view the real world with a brighter, friendlier glow.
Wouldn't alcohol be cheaper?
Japanese camera and optics company Olympus is developing a set of smart glasses along the lines of Google's Project Glass which, besides its other more useful functions, will allow users to view the real world with a brighter, friendlier glow. Olympus showed off the prototype in a press release on its website. Hot on the …
As a(n amateur/slow) runner I like the idea of glasses like these and Google's, or certainly will when they're properly small and light. Built in GPS and info displayed on the lens means an end to glancing at my GPS watch for times when i want them or listening to Endomondo via my phone giving me times when it wants to give them.
Inifinite other applications besides, of course, but this is one practical reason I want them.
Reminds me of the moment in one of the "Ghost in the Shell" series/movies where a policeman cried out, "My (electronic) eyes have been hacked!" Immediately after that, he had a fatal one-car "accident" on a rainy road, when he swerved his car to avoid a faked obstacle which he "saw" with his electronic eyes.
Perhaps they will come in prescription versions, if the glass can be ground to different prescriptions, or, ultimately, can be calibrated to modify what any wearer sees to put it in focus (which might kill off the regular lens-making industry).
As a "speccy four eyes" myself I'm optimistic we'll be accounted for.
It's not so much focus that's the problem (there are already diopter adjustments in DSLRs etc) but 'mounting' the things. Unless you can clip it on existing glasses and calibrate it, let me tell you - you think wearing these things is going to be dorky as is? Try wearing two pairs of glasses at a the same time, too.
320x240 display with a 1 hr battery life isn't very impressive, especially compared to commercially available stuff like the ST1080, which is full HD and has a 4 hr life. True, it doesn't have GPS, but you're going to be hooking this thing up to a smartphone anyway. Build head tracking in, make it more transparent (10% isn't going to cut it when you're walking around) and do all the processing on the phone to save power.
Or should I say old specs.
At the last Americas Cup, the skipper of Larry Ellison's toy had glasses that connected to the boats systems and projected vital information to shave 1/1000th of a second off the time to tack such a behemoth. Granted he had a backpack computer to interface with the boat.
Personally, i'll leave that sort of toy ashore and possibly stick to beer for getting a "nicer" of the world ashore as well.
- Facial recognition cue: Now you don't need to remember the names of your coworkers and clients, as they appear in your HUD every time you look at them.
- Nudievision: The illusion that all women are naked.
- Anti-nudievision: The illusion that all ugly women are wearing burqas.
- Family finder: Shows direction indicators to those in your group, for locating lost children in crowds.
- Web browser: For reading The Register at work.
- Adblocker: All billboards and advertising flyers removed from vision.