All long long time ago in a galax…. Wait. I exaggerate. A long time ago anyway I was part of a project that simply fired a light into your eye and displayed on your retina a simple image from a computer monitor. This image floated in front of you and you could read it easily whilst seeing the world around you. Similar to a heads up display on the car. I’ve waited a long time for a practical application to come along and now one has it is nothing like I expected.
Read this article about NEC’s translation retinal glasses. The display is part of a computing unit that listens to someone talking and displays what they are saying in your language. It will be very nice when it is ready for real use. I could use one of those when I am up in Glasgow next.
Even though the translation unit is not ready for the real world yet the application I was expecting is already part of the unit. Simply a display of manuals whilst you look at the real thing. Imagine looking inside your PC while you install a new component with this system showing a step by step guide in the retinal display for you to copy. It will revolutionise education and allow repairs and building by unskilled people on almost everything.
Sadly, instead of making the unit for sale individually. NEC have chosen to sell it as a classroom tool where a single teacher can display what he wishes to show and records what the others do. The unit comes in at a hefty $8.2M for a 30 seat set up. Hardly affordable. I guess I’ll scratch it off my XMas list for this year.
Can’t wait to see what the other electronic manufacturers do with this technology. I wonder if this could make the eBooks readers obsolete? Sat Nav whilst driving, heads up displays for cars, bikes. I/F for PDA’s, MP4 players, phones. There are a lot of applications out there waiting for an affordable retina display. I wonder if NEC may have lost a trick here by not going for the mass market.
I’ll be keeping my eye out for one of these.
Retinal displays
All long long time ago in a galax…. Wait. I exaggerate. A long time ago anyway I was part of a project that simply fired a light into your eye and displayed on your retina a simple image from a computer monitor. This image floated in front of you and you could read it easily whilst seeing the world around you. Similar to a heads up display on the car. I’ve waited a long time for a practical application to come along and now one has it is nothing like I expected.
Read this article about NEC’s translation retinal glasses. The display is part of a computing unit that listens to someone talking and displays what they are saying in your language. It will be very nice when it is ready for real use. I could use one of those when I am up in Glasgow next.
Even though the translation unit is not ready for the real world yet the application I was expecting is already part of the unit. Simply a display of manuals whilst you look at the real thing. Imagine looking inside your PC while you install a new component with this system showing a step by step guide in the retinal display for you to copy. It will revolutionise education and allow repairs and building by unskilled people on almost everything.
Sadly, instead of making the unit for sale individually. NEC have chosen to sell it as a classroom tool where a single teacher can display what he wishes to show and records what the others do. The unit comes in at a hefty $8.2M for a 30 seat set up. Hardly affordable. I guess I’ll scratch it off my XMas list for this year.
Can’t wait to see what the other electronic manufacturers do with this technology. I wonder if this could make the eBooks readers obsolete? Sat Nav whilst driving, heads up displays for cars, bikes. I/F for PDA’s, MP4 players, phones. There are a lot of applications out there waiting for an affordable retina display. I wonder if NEC may have lost a trick here by not going for the mass market.
I’ll be keeping my eye out for one of these.