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Hardware

Sony's Head Mounted Display (Cont) 70

Posted by CmdrTaco from the geek-toys dept.
madsatcom noted that the Sony Head Mounted Monitor that we mentioned awhile back is actually available now on the Sony Website. I can't find a resolution on that page, but it simulates a 30" screen, weighs 4.2 ounces, and costs a woppin' $2600... If anyone at Sony is reading, repeat after me: "Rob Must Test One of These Screens. Contact Him Now And Offer Him a Sample Unit". Seriously, wearable computing is getting closer, it just ain't getting much cheaper.
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Sony's Head Mounted Display (Cont) More

Sony's Head Mounted Display (Cont)

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  • Read the specs Luke.... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    SVGA 800 by 600 resolution. Highest res for lowest cost currently available in the head mounted market.

    BTW: CDW via Pricewatch lists it for 2100 something.
  • I have programmed for the virtual i-o iglasses. Whether or not this applies to Sony's HDM is another matter, but with the iglasses, it was field and frame separated. You see when you are running it in (say) 320x200 (standard mode 0x13) which is 60 frames per second, the iglasses would take every other row and put it into one eye's screen 30 times a second, and the other scan lines into the other eyes 30 times a second, alternating. Now if you hook up an NTSC output, the output is interlaced so that there are 30 frames a second, but it is made up of alternating fields (some on the even rows, some on the odd). So on the computer the easiest thing to do would be to draw what you wanted on the left on to be on certain rows, and on the right on the other rows. Probably the VGA to NTSC converter interlaces it for you. Also you could try to update the screen 60 times a second but the problem is you never know if you are currently on the right or the left eye, and if you miss a frame it'll flip. It is kinda cool though, to do with blue and red alternating screens, which looks purple, but in the iglasses you get red in one eye and blue in the other. I wrote a triangle drawing routine which you could specify which eye to draw to the three points, and it would automatically draw the correct rows. Fun stuff. Also, the head tracking stuff was really cool on the iglasses, but never found any real use for it except in the demos that came with the glasses.

  • Glasstron on CNN (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I just saw a story on CNN that Sony did a promotional gig at NASCAR racetracks, showing live racecams on Glasstrons. It appeared to be new hi-rez unit. They showed the signal coming from camera in the car, it was pretty shaky, it was nowhere near the quality this system could produce. But people seem to love the effect. If only it was stereographic!
    Anyway, one thing to note about the Glasstron is, why is it called a GLASStron. The Glasstron can be made completely transparent, so you can view the TV picture overlaid on your normal field of vision. It has a variable transparency control that apparently uses a polarizing effect; you can turn the dial to change the amount of "reality" you can see beyond the picture. You can tune out reality and just view the video on a black background, or just "dim" reality so its barely visible unless you're paying attention.
    That's also part of the reason why Sony puts such ridiculous disclaimers on the unit. Sony thinks you could walk around wearing the unit, and if you weren't paying attention you could walk in front of a bus. They are also scared of the "Pokemon Effect" giving people epileptic seizures. Its also really easy to lose your balance watching a Glasstron. I watched a a flying POV scene while standing and I found it hard to keep my balance. I don't even want to THINK about some idiot trying to drive a car while using a Glasstron.

    BTW, cmdrtaco should stop whining "oh pleeeze send me a free eval unit." You just made a a chunk of cash and you can afford to purchase a Glasstron if you want one. I think its your responsibility to check it out for us. Sony's website takes credit cards.
  • Posted by Mike@ABC:

    Why don't we just have a microphone on there and a voice-recongition system. (Before I get flamed, yes, they aren't 100 percent reliable. Neither is my typing.)

    Get these goggles, a mike, a small screen with handwriting-recognition (the Calligraphy software on Vadem's Clio is great) to wear on your arm, and a CPU/memory/storage unit to clip on the belt. Anybody out there build this yet? It's do-able, I'd imagine.

    Of course, there's always the possibility of walking into walls while communing with your computer.

  • ah the wonders of getting sued, Americ's favourite pass-time.

    Almost as bad as the writing on the side of coffee cups at McDonalds - "Caution contents hot" - after some poor person got scoldered and the sued. I fscking well hope the coffees hot, hate iced coffee:-)

    martin

  • HMD's (Score:2)

    by law ( 5166 )
    Tried one like it when I worked for another company that made HMD's (The defunct Virtual IO) I was not impressed, resolution is the key.
    When they can do 800 x 600 without fancy double scaning or other faux resolution enhancements, I might be interested.
    Head tracking is important and the Sony does not seem to have any.

  • Wearable computing is getting cheaper (Score:4)

    by kuro5hin ( 8501 ) on Tuesday July 13, 1999 @07:23AM (#1805304) Homepage
    This isn't really much of a wearable computing device. It is in the same way that a laptop is. It's basically too big, too obtrusive, and too power-hungry for wearables.

    On the other hand, there have been lots of nifty things going on in wearable-land lately, and it is indeed getting cheaper. You can put together a pentium-class truly wearable system these days for about the cost of a good desktop machine. Check out EMJ ( http://emjembedded.com [emjembedded.com]) and for a truly wearable HMD, look at microooptical ( http://microopticalcorp.com [slashdot.org]), or at tekgear for the M1 ( http://tekgear.ca [tekgear.ca]). The HMD's are both greyscale QVGA now, but the M2 is expected to be out in a year or so (?) and is projected to be 16M color 800x600, and MicroOptical is also working on a color high-res version of their display.

    Make no mistake, wearable computing (IMHO) will be The Next Really Big Thing in computing, sort of akin to the PC in the late 70's-early 80's or the internet in this decade. This won't be for maybe another five years, but those of you who want to be in on the ground floor, start hacking now! :-)
    ----------------------

  • The spec page claims that the display consists of 832 by 624 pixels. But on the same time line it says 155M dots. Now, 832*624=519168. This says they use roughly 300 dots per pixel.

    Could somebody with more technical experience about LCDs please tell me why that is so?

  • It says that this display simulates a 30" display approx. 6 feet ahead of you. It does this by using 2 LCD displays. But is it possible to use those 2 displays to create a 3D picture instead of just placing the 2D display at a fake distance?
  • This is a higher resolution version. Read the Specs. THe $800 version is only TV grade, while this one does SVGA 800x600.
  • I saw one of these about three years ago (yes *three* years ago) at a computer expo in New Zealand. I was going to test a pair out but the damn rep ignored me and took them away...silly bag. Hmmm, I've just got my holiday pay...perhaps I'll ge a pair :)

  • Warning (Score:4)

    by rde ( 17364 ) on Tuesday July 13, 1999 @05:40AM (#1805310)
    "Note: This product should not be used by children age 15 or younger. Individuals with eye or heart disease or injury or high blood pressure should consult a doctor prior to use."
    May cause death, epilepsy, impotence, fondness for Microsoft Works, dislike of Warner Bros. cartoons.
    But apart from that it's great.
  • That's what I love about this country... as soon as you get ahead all sorts of people feel justified in telling you how to spend your money. "You are richer than I, therefore you must spend frivelously for my benefit. You owe it to me since I don't have as much money."
  • couldn't they just get one of several arm (or wrist, or finger, or chest) mounted laser scanners?

  • If you delve into the specs:

    Battery Life/Charging Time (battery not included):

    NP-F550 - Approx. 1H/Approx. 4H;
    NP-F750 - Approx. 2H/Approx. 8H;
    NP-F950 - Approx. 3H/Approx. 12H;

    So, the highest priced (not included) battery will last 3 hours, take 12 hours to recharge? I guess that's enough time for my Ft. Lauderdale/Boston trips, but I'd like more.... Gimme gimme gimme!

    Seriously, I can see myself sitting on a plane playing Playstation games on my G3 laptop with a simulated 30" screen. Mmmm.

    --Mid
  • Well for the average Josephine it doesn't mean jack - most people are comfortable using palmtops or laptops for portable computing or don't need portable computing at all. But I just finished a project for the Ministry of Agriculture up here in Toronto Ontario, Canada in which we automated a large part of the business process for Meat Inspection. Right now they still need to have their laptops open and running in a barn or abbatoir - sometimes they can't. That means doing things the old fashioned way and writing it down on paper (thus eliminating the need for the new system!). Some things they need to do (like read a tag with a keyboard wedge bar-code reader) are very difficult with a laptop in a slaughterhouse (there is just no place to plug in or even put the computer down). One of the meat inspectors actually told me he would like a hands free, head nounted display portable computer that he can wear so he can do both the inspection and add information to the database (Oracle) as he works in real time. This means he needs head mounted display, wireless, highspeed networking and wireless peripheral (bar-code reader) connections on a small, light durable computer he can wear on his belt or in his clothes. This will make his job easier and more efficient.

    This is only one concrete, recent example where this technology is more than 'cool i can wear it...'.

    Think out of the box baby!, How many other jobs couyld be made easier and more efficient if these kinds of portable computing technologies were widely available? Think of the possibilities...

  • Thanks for the link but that project is done...since they changed their mind back and forth so many times on design issues (Mon: Filter this list on city, Tues: don't filter this list - show every thing Wed: why isn't this list filtered etc) that they ran out of money. Besides, without a stable high bandwidth wireless network available realatively cheap, none of my ideas would work very well.

  • Thanks for the link but that project is done...since they changed their mind back and forth so many times on design issues (Mon: Filter this list on city, Tues: don't filter this list - show every thing Wed: why isn't this list filtered etc) that they ran out of money. Besides, without a stable high bandwidth wireless network available realatively cheap, none of my ideas would work very well. And the article would cost me $3.50 - I'm in Canada



  • From the specs page
  • I've been waiting N years to get one of these bad boys, I wan't permanently implanted HUDs, why would I want to take it off?

    On a more serious note, the **same** problems were reported when television was introduced, when monitors were introduced, and especialy when 3d games were introduced. It is the result of a strange learning morphism in the way your brain sees things, but the good news is, you learn to **switch** modes pretty fast, which is why you can play quake and the get up and walk.

    -Crutcher
  • Gee, that sounds like a dangerous web page.

  • The spec page claims that the display consists of 832 by 624 pixels. But on the same time line it says 155M dots. Now, 832*624=519168. This says they use roughly 300 dots per pixel

    I suspect that there's a decimal point missing somewhere in there, and they actually mean 1.55M. That's tantalizingly closer to 519K multiplied by 3 (for red/green/blue elements).

    155M is waaaaaaay too many.

  • You seem to be under the impression that when you have this on, you can't see what you're doing or where you're going. In fact, the specifications page mentions a "see-through function", by use of an LCD shutter system, so you can either view just the image, or the real world and the image at the same time.
    However if you wear one of these while walking down the street, I think you'd look like a moron.
  • What are you talking about? You are in the crowded B train, rush hour. You can't sit sown take out you libretto --you hand can barely hanf on to the handle. You manage to put on your latest Wild Wild West style gaggle. Dong dong!! Instant Slashdot.


    CY

  • AFAIK, the LDI-D100BE is true stereo 800x600@85Hz (triads, not pixels) ( www.vrt.de/products/sony/glasstron.as p [www.vrt.de]). But the stereo is field rather than frame sequential, which I gather makes it a bit of a pain to drive. Field of view is only 28 deg., which might be fine for movies, but it's not exactly right up there for HMDs.

    As for the price, it's cheaper than anything else with that resolution.

    And you can mount (e.g.) an InterSense InterTrax 3DOF tracker pretty easily, I gather.

    What I want to know is, how does the field scanning work, and has anyone got it working on a PC?

    Any comments, either here or mailed directly, would be great. I can't be the only person evaluating this stuff...

  • I'm guessing that's a typo, 832*624*3-colors-per-pixel being 1.55M

  • They were doing tests in one of the Disney places (world, land ?) and people who tested these new arcade games complained of dizziness and disorientation after leaving the game.



    This commonly occurs in VR games for people susceptible to motion sickness. I went down to Epcot (Orlando, Florida, USA) where a VR version of PacMan was featured. Imagine a totally immersive game in which you sharply turn 90 or 180 degrees every few seconds. Despite the numerous warning signs, nearby attendents were required to ask players afterwards if they were okay. Several people were not.


  • If you have heart disease or heart injury you should not use it.
  • I'm dying to get one too, regardless of what side affects. I was playing with 3d rendering about 5 years ago and the program had this do-it-yourself viewer taht put everything into steroscopic for you. Problem was you had to push you face against the computer. Ever since then I've been waiting for a good ( and cheap) HUD that I could use. I think once the price is lowered, I'm gonna get me one. Offhand, I can think of about a dozen games (at leaast) that I would love to use this with!
  • I can't remember which TV show it was but they had a huge warning about these types of things. It seems that if you wear it for too long it can screw you up for when you take it off. It had something to do with the frame rate (so to speak) that our brains sees the natural world and what these things can provide. Once you brain got used to seeing things through these viewers, it had a hard time going back to normal. They were doing tests in one of the Disney places (world, land ?) and people who tested these new arcade games complained of dizziness and disorientation after leaving the game. They also reported that a few games were removed because of this. Does anyone remember seeing this? It was within the last 2 weeks. I'm in Canada so I don't know if you Americans saw it or not.

    I don't know how real this is or whether it includes these devices but thought I'd add my 2 cents.
  • Maybe you can lend me $2600 then :)
    Seriously, for that price, you can get a decent desktop. So until the price comes dwon...
  • if only the damn pricetag was lower
  • I have a set of Virtual IO i-Glasses that I procured from their going-out-of-business auction. (Since then, I believe someone else has picked up their IP and run with it.) I use it to watch TV while I'm working at home.

    One thing I noticed, though, after thoroughly unscientific testing: everyone who put this headset on began to lower their head until their chins were literally resting on their chest.

    My theories why this happens:

    • The weight of the unit, with its center of gravity out in front of your head, will push it down. (I checked out one of the Sony HUDs, and it has similar trouble.)
    • This is the interesting one. I would imagine that, if we weren't forced to hold up our heads in order to see what we wanted to, our neck would naturally relax. Most of my participants didn't even notice where their head went until they took the headset off.
    Don't get me wrong. I dig the concept of the HUD. Their cool factor is undeniable. But until they can beam an image onto a regular pair of glasses, which I don't find particularly feasible, or from the temple of a pair of glasses directly onto the retina, ain't no friggin way HUDs are going to fly. (Scenario 3: your office furniture becomes a recliner with a split keyboard and a HUD. Whoever comes up with this needs product placement in The Matrix II. :)

    Anyway, my i-Glasses always get the desired response from visitors: "Dude, that is so fucking cool!" But I think I'd rather use a Braille reader than that thing for real work.

  • Johnny: I read your comment on slashdot and wanted to e-mail you this
    parital article from the Washington Post a month ago. Figured this
    company could present a solution to your problem. The article information
    is there, but it'll cost 2 bucks to retrieve from an database.

    Just trying to help,

    StephenJ


    SOFTWARE, HARDWARE & READY-TO-WEAR;
    STATE-OF-THE-ART COMPUTER ACCESSORIES FOR THE
    SMART DRESSER

    Article 1 of 5 found

    LINTON WEEKS
    WASHINGTON POST STAFF WRITER
    Friday, June 18, 1999 ; Page C01
    Section: Style
    Word Count: 2117

    "He strolls around the hotel with a hard drive
    strapped on. A teensy color
    monitor juts out over one eye like a bicycle
    helmet mirror. Beneath the other eye
    is a thumbnail-size camera. A noodle-thin
    microphone drapes near his mouth.
    Oddly enough, he doesn't look that odd. You've
    seen it in the movies--the bionic
    people and robocops and half-human, half-machine
    cyborgs that render real
    life obsolete."
  • Hmmm... with good enough technology you could slap a camera on the side or top of the thing and see the whole world at 30fps in 800x600....
  • Since it's using LCD, it will have 832*624*3 = 1.55M dots. Someone's just forgotten the decimal point. However, this may mean that LCD sub-pixel rendering (see www.grc.com/cleartype.htm) giving an effective 2496 dot horizontal resolution for anti-aliased text.


  • Is that injury or heart injury or heart disease injury? If I'm afflicated with heart disease, I'll be damned if it's injured.

  • Sony's display (it's called the Glasstron, by the way) is not at all good for walking around. The transparent function is not that great, you can't see through that well, and it's hard to read the screen. If you don't want to pay $2600, just buy their cheaper NTSC version for about $800 and use a scan converter
  • one word: www.xybernaut.com
    ok, maybe it's three words. you guys don't realize there is a whole community of hundreds of people out there working on this. check out http://wearables.blu.org
  • If you remove the need for a screen from a laptop and add a second power source to power the replacement then you can cram more oomph into the same size box and it should last longer as well. The only problem I can see is I would need to learn to touch type as I would not be able to see the keyboard.

    Alternatively if you use a chord input device - once considered to be the way to go - you can make the portable any shpae you want as you are nolonger hampered by screen or keyboard.

    And thirdly if you want to save space then a monitorless desk is smaller and less costly than the current set up in trading floors... you add the motion sensor and you can pan through multiple screens answer the phone etc., etc. The merchant banks currently throw large amounts of money at getting more people onto their trading floors so the price would be no obstacle.

  • What about stereo (Score:3)

    by ung ( 68636 ) on Tuesday July 13, 1999 @05:50AM (#1805340)
    If the are going to put in independant lcds for the two eyes. Why not got the small extra effort and make the thing stereoscopic. For $2600 I want a whole new quake experience. at 800x600 the
    TNT2Ultras could display at 30+ FPS independantly to each eye. They could use the gizmo in the new microsoft gamepad to do the head tracking.
  • Sorry to burst everyone's bubble here, but I've seen and played with this cool looking toy.

    Sony actually started selling this exact head-mounted disply with their portable DVD player, only diff was minus the VGA/Composite/Svid converter box. Whats worse tho, you can buy the "DVD-Tron" at home theater shops for $1200, Same goggles, plus a REALLY nice portable DVD player. (or $799 if not sold as a kit!) I really don't know what Sony is thinking here with their $2400 price tag...

    As far as quality, well, I wasn't impressed. Much better than head displays I've seen before, but these thing STILL have a long way to go.

  • 832x624 is only supported for the Mac. PC modes available are 640x480, and 800x600. The headset supports relatively high refresh rates, which should keep flickering to a minimum. I found more info on this headset, including a table of supported resolutions. Follow the links at http://www.cgsd.com. They're offering the set for $1850. Better, but still on the pricy side.
  • As for competition for the Sony Glasstron, well, there are lower-priced options in the Japanese market and it might be informative for the more exploratory among us to keep an eye on the products over there. If you forego the see-thru glass, then the number of lower-cost options is much much larger.

    For example, there is the Olympus EyeTrek. You can see the blurb for it at:

    http://www.geocities.co.jp/marketplace/olympus/e nq.html

    Interestingly enough, they use non-Japanese models in their tech product ads. Now, if it were colored black instead of silver, then it would look like a pair of cool opaque sunglasses. Not!

    The homepage for Eye-Trek is at:

    http://www.digital-olympus.com/products/eyetrek/ world/index.htm

    That is in Japanese, but if you hover over the URLs, the English portions of the URL will often giveaway what the link is for. They seem to be trying hard, as there is even an "idea" webpage listing applications (all in Japanese alas).

    The best pictures (and prices) are listed at:

    http://www.digital-olympus.com/products/eyetrek/ product/product.htm

    Just divide the posted yen price by 120 for an estimated price in dollars.

    For more info about Pioneer / Olympus in a joint venture for their "Move-ON Mobile Theatre", take a look at:

    http://teleparc.com/ad/moveon/index.htm

  • If you are looking to play video games or watch DVD on the new little 3 lb Panisonic player then you can get a A-55 that will project a 52" screen at lower resolution for about 600 bucks from Video Direct. Guy at the store said the battery is just a video camera battery so an extra battery you could watch several movies. The ones I tried on where great. Has stereo sound also.
  • Reddog01, are you by chance accidentally comparing this one to Sony's other older Glasstron model, the PLM-A55? They list that one for 799 msrp, which could easily be bundled with a DVD player for the price you mention. See http://www.sel.sony.com/SEL/consumer/ss5/home/camc order/camcorderaccessories/plm-a55_specs .shtml for a pic. They look incredibly similar.

    However, if you are right, that's an awful lot just to pay for RGB input. zoiks.

    -Paul
  • This thing better do 1600x1400 crystal clear for that price.

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