Imagine: a black, kickass looking eypatch. On the inside, a tiny (but high resolution) OLED screen. On the front of the eyepatch would be a camera — if that isn’t possible with current technology, then it would be attached to the side of your head somehow — maybe on the same strap that’s holding your eyepatch. Or it could be like those police cameras I recall reading about a while back that loop over your ear.
Either way, you’ll have two things: a computer screen accessible at all times, and a video camera. Link them both to a wearable computer, and you have the basis for an augmented reality system.
And the best part is, I think this design is actually feasible!
I’ve put some thought into AR systems before, but they always involved projecting images onto lenses or something. The problem with this method is we don’t yet have good enough projector tech for that.
But swap out the projector for a monitor and camera, and you’ve got yourself the item that will make me a millionaire.
Some possible (realistic with today technology) uses:
- Facial recognition. The computer would pick out faces and display their name, age, whatever you wanted. Handy if you’re bad at remembering people. You could also have an application that would automatically download a list of wanted felons and check for their faces.
- Birds eye view of your current location, courtesy of Google Maps. Never be lost again.
- Whatever information you wanted. You could even watch TV.
Possible (future) uses:
- Virtual signs. Want to find the nearest ATM? Launch your ATM finding app, and suddenly a giant arrow springs up from the ground and hovers in the sky a few block away. A glowing green appears at ground level, guiding you there. The main problem with this kind of tech today is depth perception. Your AR goggles/eyepatch need some way of telling if there’s a building or other object between you and the virtual sign. Without this, it’ll just draw everything on top of the real world. Not good.
Hardware:
Once this thing goes to market, it would of course be custom built. But until then, I think a Pico ITX motherboard would be the best thing. Small (the size of a playing card!) low power requirements… build a small case, put it on your belt, forget about it.
For the camera, just any small digicam, like the afore-mentioned one the police were testing out. They’re out there. Once the technology progresses to the required level, the external camera could be replaced with one mounted directly on the eyepatch. If the user so desired, they could get two cameras — one normal, and one something like infrared. Night vision FTW!
The screen would of course be an OLED, like a cellphone display. I’m still researching it, but I’m confident that displays of the size I’m talking about can get at least something like 250×300 pixel resolution. Not great, but it would work for the purposes I outlined above. And since the tech gets better at an exponential rate, it shouldn’t be too long before the screen will be high-def.
Gloves. There’s got to be some way of controlling your software, right? So why not gloves? I’m thinking of a fingerless, ultra sci-fi design. There’d be sensors in the gloves so that your computer could interpret gestures as commands. Also, your camera would be able to pick out your gloves (due to some shiny reflective surface on them, or a particular pattern that image recognition could grab onto) so you could interact with the virtual world just by pointing at stuff.
——————————-
Anyway, those are some if my ideas. Thoughts, anyone?
) and ITT offers some neat advantages. For example, after completing a course, you can come back at any time — even twenty years later — and retake the course for free. If you move to a different city in the middle of a course, your tuition carries over to any other ITT school in the nation. Another thing is that textbooks and equipment/software are included in the tuition, and they’re yours to keep forever.
Recent Comments