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I 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 ligh

I 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 ago
But 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 ago
I think it's the "directly" part that's incorrect, not the "paints an image onto your retina" part.
- steerablesafe 7y ago
  Any regular display "paints an image onto your retina".
- _carl_jung 7y ago
  But then, everything we look at paints an image onto our retina, so using it as a hook for a headline feels disingenuous.
  - rtkwe 7y ago
    If 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.
- davidhyde 7y ago
  Nice explanation, thanks. Kind of like a very short throw laser projector where everything (the wall) is in focus, regardless of the distance or angle from the "fancy lens". I was just triggered by their use of "paint" when the process is passive.
fsargent 7y ago
I believe that's the difference here -- This isn't a DLP projector. It really does paint on to your retina snow-crash style.
deepnotderp 7y ago
Then you should have kept reading, that's literally the problem they've overcome here (well, kind of).

saiya-jin 7y ago

But 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 ago

I think it's the "directly" part that's incorrect, not the "paints an image onto your retina" part.

steerablesafe 7y ago
Any regular display "paints an image onto your retina".
_carl_jung 7y ago
But then, everything we look at paints an image onto our retina, so using it as a hook for a headline feels disingenuous.
- rtkwe 7y ago
  If 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.

davidhyde 7y ago
Nice explanation, thanks. Kind of like a very short throw laser projector where everything (the wall) is in focus, regardless of the distance or angle from the "fancy lens". I was just triggered by their use of "paint" when the process is passive.

fsargent 7y ago

I believe that's the difference here -- This isn't a DLP projector. It really does paint on to your retina snow-crash style.

deepnotderp 7y ago

Then you should have kept reading, that's literally the problem they've overcome here (well, kind of).