Retinal-Scanning Screen Prototypes

Troed writes: "Microvision demonstrated a prototype display that uses three leds and a mirror to display SVGA graphics from something small enough to be put into cellphones." Not a lot of technical details, but what's there looks good. It'll be a few years at best before the prototypes turn into real products, and I'm not quite sure I want to beta test this one, but I sure can't wait for when they are ready for prime time.

This is a PROJECTOR, not a scanner

[Anonymous Coward]

Retinal scanning is when you read the retina, not when you present things for the retina to scan.

http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=scan

YEAY, Another Microvision Press Release

[technomancerX]

Microvision puts out a press release roughly once per year AND NEVER RELEASES ANY DAMN PRODUCTS. They've been working on making this technology work since ~1993 and still have nothing to show for it. It's vapor, move along.

• 1998 - Retinal Display - 1280 x 1024 resolution [slashdot.org]
• 2000 - New Device Could Overcome Low Vision [slashdot.org]
• 2001 - Eyeballing the Future of Retina Scanning Lasers [slashdot.org]

Looks like glasses not a problem.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

One other question, what about those of us with glasses, can the system work around that, or will I have to start wearing a monocle like Mr. Peanut?

If the marketing sketches of the optic path accurately show the geometry of the system, you'd be able to see in focus without your glasses. (But your iris would have to be in the correct spot, i.e. you're looking in the right direction, or the image will disappear.)

The focus issue occurs because the light from a given real-world "pixel" arrives as a wide, essentially colimated (rays essentially parallel) beam, and your lens has to focus the light hitting it all over its surface down to a point, or a very small patch, on the retina. If your lens is less than perfect or not currently adjusted correctly, light from one real-world pixel striking different parts of it arrive at different spots on the retina, rather than all at one spot, defocusing the image.

Most displays illuminate the whole retina with a broad beam, allowing you to move your eye or head about and still see the image, but requiring your lens or lens-plus-glasses system to focus properly. This system MAY hit your eye with a narrow beam, which would reduce or eliminate the need for the lens to focus accurately.

But it would also require your eye to be in exactly the right spot, within the size of your pupil as viewed through your eye's lens. Eye motion would make you lose the image. So I suspect the display actually spreads out the light on its way to your eye, and you'd still need the glasses.

Re:Brings to mind Diamond Age

[Wire Tap]

Actually, one of the people mentioned (when Stephenson was going on about this technology) killed himself BECAUSE the ads were present even when he closed his eyes.

What about deformed retinas?

[Twister002]

Most nearsightedness [allaboutvision.com] and farsightedness [allaboutvision.com] is caused by the eye, and consequently the retina, not being in the correct shape.The image is formed either too far ahead or behind the retina.

I read the article but I didn't see any mention of how the beam would project on malformed retinas. If you are farsighted and you use this Microvision system, will the image appear to be deformed as well? Will it look like you are sitting too close to the movie theater screen?

Re:Hold it to your eye?

[Mudslayre]

The only problem with the projecting would be the fact that the system is designed for transmittion into the eye rather than reception from the eye. I'm quite willing to assume that the protype was designed to minimize weight and power consumption and is not capable of receiving information like that. But it'd sure be cool - a definately worth the added weight if they integrated some additional technology to allow the device to read where your attention was.