Microsoft Granted Patent For Augmented Reality Glasses 89
another random user writes with an excerpt from the BBC about Microsoft's vision for augmented reality glasses: "A patent granted to the U.S. tech firm describes how the eyewear could be used to bring up statistics over a wearer's view of a baseball game or details of characters in a play. The newly-released document was filed in May 2011 and is highly detailed.
... Although some have questioned how many people would want to wear such devices, a recent report by Juniper Research indicated that the market for smart glasses and other next-generation wearable tech could be worth $1.5bn by 2014 and would multiply over following years."
Noticeable differences from Google's version: two lenses, a wrist computer, and wires.
Re:Why MS is better than Google's (Score:5, Informative)
I would hesitate getting Google's reality glasses because it would mean that all my data would go to Google. Instead of that, Microsoft's version would process things independently on the wrist computer. That's a huge difference and suits to people who want to keep their privacy.
Doesn't look like it:
It indicates that most of the processing work - identifying people and other objects in view, and deciding what information to show about them - would likely be carried out by remote computer servers in order to keep the equipment slimline.
So you'll probably need a .NET Passport/Windows Live ID/Microsoft Account/whatever-they're-calling-it-tomorrow to use it.
Re:Patent nonsense (Score:2, Informative)
Obviously you and the people who modded you insightful didn't even bother to read the the first sentence of the abstract of the patent. This is NOT a piece of hardware, rather it is "A system and method to present a user wearing a head mounted display with supplemental information when viewing a live event". The head mounted display is already assumed in this patent - this patent is just talking about presenting live statistics/info about the event in a manner that doesn't obstruct the viewing of said event.
Again, not hardware.
Re:Why MS is better than Google's (Score:5, Informative)
Not at all, if you're willing to back it up.
I don't know about you, but when someone with a brand-new account kicks off the discussion with a first post that praises Microsoft and denounces the competition, and that is their only comment, that looks rather odd to me.
When you remember that there have been a lot of new accounts doing exactly that over the course of this year - the Visual Studio ones being some of the most blatant - well, writing that off as normal user behaviour starts to look like burying your head in the sand.