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Bosch Smart glasses: A tiny laser array paints images directly onto your retina
- DanBC 7y agoThis is a great article and it covers a lot of stuff that I'd wondered about before. Here's someone doing a (somewhat terrifying) DIY version: https://eclecti.cc/hardware/blinded-by-the-light-diy-retinal-projection https://eclecti.cc/hardware/blinded-by-the-light-diy-retinal... Virtual Retinal Displays are a pretty old idea, first being demonstrated in 1991. They've been stuck in development for years, so it's good to see them getting some more attention. http://www.hitl.washington.edu/research/vrd/ http://www.hitl.washington.edu/research/vrd/
- alecco 7y agoFeatured in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Light https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Light (1994)
- nrp 7y agoThat was me. It’s great to see that the light engine and electronics have been miniaturized to be almost glasses sized. It’s annoying that they are still stuck with the tiny exit pupil I saw in 2012 and HITLab had in the 90’s. I hoped that mass producible pupil replicators would have been ubiquitous by now.
- DanBC 7y agoWhen I say "somewhat terrifying" I do genuinely mean "also awesome"!
- rusk 7y agoFinally! We've been talking about these in Sci-Fi for years. Surely the Jet Pack can't be far off now ...
- rmah 7y agoThey had working jet packs in the 1960's. One was used in a James Bond film.
- rusk 7y agoI didn’t say they haven’t been made, just that they aren’t a commonly available consumer item yet.
- BuildTheRobots 7y agoStar Trek TNG S05E06: The Game: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_... Though the issue in the episode was the addictiveness of the game (which is already an issue) rather than the fact it painted directly on your eye.
- rusk 7y agoYes, this.
- WiseWeasel 7y agoThe problem with jet packs is that they're limited to people crazy enough to strap one on and light it up. Maybe once AI control is trusted...
- rusk 7y agoSurely its a fairly straightforward control system alá quad copters. Just got to solve fuel and health and safety regulations and we’re set. Boris and Donald working on the latter, hopefully Elon can get the ball rolling with a 3D mockup of the former.
- irishjohnnie 7y agohttps://jetpackaviation.com/jetpack-training-lp/ https://jetpackaviation.com/jetpack-training-lp/
- ortusdux 7y agoJust in time for the snow crash TV show
- folago 7y agoIs there a TV show?! I loved that book! Please don't be like Altered Carbon.
- tzumby 7y agoI had the exact same reaction as I read the comment :D
- ortusdux 7y agoMichael Bacall is adapting it for HBO. He worked with Edgar Wright to adapt Scott Pilgrim, so I am cautiously optimistic.
- jfengel 7y agoI was under the impression that Altered Carbon was very popular. Do you not think it's very good, or is it that it doesn't do the book justice?
- Eric_WVGG 7y agoSnow Crash was VR. This is _exactly_ technology that William Gibson described in Virtual Light. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Light https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Light
- DanBC 7y agoBut this display does use photons, it shoots lasers into your eyes. The glasses in Virtual Light "got these little EMP drivers around the lenses, work your optic nerves direct".
- thebigspacefuck 7y agoHiro uses something like this (laser projecting into his retina) for his computer in Snow Crash. EDIT: Actually he wears goggles that the laser shines onto, so a little different
- sschueller 7y agoWhat does 150 Line pairs [1] for resolution mean? [1] https://www.bosch-sensortec.com/products/optical-microsystems/smartglasses-light-drive/ https://www.bosch-sensortec.com/products/optical-microsystem...
- blattimwind 7y agoI assume they mean line pairs per mm not 300 lines total. Edit: Nope, the vertical resolution is really 150 line pairs.
- JRKrause 7y agoI don't see how they can hope to overcome the alignment issue. This idea has been prototyped before, iirc carmack built a simple one during very early development of the Oculus.
- kragen 7y agoHow many pixels do they have, and what's the refresh rate? Also the one he's wearing still looks kinda dorky.
- Franciscouzo 7y agoIt doesn't works with pixels, it looks like it uses a galvanometer to guide a laser, it also says here [0] that it has a 60Hz frame rate. [0] https://www.bosch-sensortec.com/products/optical-microsystems/smartglasses-light-drive/ https://www.bosch-sensortec.com/products/optical-microsystem...
- ampdepolymerase 7y agoIsn't this the same technology as Focals by North?
- kick 7y agoIt says that in the article, yes.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Simulacra 7y agoDaemon operatives, take notice!
- kick 7y agoIs this a vector display? The way it's worded seems like it, but I can't tell.
- Rochus 7y agoIt works like a CRT monitor where the beam scans line by line, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_retinal_display https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_retinal_display
- ocdtrekkie 7y agoI am confused that it "paints images directly onto your retina" (presumably, shooting lasers at your eyeball, which sounds unhealthy) and yet the writer was able to take a picture of the image on the glass.
- dubcanada 7y agoIt shoots a laser (well 3) at a film which reflects into your eye. It's a lot less confusing if you read the article lol.
- JRKrause 7y agoThe photo you are referring to is the laser painting directly onto the sensor array of the camera.
- Konnstann 7y agoI was definitely expecting some sort of joke article, but the tech does seem interesting.
- ThrowawayR2 7y agoThe image is being painted onto the camera sensor instead of the retina. Regarding "shooting lasers at your eyeball, which sounds unhealthy", this technology has existed since at least the early '00s. Microvision was showing off their Nomad laser HMD (https://www.google.com/search?q=microvision+nomad https://www.google.com/search?q=microvision+nomad) around 2002 IIRC. It's reasonably well established as safe.
- haecceity 7y agoMy $50 monitor blits pixels directly onto my retina. Be impressed.
- benignslime 7y agoThis is similar to what Focals by North have been doing for a few years. https://www.bynorth.com/ https://www.bynorth.com/ Turns out the article mentions them.
- kick 7y agoIt says that in the article, but also points out differences.
- aantix 7y agoNice to see there can be a fashion conscious smart eyewear. Apple has been rumored to have such a product in the works. If theirs were this cool, I could see them really taking off.
- Sindrome 7y agoI tried a pair of these in Toronto. It was pretty cool, but still very early.
- gimmeThaBeet 7y agoOh boy, I love that headline: Bosch Gets Smartglasses Right With Tiny Eyeball Lasers. You know you're in the future when you start with the tiny eyeball lasers.
- andrewla 7y agoMaybe this will be the exception, but in general these seem so consumer focused as to be useless. I just want something that can accept some standardized or ad hoc well-documented protocol to do basic raster images or text or something as a baseline. I want something that application developers (and people like myself) can start to hack on and explore where it can go.
- luckyscs 7y agoI know, I want to put these in ski goggles and wire up Google's maps for ski resorts, the ski resort's lift line times data, and apres ski events info, and the current and upcoming weather conditions.
- ehnto 7y agoI think AR is more suited to commercial users than consumers anyway. Google Glass and Microsoft's AR solution seem to be playing out that way. Anecdotally, the only context I would want information beamed right into my line of sight is in work scenarios. All other scenarios I want technology to be in the background as much as possible.
- andrewla 7y agoI don't see the AR applications even being the most interesting part of this. A private facial recognition database coupled with "this person's name and a note to self" would be immensely helpful in a lot of situations -- I have bad facial recognition (not full on face-blindness, but inconvenient) and it would be neat to be able to hack on this a little bit. This would also require a camera of some sort, but I'd rather have that not be integrated. Possibly even "real-world closed captions". A tap for clock/calendar function would be handy. Morse code (or other silent, maybe subvocal?) "telepathy" would be interesting as well. I don't know how convenient or awful these would be in reality, but if the cost were not exorbitant and you weren't locked into a proprietary app ecosphere then it definitely seems like it would be worth a shot.
- germinalphrase 7y ago
- castis 7y agoSeems like this technology, when developed further, could be the sort of thing that https://www.skully.com/ https://www.skully.com/ was trying with their original prototype, which was really exciting to me at the time.
- jbattle 7y agoSeems like very useful technology for fighter pilots or even race car drivers (maybe they already have something functionally similar)
- keanzu 7y agoFighter pilots already have helmet mounted displays to project information to the pilot's eyes. These systems can also cue weapons systems to the direction the pilot is looking. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmet-mounted_display https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmet-mounted_display
- eximius 7y agoVery cool. I was super interested in Intel Vaunt and this is just an iterative improvement. I would buy a pair of these if they had a reasonably open API/firmware.
- anfractuosity 7y agoWhat's the holographic film for out of interest, is it for focussing somehow? (I'm kind of curious as to why the lasers can't directly hit the retina from the mirror array)
- JRKrause 7y agoFrom my understanding it's just for reflecting the laser light. The lasers are shining parallel to the lens surface initially and thus need to be redirected towards the pupil, this is done with a film.
- JackRabbitSlim 7y agohttps://spectrum.ieee.org/biomedical/imaging/in-the-eye-of-the-beholder https://spectrum.ieee.org/biomedical/imaging/in-the-eye-of-t... IEEE's coverage way back in 2003 and even by then a prototype existed as far back as 91. I've been waiting for people to circle back around to this type of display for about a 2 decades now. I suspect the biggest barrier/reason is aversion to liability and safety of beaming lasers directly into customer eyes.
- unishark 7y agoLasers have been used routinely to measure the eye for the last 20 years. And everyone making that technology probably toyed with the idea of making a display rather than a sensor because you deal with the same issues. My guess is it has been prophetic patents holding progress back, so hopefully they are starting to expire now.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Rochus 7y agoRight. Still waiting for long term studies about the effects of such retinal displays.
- JRKrause 7y agoI disagree, the biggest barrier to commercialization of this technology is that it's technically infeasible. For the projection to make it through your pupil onto the retina your eye needs to be carefully aligned with the projection beam. This just barely works indoors when you pupil is hugely dilated, now imagine being outside when your pupil is contracted. It's a non-starter.
- kiterunner2346 7y agoJackRabbitSlim says > I suspect the biggest barrier/reason is aversion to liability and safety of beaming lasers directly into customer eyes. Yes, what could possibly go wrong while beaming a laser directly onto the retina?
- gshdg 7y agoI'm very curious what the effect would be over the course of decades of having even very weak lasers hitting your retina directly.
- DangerousPie 7y agoIf the lasers are low-powered enough it should be just the same as looking at a screen, shouldn't it? Either way the same amount of photons are hitting your retina, with a laser they are just aimed more carefully.
- wtdo 7y agoI'm mostly in agreement with you, but the part that gives me concern is precisely how precisely the lasers will be aimed at the retina. I doubt anyone ever really looks at a screen in the exact same place (even if you are staring at a specific character) due to eye jitter. After a year or twenty of use are we going to start having burn-in on our retina's similar to plasma screens used as kiosks?
- asdff 7y agoIf research shows that this is possible one need only to code in jitter into your iEye app, like the bouncing LG logo on my TV.
- magduf 7y agoWith lasers, the photons are collimated, so they're all going almost exactly the same direction, instead of just being scattered like with normal light sources. Because of this, it doesn't take that much laser power in your eye for your lens to focus it down to a small patch on your retina and burn holes in it. So you'll need very low-powered lasers for this to be safe. But it certainly should be possible.
- GuB-42 7y agoLasers are effectively point light sources. We usually think of them as perfectly collimated light, but that's just a special case, where the point is at infinity. The consequence of being a point light source is that lenses can refocus the beam, parallel or not, back into a point. Doing so concentrates a lot of energy on a tiny surface. And if that surface is your retina, then that when it becomes dangerous, literally burning a tiny hole into it. It can never happen with, say, a regular light bulb, or even the sun. It the light source is spread out, the image on your retina, or anywhere else, will be spread out, limiting the energy density. This is an indirect consequence of the second law of thermodynamics called the conservation of etendue.
- database_lost 7y agoStart of the article: "My priority at CES every year is to find futuristic new technology that I can get excited about. But even at a tech show as large as CES, this can be surprisingly difficult. If I’m very lucky [...]" End of the article: "Bosch covered our costs for attending CES 2020."
- derision 7y agoDoes that change the fact that this is futuristic new technology?
- pessimizer 7y agoThe more relevant question is whether that changes the likelihood that this is a futuristic, new, working technology.
- derision 7y agoWell working is a qualifier that you added, not the author. Maybe he's only interested in things that explore innovative ideas rather than a functional product.
- vanderZwan 7y agoieee.org tends to be like that. Still has interesting articles from time to time though
- quelltext 7y agoAlso: "After making a minor nuisance of myself, Bosch agreed to give me a private demo" I mean it's possible they paid for him (and others) and still didn't allow him to get a demo... but it's unlikely. Also, I feel like IEEE can afford to pay the attendance costs for a reporter. So, this is really just promoted content/an ad. Which is fine and it's even fine to wait until the end to tell us I think but not if the article body tries to paint a different, organic picture. This wasn't at all necessary for the content but simply there to detract from the paid promo nature of the piece.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- maxehmookau 7y agoThis sounds fascinating. I can't even load the page properly in Safari due to the stupid scroll hijacking around the ad.
- sebringj 7y agoSocial ticks such as frantically tapping the side of your head, will be normal when someone tries to "remember" your name. I thought it was weird when people were talking to themselves with bluetooth on or walking into a street sign when looking down at their phone...but it's just going to get stranger. I could easily imagine eye flickering or eye rolling when your brain OS is rebooting. These glasses and also the contact lenses in the works will make us forget having to worry about things we take for granted today just as your phones helped us forget peoples' phone numbers or care about knowing how to get somewhere as the new devices will be contextually aware of facts we need to know that will just appear as an overlay...no more "let me look it up on google". If it's coupled with audio, gps and other inputs, it could be even more proactive in finding things before you even knew you needed them.
- telesilla 7y agoI'm sure we'll develop sensitive clothing, body feedback and other forms of haptic interfaces - a tap on the side of the glasses might not be necessary if you can train your AR to respond to say, snapping fingers or tapping feet.
- vanderZwan 7y agoThe thing I hate about this trend is that we seem to love to forego a vital part of interfaces in the process: visibility. I don't know why designers seem to hate buttons, but it's really annoying. EDIT: where "visibility" also includes haptic feedback and all of that other good stuff. See http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesign/ http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesi...
- marcosdumay 7y agoButtons are expensive and actually placing things on the real world carries a lot of inconveniences. The good news is that AR can add visibility to hidden interfaces too. The bad news is that nobody will bother.
- jotm 7y agoI really hope they're just connected to a smartphone as a display. Who thought it was a good idea to put a whole computer in glasses or smartwatches?
- rtkwe 7y agoHaving the logic to interpret and respond to input on the device reduces the latency between interaction and effect. Also having at least some power on the device means it's useful by itself. It also reduced batter drain on both devices to only send small BT packages instead of essentially streaming video constantly during use.
- davidhyde 7y agoI stopped reading at "paints an image directly onto your retina". This device is basically a miniature DLP laser projector that projects light onto a fancy light gradient stuck to the glass. You are looking at a reflection, nothing is painting your eyeball.
- saiya-jin 7y agoBut then he explains that the projected image is always in focus, never blurry no matter where his eyes are focusing. I know next to nothing about the optics so could be wrong though
- excalibur 7y agoI think it's the "directly" part that's incorrect, not the "paints an image onto your retina" part.
- steerablesafe 7y agoAny regular display "paints an image onto your retina".
- _carl_jung 7y agoBut then, everything we look at paints an image onto our retina, so using it as a hook for a headline feels disingenuous.
- rtkwe 7y agoIf the article is correct it is an important difference because the light is directly projected such that it's always in focus and not affected by the cornea so it's just always there and you don't have to change your focus to the read it.
- endorphone 7y ago"You are looking at a reflection, nothing is painting your eyeball." Each photon is reflected to a specific, targeted location on the retina. This is in contrast to normal vision where photons are reflected from and to multiple angles. Which is why this is always perfectly in focus -- the normal path of light means that light is captured across the surface of our eye and needs to be focused to converge on a point (within the limits of the eye's ability to do so, and with the reality that it only has one focus distance at a time). This system, in contrast, is "painting" the retina so that it is addressing specific target pixels, so to speak, regardless of the focus of the eye. Their terminology seems okay.
- irjustin 7y agoHrmmmm would have been good to know about the cost covering bit in the beginning of the article - but I digress. I am extremely excited by the prospect of these or any glasses like system that can work well in a package that doesn't look like a bolted a computer to my head. That laser warning sticker feels weird seeing as how that is literally the whole point of the glasses, so I'll probably wait for a 2nd iteration just to be sure. But for me, these would win over a decent watch any day.
- rtkwe 7y agoIIRC the laser warning sticker is just required by law for any laser device of any appreciable power so there's no "well it's the whole point of the product" exemption to having the warning.
- johnchristopher 7y agoI really like that this system relies on one eye only. I have a very slight strabism and some VR/3D stuff are out of reach.
- jcims 7y agoWith how well they design user interfaces on their appliances, it’s little surprise they put battery life right in the middle of the field of view.
- momirlan 7y agolaser writing to retina sounds like an awful idea. at least change the marketing
- giancarlostoro 7y agoI think this will be the next frontier for wearable tech. Smart watches are part of it, maybe even a smartwatch with some buttons that you can feel so you can control what you see in your AR glasses. At least until we see wearable contact lenses. The phone becomes the main device, but these peripherals will enhance your use of your phone. Imagine being able to look up words you might not know when having a conversation in live time. Or seeing where the bathroom is in any building. Edit: If you disagree at least tell me why.
- magduf 7y agoI'd like to know why you're being downvoted too; I've thought about this very thing for a while now. Everyone right now runs around with the head tilted down so they can look at their phone (which is supposedly causing us to grow bone projections on the rear of our skulls). It would be much better to have eye implants so we can see information in real-time from our mobile devices, even as we walk around. Like you said, it would be really handy to see a map while you walk in a building, showing you where the bathroom is, or to help you navigate while you walk in a dense city, instead of having to pull out your phone and look at it.
- Darkphibre 7y agoThe bone projection study has been pretty much debunked: https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/06/debunked-the-absurd-story-about-smartphones-causing-kids-to-sprout-horns/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/06/debunked-the-absurd-... That said, the current mobile situation is not great on posture.
- giancarlostoro 7y agoYeah, and to be fair, your phone wont be ditched, it will still be useful. Nobody will force you to do buy any of this tech, it would be useful though. I've heard of contact lenses eventually doing the same and I fantasized about it a decade ago long before I became a Software Engineer.
- jpm_sd 7y agoThis is a really odd article. Using this device sounds awful! > What I do want to talk about is how this entire system fundamentally screws with your brain in a way that I can barely understand, illustrated by seemingly straightforward questions of “how do I adjust the focus of the image” and “what if I want the image to seem closer or farther away from me?” [...] because the Smartglasses are using lasers to paint an AR image directly onto your retina, that image is always in focus. There are tiny muscles in our eyes that we use to focus on things, and no matter what those muscles are doing (whether they’re focused on something near or far), the AR image doesn’t get sharper or blurrier. It doesn’t change at all. Furthermore, since only one eye is seeing the image, there’s no way for your eyes to converge on that image to estimate how far in front of you it is. Being able to see something that appears to be out there in the world but that has zero depth cues isn’t a situation that our brains are good at dealing with, which causes some weird effects. > Oh wait, maybe it's not awful? > for the first 10 or so minutes of wearing the glasses, your brain will be spending a lot of time trying to figure out just what the heck is going on. But after that, it just works, and you stop thinking about it (or that’s how it went for me, anyway.) This is just an experience that you and your brain need to have together, and it’ll all make sense.
- rusk 7y agoI think its probably something you could adjust to, once you get over the sickness and manage to avoid walking out in front of traffic ...
- endorphone 7y agoThe article sounds like the device is unnatural and disorienting at first, but then you get used to it and it isn't anymore. It sounds like a promising technology.
- rhacker 7y agoNot for me, I'd rather have a camera to get input and an audible bot in my ear, no visual change in my face.
- nradov 7y agoAs an amateur runner and triathlete I really hope someone will integrate this technology into suitable smart sunglasses. I would pay $1000 today for such a product if it actually works. My GPS fitness tracker is a great tool but I hate having to constantly glance down at my wrist to check pace, distance, and heart rate. This is particularly annoying when executing a structured intervals workout based on specific target metrics. There are existing heads-up display products targeted at cyclists such as the Everysight Raptor and Garmin Varia Vision. However they aren't practical or comfortable for runners. Ideally I'd like the smart glasses to have the following features: ANT+ Extended Display profile. 6 hour battery life. Lightweight with even weight distribution (not all on one side). Prescription lens compatible.
- SamuelAdams 7y agoAgreed, I am also an experienced runner and this would be wonderful. Assuming it can get GPS and map trails, trail running would be vastly improved by this. Right now people have to paint trees every 20 feet or so to mark the trail, but if you have a live HUD it can tell you if you're on or off course fairly quickly. Trouble is GPS isn't always reliable in heavily wooded areas, so there might need to be improvements in GPS before that is really viable.
- nradov 7y agoI would actually prefer to not have any GNSS (GPS) receiver in the smart glasses in order to keep the weight down and battery life up. GNSS receiver can still be in a wrist device and just use the smart glasses as a display linked via ANT+. GNSS accuracy is poor in forests, canyons, and dense urban environments due to line-of-sight obstructions and multipath reflections. The latest Navstar Block III satellites should improve that a little, but any real solution would require deploying additional satellites in geosynchronous orbit like the Japanese QZSS.
- jakobegger 7y ago> GNSS accuracy is poor in forests, canyons, and dense urban environments I feel like this should be solvable on the software side, especially for medium or long distance runs. If I look at the traces, I can see that the recorded zig-zag is obviously wrong, and a bit of smoothing should be able to fix it. Are there any running apps that are accurate?
- magduf 7y agoThis reminds me of a technology from a couple of decades ago that seemed to disappear: wearable computer monitors. What ever happened to those? Basically, you wore this thing like eyeglasses on your head, and it had a small arm that extended in front of your eye (but a little below it). When you looked down, it appeared like a computer monitor was hovering in front of you. The very early models were 320x200 resolution in monochrome (red on black), but I tried one at a trade show in 2000 that I think was 800x600 in VGA color, which at the time was pretty decent. I'm surprised these never got more popular; they would be great for laptop computers: you could have total privacy in your viewing (unlike a normal screen), and with improvements in the technology you could potentially "see" a much larger screen than a normal laptop has. Does anyone else remember these?
- driverdan 7y agoResolution and battery life were too low, costs too high. This is essentially what Google Glass was in a more compact and usable package.
- ctdonath 7y agoYes. They were terrible. Best case was Google Glass, which sounded entrancingly innovative until you tried one and immediately lost all interest. Resolution was very low, battery life very short, UI very annoying, appearance very embarrassing.
- csallen 7y agoI actually enjoyed my Google Glass, primarily its always-on easy-to-reach nature. Pulling your phone out of your pocket, turning it on, and unlocking it is a trivial action, sure. But putting your finger up to your face is still an order of magnitude faster and easier. As a result, I found myself taking way more photos and having literally dozens more phone calls with friends and family. It was pretty interesting.
- mgiampapa 7y agoThe only times I ever saw them in the wild was for a security guard. He was using them to watch a movie from what I think was a mini-disc player.
- mrexroad 7y agoReminds me of the “Virtual Retinal Display“ that Microvision was trying to create back in the late 90s.
- dr_dshiv 7y agoSo, with eye tracking, we could put these little laser things on a watch to give it. 20in screen?
- evan_ 7y agoThis sounds really cool and promising but this made me laugh: > The concept video doesn’t really do it justice—it looks great. (two paragraphs later) > The concept video is a quite accurate representation of how the glasses look when you’re using them.
- riazrizvi 7y agoIn one of the photos, the dude is wearing the glasses and smiling at the camera, it looks like there is a green reflection. Is that just a reflection on the glasses from ambient light, or can we see the text he is seeing?
- lesquivemeau 7y agoProbably just a reflection: There is no way you could see what is displayed if you don't wear the glasses with this system
- ape4 7y agoEven in the demo video, some stuff is easy with a phone like recipes or shopping list.
- Darkphibre 7y agoOMG. I've been waiting for this tech ever since reading about this in high school during the early 90's, coming out of the HIT Lab research (Human Interfaces Technology Laboratory at University of Washington). http://www.hitl.washington.edu/projects/wlva/ http://www.hitl.washington.edu/projects/wlva/ I was so enamored, I actually talked my mom into swinging buy when we did a Pacific Northwest drive during summer break. Unfortunately, the lab was closed to tours at the time. And the lab's name also tickled me. It was my aspiration to go work there, and on VR technologies... and then the media chewed up the tech and spit it out, causing the long winter (I also wanted to get into Neural Networks and AI...)
- soapboxrocket 7y agoI don't know if they are working with Bosh here, but Microvision in Redmond was working on a system like this with NASA about 10 years ago.
- entangledqubit 7y agoPossibly longer than that. I've been disappointed by lack of consumer product since 1993. https://comotion.uw.edu/startups/microvision/ https://comotion.uw.edu/startups/microvision/ I think the first end users were supposed to be fighter pilots.
- s2upid 7y agoThere is strong evidence that they're providing components for the MEMS LBS in the Hololens 2.
- soapboxrocket 7y agoI wonder how much of that was lack of direction and leadership. They had a number of different channels they were exploring which is fine, but they didn't seem to be really focused. I know when we tried to work with them they were losing $8 million a year, but the CEO at the time was getting paid $6 million, so...
- lanewinfield 7y ago
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 7y agoWhat are the safety implications of this? If something goes wrong, will people be blinded? What effect do these lasers have long term on the retina, the lens, and the vitreous humor of the eye? I did not see any part of the article address these issues.
- andorov 7y agoWhat if someone hacks it to intentionally blind you?
- Accujack 7y agoJust look away. It's just a display device, so at most it's going to display confusing pictures. It's not possible to "hack" more output power into lasers with software changes. Would that it was. You can change the duration of the beam, but you can't pulse the beam without a Q switch in a way that changes the instantaneous power.
- robryk 7y agoIn the normal operations, the laser will scan across the retina without long dwell times at a single spot. Software is likely able to cause the laser to track a single point on the retina (I expect that the device needs some sort of an eye tracker and thus a camera aimed at the eye). I don't know if that can produce a harmful power density.
- Accujack 7y agoGiven that it doesn't harm the retina when scanning, I'd say "full white" is the best it could do, which could be surprising and a bit uncomfortable, but not actually damage the eye. Picture your monitor going all white... bright for a sec, but that's about it.
- robryk 7y agoGiven that it's scanning the duty cycle as seen by any part of the eye is very small. If the perceived brightness was a function of power density averaged over time, then it would very obviously have to be able to be much brighter than "full white" to create the full white experience[^]. [^] in reality the perceived brightness is somewhat higher than the mean (i.e. a light source that's twice as bright with twice smaller duty cycle appears brighter). I'm not sure how large an effect that is, and whether it has anything to do with pupil size adjustment.
- saschag 7y agoi remember "burning in" some channel logo on my old tv. man am i glad that it was not my eye.
- LOL_Arch_Linux 7y agoI'm not sure how much I'd trust a laser directly on my retina--at least not until it's been very well tested (on other people).
- cbsks 7y agoI was working with similar glasses at Microvision 10 years ago! https://web.archive.org/web/20100114084506/http://microvision.com/pdfs/program_brief.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20100114084506/http://microvisio... I don't know why they didn't take off. I was an intern there for a few months. Every few weeks another engineer would quit, so maybe that had something to do with it. It was a good to experience working for a failing company. Now I know some warning signs!
- bobloblaw45 7y agoIt would be pretty cool but then again magic leap looked pretty cool. I'll get hyped after they start shipping.
- gumby 7y agoDespite this being essentially sponsored post, I’m glad someone has finally got this kind of thing working. This is the path that should ultimately be us infinite depth of field and true image injection. Super exciting!
- ranie93 7y agoCan't wait to get burned in "pixels" in my retina
- jp555 7y agoHere's a concise 3min overview of all current AR tech and the continuum of product groups in the AR-VR (mixed reality) space. https://youtu.be/U1BVI2JcNPc https://youtu.be/U1BVI2JcNPc This product would sit squarely in the "Smart Glasses" group.
- thdrdt 7y agoThis could become big in logistics. For example for order picking. But also for maintenance crews. Want to know which machine broke down? The glasses will give you directions and will even give you an overview of the maintenance history. I believe this is not a consumer product. Bosch has some consumer products but they are way bigger in the business market. And about the laser: it's just light. A laser doesn't mean 'cut through everything'. It all depends on the power. I'm sure Bosch doesn't want to melt your retina.
- pawelk 7y ago> And about the laser: it's just light. A laser doesn't mean 'cut through everything' Yeah, in this context laser means a light source with extremely tight cone, meaning it can render a very tiny point on the retina. Not a ray of death that will penetrate your brain and come out the other side of the skull ;)
- xkcd-sucks 7y agoYeah, consumer "AR" as popularly imagined (video overlay) isn't a thing. But even at AR conferences a few years ago there were favorable case studies of AR use by shipyard workers, factory maintenance staff etc.
- 0xff00ffee 7y agoTBH, I've wanted this tech for DECADES ever since I saw Scientific American TV cover the "Cyborgs" at MIT in the early 90's, and then Google Glass (remember when everyone was selected based on their open idea submissions and thought they were getting FREE Google Glass, only to get the $1500 invoice?) Let's start the list of all the things that can go wrong with this! On the plus side, I wonder if they could measure the chromatic aberration and distortion of the reflected laser light and compute a correct lens prescription.
- EGreg 7y agoThese lasers... are they dangerous, can they leave lasting scars on the retina through prolonged use? I would like some info on similar things.
- zmix 7y agoOh yeah! That's exactly what I need after looking into a lightbulb (my computer monitor) for a many hours a day! Laser, right into the eye! ;-)
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- kleiba 7y agoLaser into the eye sounds like a great idea. What could possibly go wrong?
- NikolaeVarius 7y agoOn a somewhat related note, Google Glass enterprise edition 2 is now "generally" available https://developers.googleblog.com/2020/02/glass-enterprise-edition-2-now.html https://developers.googleblog.com/2020/02/glass-enterprise-e...
- felipemnoa 7y agoIf I were google I would buy this company and replace google glasses with this.
- felipemnoa 7y agoReminds me of the anime called "Dennō_Coil" [1],[2]. The protagonists use glasses to join an AR world. Never thought I would actually see something like this in real life within my lifetime. If these glasses actually work we could be entering an AR revolution in the near future. Even if that future is still 20 years away that is still pretty close. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODTvrQFtEOM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODTvrQFtEOM [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denn%C5%8D_Coil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denn%C5%8D_Coil
- baybal2 7y agoVery impressive how far they went with MEMS scanners. That thing is a continuation of this: https://ae-bst.resource.bosch.com/media/_tech/media/product_flyer/BST-BML050-FL000.pdf https://ae-bst.resource.bosch.com/media/_tech/media/product_...
- m3kw9 7y agoNext: how to prevent screen burn in.
- max_ 7y agoCan an interesting application of this be how it can be used to assist the partially blinded?
- contingencies 7y agoThis demo is so weak I think we need a new noun for this category of failed wearable tech / lifestyle technology demos. Can anyone think of a good candidate? wightbosch, n. failed futuristic product demonstration. Etymology from wight (poetic) ghost/deity + bosh (British) nonsense + Bosch (German technology firm)
- rdl 7y agoI remember using MicroVision laser headmounts back in 1998. It's kind of shocking how slow commercialization of this has been.
- euske 7y agoThis isn't new. QD Laser https://www.qdlaser.com/en/ https://www.qdlaser.com/en/ has been making a similar technology for a while. I've tried their glasses at CSUN assistive technology conference in 2014 or something. Their target user was mostly low vision people, and the image was very clear. They also claimed that the technology is pretty safe for a long use. One problem that I found is that I have long eyelashes and it kinda blocks a part of the image, casting a shadow. But other than that, it looks a solid stuff.
- weld 7y agoThe next evolution will be implanted direct optical nerve stimulation. Should I hold out?
- adultSwim 7y agoGreat to see development is continuing after Intel shut down the division that was developing this technology.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- stazz1 7y agoHope those lenses are not reflective