Laser Vision Offers New Insights

squidgy writes "The BBC are reporting on a system that can superimpose images over your vision using small lasers beaming the images directly onto the retina. This is already being used in the car manufacturing industry. You too could soon have T101 vision."

The real innovation

[andy666]

Is the use of adaptive optics for imaging the retina. This involves using deformable mirrors or micromirror arrays to sense how the retina deforms a wavefront.

I MUST HAVE ONE! NOW!

[Anonymous Coward]

But, more prosaically, I wonder what the effective pixel resolution of the display is? colour depth, too.

--
Callas

Dupe?

[jridley]

I think this system, or one just like it, was on /. a year or two ago. I remember the obligatory messages from people who thought that laser light in the eye automatically meant you'd go blind.

Notebooks

[Ledora]

Would be cool for notebooks.... have no need for a screen. Would make them even smaller and probaly consume less power too.

Re:The only important question

[Analogy Man]

In effect for instances were you are looking at something of known shape you get just that!

Suppose you are trying to put a small screw in a small threaded hole..but there are other parts as well as your arm and hand in the way. With this system you could see the hole virtually.

The trick would be having the system generate the geometry for the screw...or your fingers.

Steve Mann has been doing this for a while

[Willard B. Trophy]

This looks exactly like Steve Mann's [wearcam.org] EyeTap [eyetap.org] device. Which, incidentally, runs Linux.

Re:Yikes

[SmackCrackandPot]

I used to read SF stories from the 50's - we used to go to down to the second-hand bookstores/jumble-sales and buy up stacks of books real cheap. If I had the time, I'd build an online website listing these stories, characters and plots so they wouldn't be forgotten. Also because, I'm trying to track down a few stories I remember reading at high school.

Re:The real innovation

[Glonoinha]

You guys miss the whole groundbreaking aspect of this? The HUD! This is what we have been waiting for - heads up display and it is finally (almost) affordable.

For those of you familiar with the feedback in the Star Wars Galaxies HUD, envision coupling this thing with a tiny GPS module - now you could superimpose a top down map of the surrounding area (zoom in / out), heading, speed, waypoints. Couple this with the RFID encoding every person is going to have in the next few years and it could actually accept data from the MCP and put every person's name over their head, plus make available a quick lookup of statistical information (age, date of birth, relatives, occupation, phone number, etc..) Be able to interact with Google, MapQuest, etc in real time everywhere you go.

Simply amazing.

Re:I MUST HAVE ONE! NOW!

[nacturation]

Your eye is approximately equal to a 100 megapixel camera, only instead of an evenly distributed rectangular grid, it's more of a bullseye with the greatest density of rods/cones near the center. So that's the theoretical limit of resolution possible, but of course the electronics governing the laser movement will be the limiting factor here.

Important Question

[LaCosaNostradamus]

What are the long-term effects of passing coherent light through the aq. and virt. humors of the eye? Our eyes were evolved for the spread spectrum of sunlight.

I have used this before...

[BroFrog]

A few years ago I was able to use one of these systems (prototype). Truly a very awesome setup. At the time the unit was composed of a very light headset, which was capable of projecting a single color, red. The most interesting future feature presented was the ability for this laser to be shot across a room into your eye, eliminating the need for the headset. Since I saw the headset demo a few years back I am curious if they have perfected a means to do this yet.

Re:I MUST HAVE ONE! NOW!

[Lemmeoutada Collecti]

Actually, it is my understanding that the controller software in the eye takes several micro offset images and then produces an interpolated image of much higher resolution, which is then compressed into a datastream and sent to the driver (optic nerve). So the theoretical resolution is actually a function of the resolution of the eye * (speed of the eye in actual frames per second/the number of frames transmitted per second) with allowance made for the compression stage.

The actual resolution transmitted to the brain may be much much higher than the mere 100 megapixel single image resolution.

Disclaimer: IANAOBYRMV (I Am Not An Optical Biologist, Your Resolution May Vary)

Re:Notebooks

[Suidae]

I'd be more interested in using it as environment space.

I want my nice 19" full color display in front of me, then I want to put on one of these and with a head position sensor, so that I can have the area around me be an extended destop visible only in monochrome. I could leave windows lying all around outside the bounds of my monitor.

Bonus perihiperial, some kind of machine vision system that will let me slide those windows around using my hands.

Been waiting Seven Years

[Steve500]

I first saw Microvisions VRD (Virtual Retinal Display) back in 1997 on Tomorrows World. Back then they were confident that we would all be able to buy home VR console systems etc etc within a couple of years. I waited....and waited..and waited... Seven years later we have a red monochrome strap-on monstrosity that makes you look like the geeky Borg that the other Borgs tease. Hurry up with something decent! I want my Sony VR games console, with dataglove now!!