Vuzix Taps into Nokia to Design Stealthy Looking "Smart Glasses"
The ambitious folks at Vuzix announced plans to develop what they consider the Holy Grail of the wearable display industry, otherwise known as "Smart Glasses." It's all a fancy pants way of describing a pair of see-through HD glasses in a designer sunglasses form factor, but with Web capabilities baked in.
"Now after years of internal developments and our recent licensing relationship with Nokia Corporation, Smart Glasses Technology is final here," Vuzix explains. "This amazing new technology starts with a compact display engine capable of high contrast and brightness for outdoor use. The output is then relayed into a 1.4mm thick polymer waveguide lens with input and output hologram structures on the surface, which squeezes the light down the waveguide and then two dimensionally expands the image back into the user's eye, creating an image that is then mixed into the real word. And, all this technology neatly fits into the temples and lenses of a conventional pair of eyewear!"
We can't tell if this is some wild sci-fi fantasy Vuzix is chasing or if they went to great lengths to dress up a description of a next-generation HUD and/or augmented reality. Either way, it sounds pretty cool. And since these are "Smart Glasses," they're being designed to work with Smart devices connected to the Internet so you can merge virtual information with the real world. This is where augmented reality could come into play, and while Vuzix didn't specifically spell it out, we envision being able to sync these puppies up with our smartphone. Why we'd want to, we're not entirely sure, but you can bet mobile app developers would step the plate with some interesting software to take advantage of something like this.
"Now after years of internal developments and our recent licensing relationship with Nokia Corporation, Smart Glasses Technology is final here," Vuzix explains. "This amazing new technology starts with a compact display engine capable of high contrast and brightness for outdoor use. The output is then relayed into a 1.4mm thick polymer waveguide lens with input and output hologram structures on the surface, which squeezes the light down the waveguide and then two dimensionally expands the image back into the user's eye, creating an image that is then mixed into the real word. And, all this technology neatly fits into the temples and lenses of a conventional pair of eyewear!"
We can't tell if this is some wild sci-fi fantasy Vuzix is chasing or if they went to great lengths to dress up a description of a next-generation HUD and/or augmented reality. Either way, it sounds pretty cool. And since these are "Smart Glasses," they're being designed to work with Smart devices connected to the Internet so you can merge virtual information with the real world. This is where augmented reality could come into play, and while Vuzix didn't specifically spell it out, we envision being able to sync these puppies up with our smartphone. Why we'd want to, we're not entirely sure, but you can bet mobile app developers would step the plate with some interesting software to take advantage of something like this.
