“When Apple Computer Inc. launched its video-capable iPod last year, some questioned whether consumers would embrace watching video on a 2.5-inch screen or endure holding the gadget to their faces for anything but the shortest of clips,” Ryan Nakashima reports for The Associated Press. “Now, with funky eyewear from MicroOptical Corp., iPod users can watch video on what looks like a 27-inch screen TV while, theoretically, maintaining some of the portability for which the iPod is famous as a music player.”
Nakashima reports, “‘The beauty of our technology is the see-through, see-around,’ Bruce Lampert, MicroOptical’s vice president of sales, said at the CTIA Wireless 2006 convention in April. ‘I can see through here. I’m walking. I’m not running into anything.’ So, I decided to try it out myself. After settling back to watch ‘The Apprentice,’ which I purchased from Apple’s iTunes Music Store, I was surprised to find that I felt comfortable enough to get up and walk about. Pretty soon I was ironing a shirt and washing dishes while watching apprentice wannabe Michael make mistake after mistake before getting booted from the show with Donald Trump’s famous finger-pointing phrase: ‘You’re fired.'”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: Okay, that’s quite enough rain, thanks. At least the power is back on again…
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Gee, what could possibly go wrong?
yay for electricity
“I swear, officer . . . I was just driving down the highway at the 55mph speed limit while only listening to my iPod and out of nowhere this truck just kinda, ya know, it just kinda . . . appeared. And then it hit me! Can you believe it? Those trucks are a hazard! And I had my eyes on the iPo- , on the road the whole time, I swear. Honest.”
“What? Those big glasses? No, no, they’re not special . . . those are just for my cataracts. You know, like the old people wear. I swear.”
This would be SO SWEET while riding my Harley.
“I swear — I am sooo gonna sue that MicroOptical Corporation. It’s really all their fault. I swear.”
This is not a new concept folks. I did thesis research on a similar kind of product 13 years ago. The thing is, it is a neat idea, however for technology and products that have been around that long the question begs, why hasnt’ this sort of thing caught on yet.
The answer may lie in one or both reasons that either there is no real market for this, or there are physiological concerns about using this sort of product that keep your brain focused on multiple points simultaneously. I think even Sony was working on a project like this a few years ago for their game division, and found there were issues with spatial relationships and dizziness from prolonged use of such devices.
Will be interesting to see if it catches on this time around.
dangerous. but cool. could be quite useful in certain offices/jobs and just around the house.
“MicroOptical: helping you ignore your wife. Everywhere.”
macromancer…
You are a master of the obvious. It’s well known that breakthrough technologies take YEARS to come to market. Problems with manufacturing, costs, market acceptance, APPLICATIONS (read, iPod) and other things make a technology just a technology.
That is, until someone is brilliant enough to find a market where the technology will actually be demanded. These guys at MicroOptical seem to have the same spunk that characterized Apple in the late 70’s.
Hope thy do well!!
One users review here
click me
Well, Mad, thanks for the ‘compliment’ but the guys that were doing this in the early 90’s seemed to have quite a handle on that as well, but my point which you obviously missed is there may be issues with this sort of device that no marketing will solve. I mean, this isnt cold fusion, it’s a video screen and more than likely 15 years or more in the making.
I was just making a point that there may be more than marketing preventing this from being a success, and if you look at my post you’ll notice i wasnt bashing anyone.
Starring Steve Martin as The Jerk
Now you took can look like one of the X-Men
MadMac: “…be demanded.”
That’s a new one!
I imagine you meant “…be in demand.”?
I think MicroOptical and many of the comments above are missing the point by focusing on the issue of watching video while doing other tasks. It is obvious that there are many things that should not be done while operating this eyewear.
If you can afford the price (and the ignominiousness of wearing them), it would be great for use while on public transportation or while stuck on a plane/bus/train. It eliminates the issue of screen size on the portable media device, none of which were ever going to be big enough for convenient viewing anyway. Hell, with these, your portable video device could be the size of the iPod nano.
app,
“Hell, with these, your portable video device could be the size of the iPod nano.”
Interesting point. And when will that be?
macromancer…
Lighten up PAL. No intentions here to ruffle feathers, just promoting dialog. To your point, manufacturing such a device in the 90’s would have been cost prohibitive (especially at this size). Also, what market would there have been; using them with a laptop? We don’t know if there is anything preventing this from being a success because there has never been a product like this, at this price point, on the market (there, now I’m Capt. Obvious).
F.U.B.A.R….
Thanks for the editing advice. Do you come in a model that is a plug-in to Safari?
You would need beer goggles to fall in love with these over priced video goggles. Besides, if you need to watch TV shows and videos that badly you need professional help and a hobby.
Geordie LaForge called. He’s pissed. He wants his V.I.S.O.R. back. NOW!
And beer goggles make the Dell Digital Jukebox look good.
Just a reminder here. Olympus made and sold wearable displays like these (only not see-through) in the mid-to-late ’90s. If I recall correctly, the price was about $600. I tried ’em, and they were kinda low-rez.
Just checked the Olympus website, and there’s no such product listed. I don’t think it was a big seller.
What this really represents is the psychological and cultural “backgrounding” of video content. We’ve always watched tv while doing laundry, ironing, or cleaning up. Because we are on-the-go ever more than before (in a constant state of busy-ness), we need our backgrounding devices to be portable as well. This means that while video content becomes more widespread, it also becomes less *valued* at the same time. So people are walking to work, sitting on the train, working out, all watching some video stream, but devoting even less and less attention to it. Will entertainment become less engaging because of this? It’s hard to imagine that it could be any less than it is now — which is why a device like this has little-to-no physiological barriers to acceptance: content is not very engaging, anyways.
I would be interested in how good these are for text and the like. it would be sweet to be able to effectively serf the web and write documents on one of these