of two after that I wondered why those glasses still hadn't shown up for sale anywhe

  • By a funny coincidence, I received my Icuity M920-Video [icuiti.com] monocular today, it's supposed to be giving you a 17" screen size 11 feet away.

    I like it a lot, but the whole 'equivalent to N inches X feet away' is a bit misleading... Sure, if you compare sizes directly to a physical device, you'll get that size, but when you use it, it actually looks like what it is, a tiny screen looked at up close (although of course you're not focusing just a few inches away, that'd be quite unusable).

    If you have a use for
  • Nice article, but it would have been nice if they had included the projected cost. I'm willing to be this will be, yet another, in the long line of failures from the technology industry where wearble displays are concerned. Personally, I won't be interested until it has the following features:

    1. 1900x1400 resolution
    2. 32-bit colour
    3. Five day battery life (in sleep mode) with a charging cradle
    4. Bluetooth connectivity to anything (look ma, no wires!)
    5. 5.1 surround sound
    6. Contact lens form factor (with
  • ... seen from half a mile away... ...but who's measuring?
  • I remember when we bought these things 20 years go, and called them 'vrglasses'.

    Sure, a bit more advanced. But it goes to show you, the more we think we change, the more we repeat history.
  • Anyone remember those - they were pretty neat for their time (~ 5 years ago, IIRC). Either 640x480 or 800x600. Pretty pricey, but one would have hoped that with the rest of advances in tech, packaging would have become more sleek, features improved, and prices would have come down ...

    I made the comment a while back that these things would probably be a boon for laptop battery life ...

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