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Laser Vision Offers New Insights 249

Posted by CmdrTaco from the it-burns-mommy dept.
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."
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Laser Vision Offers New Insights More

Laser Vision Offers New Insights

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  • The real innovation (Score:5, Interesting)

    by andy666 ( 666062 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @08:46AM (#8982626)
    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.

    • Sharks (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Now all we need are friggin HUMANS with friggin lasers attached fo their foreheads

    • Re:The real innovation (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Glonoinha ( 587375 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @10:21AM (#8983655) Journal
      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.

  • Yikes (Score:5, Funny)

    by CaseyB ( 1105 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @08:47AM (#8982632)
    Anyone else immediately think of the old "set refresh rate to zero" hack that used to be able to burn out monitors?

    • Re:Yikes (Score:5, Funny)

      by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @09:51AM (#8983309)
      > Anyone else immediately think of the old "set refresh rate to zero" hack that used to be able to burn out monitors?

      Yeah. Someone else has done all the hard work. All I wanted was for you to set the refresh rate to zero, turn the thing around 180 degrees, and mount the frickin' thing on a shark. Is that too much to ask?

  • The only important question (Score:3, Funny)

    by triptolemeus ( 538604 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @08:48AM (#8982637)
    One will I get X-ray vision?
    • 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.

  • Ouch (Score:2, Funny)

    by dmayle ( 200765 )
    I'd hate to be the guy who's plugged in when there's a power surge...

  • I MUST HAVE ONE! NOW! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @08:48AM (#8982643)
    But, more prosaically, I wonder what the effective pixel resolution of the display is? colour depth, too.

    --
    Callas
    • From their product info pages:
      "Equivalent to 17-inch SVGA display at arm's length Nomad provides the same full-screen resolution as an SVGA desktop monitor. Most handheld devices display only quarterscreen resolution. Scrolling is virtually unnecessary."
      So presumably around 1024x768 pixels...

      And the colour depth:

      "Monochrome red display Nomad's bright-red display provides high contrast between the display information and virtually any background view. 32 grey levels Nomad can display text, graphics, halftones or video in any combination with excellent readability."

      The thing the surprised me was the price, only $3995, which seems pretty cheap, to be turned into a terminator....

      I'm reminded of the bit where Arnie scans the dresscode in the bar, and the HUD flashes up 'Inappropriate' at one point...

    • 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.

      • Re:I MUST HAVE ONE! NOW! (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Lemmeoutada Collecti ( 588075 ) <obereonNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @12:12PM (#8985115) Homepage Journal
        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)

  • It says... (Score:5, Funny)

    by YanceyAI ( 192279 ) * <IAMYANCEY@yahoo.com> on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @08:50AM (#8982659)
    It's a system that can change the way we see the world.

    Sounds kinda like beer googles, only pricier.

  • "You've got mail!" (Score:4, Funny)

    by nmg196 ( 184961 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @08:51AM (#8982669)
    Cool - now I can have a "You've got mail" banner scroll across my field of view and cool rotatey vector envelope icon will appear at bottom right of everything I look at...

    • Re:"You've got mail!" (Score:5, Funny)

      by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @09:05AM (#8982796) Homepage
      Nahh more fun is to run 30 copies of Xeyes and start running around screaming "STOP STARING AT ME!"
    • You wish! By the time this gets relased, advertising and AOL in general will be much much more annoying than that!
      • They'll have invented cheaper, more disposable media for AOL to bombard you with!

        How does that work, anyway? When the CD is gone, does the big counter in the AOL War-Room reset to 0?
    • I was really excited about this technology until they started onto application to cell phones. The track record of that industry to make something useful (a mobile phone with a list of names and numbers) into a convoluted hodge-podge of features hiding the useful features 4 layers down in the menus makes me shudder considering how they would implement this.

    • Your comment made me get worried, in another way... one word:

      Advertising

      Give advertisers a chance to get their foot in the door, then this would be it... I mean talk about something you can't exactly ignore. Might just be me getting a little paranoid, but you never know.

      Mind, I just thought of the scene where Homer Simpson when he is driving down the road and does an emergency stop to look at every roadside banner advert... it would be even more freaky with this tech!

  • No thanks (Score:5, Funny)

    by BiggerIsBetter ( 682164 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @08:52AM (#8982682)
    I have a hard enough time descerning reality as it is.

  • Does this work for everyone? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @08:53AM (#8982683)
    Does this work for everyone who has vision? Or will it only work for some, like traditional 3D, or those few who could actually play the Nintendo Virtual Boy [nau.edu] without getting a headache?

  • The first pattern you'll see (Score:3, Funny)

    by unfortunateson ( 527551 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @08:53AM (#8982691) Journal
    Do not look into laser with remaining eye!

  • Oh Great (Score:3, Funny)

    by binaryDigit ( 557647 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @08:54AM (#8982694)
    You too could soon have T101 vision."

    Not like I spend enough time staring at code, just what I need is to have a constant stream of 6502 assembler every waking moment.

  • Dupe? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jridley ( 9305 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @08:55AM (#8982703)
    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.

  • This isn't new... (Score:3, Informative)

    by boomer_rehfield ( 579777 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @08:56AM (#8982708)
    There was a company from Seattle IIRC that was working with this around 5 to 7 years ago. It's an extremely cool technology though and I was bummed that I never heard anything else beyond that. Glad to hear it's still around.

  • Notebooks (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Ledora ( 611009 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @08:57AM (#8982717)
    Would be cool for notebooks.... have no need for a screen. Would make them even smaller and probaly consume less power too.
    • systems could be incorporated into mobile phones or hand-held computers and appear to the brain as a brightly lit widescreen TV version of what is on the device

      I'd sell all my stock in companies making televisions and monitors, if I had any. Get the benefits of a monster plasma TV without taking up the real estate and, at about $4000, without spending as much.

    • Re:Notebooks (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Suidae ( 162977 )
      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.

  • The Game (Score:5, Funny)

    by Chess_the_cat ( 653159 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @08:58AM (#8982735) Homepage
    "Come on Wesley, play the game!"

  • Ahhh... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Cyno01 ( 573917 )
    My eyes, the goggles, they do nothing! Nothing!!!

  • Promising New Tech... (Score:4, Funny)

    by nicholas_nym ( 769092 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @09:00AM (#8982748)
    ...but it'll be way better when I can get laser beams to come out of my eyes.

  • Already out there.... (Score:2, Informative)

    by fideaux ( 158169 )
    Hey, this has already been doing this for years. [microvision.com]

    Pretty cool, but I wish they would do tricolor lasers and then blast full color into they eye. Power might be an issue... ah, retina over easy?

  • Scouter? (Score:2, Funny)

    by 404notfound ( 467950 )
    Am I the only one who thinks the image of the device looks suspiciously like the Dragon Ball Z scouter device used by the Saiyans?

  • Steve Mann has been doing this for a while (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Willard B. Trophy ( 620813 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @09:02AM (#8982771) Homepage Journal
    This looks exactly like Steve Mann's [wearcam.org] EyeTap [eyetap.org] device. Which, incidentally, runs Linux.
  • Harken back to the GPS-sensitive gaming, and you might even be able to do overlays... so that someones character in the game world is overlayed (roughly) on top of them ... and you can "battle" in the 3d world. Would be cool for virtual offices as well.. teleworker shows at the meeting if you have the sunglasses.

  • One eye only? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Colonel Angus ( 752172 )
    If an image is only being displayed on one eye would there not be some distortion whenever the other eye is open? I put my finger in front of my right eye. Close my right eye and my left eye cannot see it. Close my left eye and my right eye sees it fine. Open both eyes and it's a distorted "see-through" image of my finger. Would a similar effect not happen here or is there some compensation built into the device? I saw no mention of it in the article but perhaps someone has more information.
    • It's a little nastier than that, I'm afraid.

      You see, you *want* to see through a retinal display, so that's not a problem at all. It's also designed to account for your ability to focus, so it should look like it's further away than it actually is. In short, yes, there's compensation for any distortion.

      However, the eye that's getting the feed will adjust to the higher intensity light, killing your night vision in one eye. If it's a monochrome display, which most are, and in red, to boot, you simply won
  • This technology is pretty well-established in the military. Information is painted directly onto the retina for pilots of the Apache helicopter. This data doesn't get faded out and you don't have to look down. Pilots can keep focused on their targets, etc. It's perfectly safe.

    • "Information is painted directly onto the retina"

      You mean the light comes into the eye, gets focussed by the cornea and lens, and forms an image on the retina? Wow, that's a new way of seeing things.

    • Slightly OT: Re:Apaches Already Have This (Score:5, Informative)

      by ValentineMSmith ( 670074 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @10:03AM (#8983464)
      I'm sorry, but that is incorrect. Unless they've changed the way the targeting devices work for the AH-64D. The AH-64A uses a small HUD that is clipped to the right side of the pilot's helmet. The image is projected on a piece of semi-transparent, angled glass, just like a regular HUD in any other military aircraft.

      The innovative thing about the Apache was not the monocle. It was the way the monocle was boresighted and the way the helmet was tracked in 3D space inside the cockpit. The net effect was that, when the copilot/gunner looks at something, the aircraft can tell where he's looking. The TADS (or Target Acquisition and Designation System) follows his head motion. And, if the 30mm chain gun is the active weapon, it follows his head motion as well. All the CPG has to do is either lase to get a range or lase to designate the target and pull the trigger.

      For the pilot, the helmet was boresighted so that the PNVS (or Pilot's Night Vision System) would automatically follow his head motions. The PNVS is an infrared system (not light multiplying) based in a small turret at the front of the aircraft. The pilots said that the perspective change took a bit of getting used to, but it worked very effectively.

      I was an Apache crewchief for four years.

    • I'm wondering -- how would this work anyway?

      I assume most people can't read text unless they're looking right at it, using the most sensitive part of the retina to recognize the shapes of the words.

      Try reading something out of the corner (or even halfway point) of your eye, it's practically impossible or very difficult to do, requiring a lot of concentration.
  • Wouldn't be lovelly to face a BSOD while driving at 120Km/h, in a rainy night?
    • The better question is how you're gonna get Win 98 to interface with it so you can have a BSOD. Maybe if we get it to work with CyberMaxx drivers ...... damn I miss the days of VR. It's funny that everyone lost interest in it once computers actually got powerful enough to draw more than 50 flat-shaded polys in a scene.

  • This is a Big Thing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pkaral ( 104322 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @09:16AM (#8982897)
    I think it is hard to overestimate the long term impact of this technology, if it lives up to its promises. This could be the final piece in the puzzle needed to make wearable computing [mit.edu] a mainstream reality (rather than a thing for visionary geeks). My guess is that within 10 years of the first real massmarket product, we will all be wearing those when working, driving, shopping, etc.
    • This could be the final piece in the puzzle needed to make wearable computing a mainstream reality (rather than a thing for visionary geeks).

      You misspelled "dorky."
  • for FPS games.... If this thing could be tweaked to provide an image for your entire field of vision it would be far superior than those nasty goggles that were used in 'Virtual Reality' systems a few years back. They were simply screens right infront of your eyes. Desert combat and the like would rock if you could use your peripheral vision.
    It wouldn't be much harder to sense if the eyes have moved and could allow the user to see larger images if they could look to the left and right and have the image

  • Some uses for this... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by heironymouscoward ( 683461 ) <heironymouscowar ... .com minus punct> on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @09:19AM (#8982925) Journal
    Putting all the "cook your eyes with high-powered laser" jokes aside, this has several useful applications.

    I'd like a subtitle application. A smart application analyses voices and sends subtitles only I can see.

    "He's lying".

    "She's eager but expecting disappointment"

    "They want to buy, at any price".

    "He's still lying".

    Subtitling conversations is a great thing. But we can go further. GPS is an obvious plug-in. "Go left, now!" "Almost there" "Cops ahead, slow down and hide the bottles".

    Next, how about linking this to streaming news sources. I'd never miss another Fark story. Granted, ticker-tape messages scrolling under your line of sight might get boring. But that's what bash.org is for.

    I also want the reality-skinning software. This has been briefly touched on in a previous comment. We can go further. Everyone we meet can get their own photoshopped skin. The boss? He gets a moustache and bright red hair. That girl in finance who refuses all your expenses? A sign on her back saying 'Kick Me'.

    Finally, I'd like a system of virtual real-world messaging. This works as follows: comments are linked to real spatial cordinates. As you look at the appropriate building or space, you get to read the comments. To keep comments semi-private, you'd have join a server and channel, like irc.

    So I think laser-augmented vision has the potential to radically change society.

    Of course we have to get around the fried-eye issues first.

    • Hook it into babelfish. HECTAR HECTAR HECTAR HECTAR.

      Sinec it's scanning your eye, it can tell where you're looking. You can probably learn to use saccades for feedback pretty quickly.

      "I was like having dinner with this guy, and he didn't seem to be paying attention, so I look at his eyes and they're twitching like he was on crack. The bastard was reading slashdot on my date!"

    • Re:Some uses for this... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by infolib ( 618234 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @10:09AM (#8983519)
      I'd like a subtitle application. A smart application analyses voices and sends subtitles only I can see.

      Now what I'd like to see in the display is:

      Name: Bob Greenham (92% certainty)
      Last met: Acme Conference june '06
      Current position: Cyan Inc. (99% certainty)
      "Bob Greenham" found in one mail thread:
      Spokes for Acme Wheels (July '06, 3 mails)
      • This would be a nice side effect of the Ashcroft RFID Identification bill being pushed through congress - once everybody is carrying RFID and can be uniquely identified by the surrounding sensors this would be a trivial extension to the existing infrastructure. I guess law enforcement might get first dibs, but it would bump up the 92% certainty to about 100% once they work out the kinks.

    • Re:Some uses for this... (Score:5, Funny)

      by ozbird ( 127571 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @10:16AM (#8983596)
      I'd like a subtitle application. A smart application analyses voices and sends subtitles only I can see.

      "He's lying."

      LIAR.
      HE'S A LIAR.
      HE'LL RAPE YOU.
      HE'LL KILL.
      YOU KILL HIM FIRST.

      ("Blood" [redwolf.com.au], X-Files season 2 episode 3.)
    • And when it can be fitted into a standard glasses frame, there are going to be implications for examinations, especially if it has an input mechanism which works on eye movements. "Everyone with glasses, please get them checked on the way in".
  • This will eventually be used for web surfing, and after that, it is only a matter of time before web advertisers abuse a feature of "eyeJavaScript" which greatly increases the power of the laser, so you end up looking at that blasted X10 peeping-tom camera advertisement for 18 weeks, every waking hour.
  • is a fiber obtic network capable of delivering the same bandwidth as a 747 chock full of data DVDs crashing into our homes every few seconds and we can all be Hero.
  • That was always one of the things I thought was the coolest about Neal Stephenson's [nealstephenson.com] book Snow Crash [slashdot.org].

    And in case you're one of the 10 people on this board who hasn't read it, it's a CyberPunk style novel where the interface to a computer/VR is handled by means of goggles that use low intensity lasers played across the retinas to give the ultimate wide-screen experience.
    • Close, but no. Actually the goggles were passive, there was a base station that knew where you were and followed you around with lasers aimed at your face drawing the picture on the front of your tinted goggles.

      In effect, these are way cooler than Hiro's because nobody can stand between you and the base station. Granted his had much higher resolution and color depth, throughput to the Internet, and were a complete work of fiction.

      Ack - just realized that these are more like the Gargoyle setup that he go
  • Thinking of piping the video from that Sony Handicam from a few years back to this?

    Remember? The one that if you switched on the 'Night Vision' feature you could see through clothing?

    Erm...Maybe not such a good thought so soon after the 'Tron Costume' story here......
  • Landlord:
    Hey buddy.. got a dead cat in there or what?

    The Slashdot poster considers possible responses:

    >YES/NO
    >FP!
    >IN SOVIET RUSSIA...
    >IMAGINE A BEOWULF CLUSTER OF THOSE!
    >FSCK YOU
    >FSCK YOU, WINDOZE LUSER

    SP:
    Fsck you, Windoze luser.

  • From the article : "US firm Microvision..."

    Good lord, I misread that Macrovision. The last people on earth I'd want pumping something directly into my eyes, although I'm sure the MPAA would love it!

  • Remember the airport terahertz scanner the tinfoil crowd was in uproar about some time ago (the news item was accompanied by a photo of some fat lady appearing somewhat naked on the monitor when under the eye of the scanner)?

    What happens when that scanner gets small enough to be mounted on this lasersight system?

    A new Gestapo?

  • Heads up display (Score:3, Insightful)

    by wowbagger ( 69688 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @09:51AM (#8983299) Homepage Journal
    Oh come ON people, this is nothing more than a head mounted Heads up display - you know, like has been around for YEARS!

    The only real difference is that this uses a scanning laser, rather than a CRT.

    Yes, HMDs are cool. Yes, there are plenty of places HMDs would be nice ot have.

    But COME ON - this is a new way of doing something that has been done before! It may lead to better HMDs, it may be a breakthrough.

    BUT THE SIMPLE FACT THEY ARE USING LASERS DOES NOT MAKE THIS NEW TERRITORY!

    • Re:Heads up display (Score:4, Informative)

      by David McBride ( 183571 ) <david+slashdot@ d w m.me.uk> on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @10:31AM (#8983783) Homepage
      This is a significant breakthrough because:

      -- Previous HMD's were very heavy (and unbalancing), and not suitable for long-term use; this is not the case with this implementation.

      -- The displays used were relatively low quality, requiring small LCD screens with refresh, brightness, colour depth, and resolution issues; with this new design the only limiting factors are how fast you can modulate the laser intensity and how quickly you can scan the retina. (Colour depth is harder as it requires three seperate lasers of the appropriate wavelengths firing at the same mirror, but is within the bounds of possibility.)

      -- Previous HMDs were not portable; they required physical lines back to a power supply and main processing units. Power consumption in this design is substantially reduced, meaning batteries and portables/wireless links can be used to make this design untethered.

      Although the improvements may seem relatively minor, collectively they allow the use of HMDs in all kinds of applications that were previously completely untenable.

      That is why this is a big deal.
      • Not to mention the best example of existing HMD (the one in the Apache) meant wearing a helmet the size of a Volkswagen Bug and being tethered to a $20M helicopter. It was cool, but subtle it wasn't.

  • Consequences (Score:2, Insightful)

    by mmmjoy ( 666918 )
    When this becomes mainstream... Television producers would be crushed... You wouldn't have to buy posters for your wall... Your little electric heater could look like a roaring fire... Skin the world!

  • Retinal angle? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by mhocker ( 607466 )
    Did anyone understand how the system deals with the angle of the retina changing as the user moves their eyes? The retina is (if I understand it correctly) planar, which is how the cornea can focus images on it consistently. Yet the eyes are nearly spherical, meaning that the retina changes its angle as the eyes move.

    The reason I ask is that, for this to produce accurate images, it would need to readjust the keystone of the image, much like a LCD projector must do that if it is mounted at an angle to the s

  • Too expensive atm... (Score:3, Informative)

    by MrBandersnatch ( 544818 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @10:06AM (#8983488)
    http://www.mvis.com/nomadexpert/info.html

    Resolution is a little on the low side at 800x600 for me to get excited about. However it IS exciting that this technology is moving into the workplace - 5-10 years and prices should start dropping to consumer levels and the technology should have improved to a level where some of the..."funner" aspects of this technology become viable. Expect this technology to become pervasive within the next 20 years.

    I really hadnt expected to see something like this at the sort of prices they are talking about for another 10 years or so - nice when the future comes early :)

  • Not that pricey (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Steelwings ( 549043 )
    At $4k it cost less than a plasma display.
  • >>Offshoots of the technology could be put into digital cameras,
    >>offering the same viewfinder capabilities of a high quality single lens reflex camera.
    >>Photographers would be able to preview a full-colour image
    >>and make focus-control and depth-of-field adjustments much more easily.

    Woohoo - now I get to be Spider Robinson! So, where's my bowel disruptor...
  • Seems like the really hard part of any augmented-reality HMD is to keep the displayed image in place over the real image. Are they doing eye tracking or just head tracking? Need to do both to get the displayed image really stable and avoid swimming and the resulting motion sickness. (As the eye swivels in the socket, the displayed image needs to change slightly to overlap the same real object.) The article doesn't say anything about their tracking, but IMHO it should.

  • For the last couple of years, there's been lots in the press about the dangers of driving while talking on a cellphone, and how that distraction is a major cause of car accidents.

    I can see the headlines now:

    Car accident fatality found with a smile on his face and his *censored* in his hand.

  • Important Question (Score:4, Interesting)

    by LaCosaNostradamus ( 630659 ) <`moc.liam' `ta' `sumadartsoNasoCaL'> on Tuesday April 27, 2004 @10:59AM (#8984105) Journal
    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.
  • (1) Closed-captioning for hearing-impaired users, when coupled with voice reconition.

    (2) Real-time foreign languge subtitles, when coupled with voice recognition (speaker talks in French, user sees English subtitles in field of view - "Your mother was a hamster, and your father smells of elderberries.")

    (3) Real-time foreign language text translation, when coupled with OCR (read a menu in a French restaurant, see English meaning in field of view)

    OK, three. The three most powerful applications are th
  • http://www.microvision.com/nomadexpert/index.html Nice movie :)
  • 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.
  • This is great. Now the blond bimbo driving 80 mph next to on the instertate will not only be trying to sip her diet coke and apply makeup, but will be watching the Bon-Marche's sale scroller instead of the road. I can't wait!
  • Them: This revolutionary new display will open new fields of immersive computing!
    Us: It shoots a LASER into your RETINA!

    My co-workers always complain when I try to do that (shoot a laser into their retinas) in the boring board meetings (Disclaimer: No I really don't do that. Do not try this at home.)

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