A New Era of Computing Coming

I wear varifocal glasses all the time, as I need them for both close and distance sight. I absolutely hate wearing them, and have considered alternatives like contact lenses and laser treatment but none are suitable for my current prescription. I have paid hundreds of pounds for the very lightest titanium frames and rimless lenses, and they are still uncomfortable to wear.

I cannot imagine glasses that this patent describes being acceptable for continuous wear, due to the weight problem and consequent discomfort. Perhaps occasional wear when, as others have implied above, for a specific function, like a time limited hands free scenario, when they would be excellent.
 
Wudang said:
This is the part I have a problem with, possibly a lack of imagination on my part TBH. I hate a keyboard that doesn't have a good tactile response. It's one reason I revert to my PC rather than my Xoom or blackberry for anything more than a few words.
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This is why I type on 'gaming' keyboards even though I'm not much of a gamer. It's amazing how much better and less fatiguing my typing is on a mechanical switch keyboard than some mushy membrane with chicklet keys. Now if I could only find a mechanical keyboard with spherical concave keys rather than the trough concave ones, like the old typewriters I learned on, I'd be in typing heaven.
 
Explorer said:
I wear varifocal glasses all the time, as I need them for both close and distance sight. I absolutely hate wearing them, and have considered alternatives like contact lenses and laser treatment but none are suitable for my current prescription. I have paid hundreds of pounds for the very lightest titanium frames and rimless lenses, and they are still uncomfortable to wear.

I cannot imagine glasses that this patent describes being acceptable for continuous wear, due to the weight problem and consequent discomfort. Perhaps occasional wear when, as others have implied above, for a specific function, like a time limited hands free scenario, when they would be excellent.
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I'd imagine that if there are people who want to wear them all the time then they'll either get lighter or folks will start wearing cpap headgear type harnesses to take the weight off the nose and ears. It's amazing what people can be willing to get used to, given a decent incentive.
 
Soapy Sam said:
Plus- a lot of people wear glasses to see. That means this needs to be fittable (?) to prescription specs.
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Imagine glasses that aren't glasses but eye masks, really. When you want to see, dual cameras transmit real-time, 270o vision that gives you 20-20 or better. When you wan to watch a movie, just turn off the real time cameras and link to Netflix for a full 3-D movie experience.
 
What about the issues with focusing?

I can see the benefit for an Augmented Reality style overlay, big obvious lines or big text which could be superimposed and "perceived" even though you were actually focusing through on more distant objects.

But to actually watch a full screen movie or read a book on a pair of glasses would seem to be a very different proposal, as wouldn't you effectively have to focus at a distance of a few cm for a long period of time? For anyone who wears glasses now, that would be like trying to focus on the lenses themselves, pretty difficult!

Moving the screens further away would help, but for me at least it has to get well beyond 10cm before I can comfortably focus.

Does anyone know how that might be addressed? Letting the user focus in a more relaxed natural distance then beaming laser light onto the retina?

I remember the old style VR headsets had quite a distance between the eyes and the screens, but that never seemed to take off, I remember discussions of similar focusing and motion sickness problems. Has the state of that art improved?
 
The University of Gent (Belgium) has succesfully made a contact lens with a LCD display.

Link (In Dutch)
 
GraculusTheGreenBird said:
But to actually watch a full screen movie or read a book on a pair of glasses would seem to be a very different proposal, as wouldn't you effectively have to focus at a distance of a few cm for a long period of time?
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No. Most of these things project their images in such a way that they seem much more distant.

Moving the screens further away would help, but for me at least it has to get well beyond 10cm before I can comfortably focus.
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You need reading glasses.

I remember the old style VR headsets had quite a distance between the eyes and the screens,
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They also had lenses, so that one could focus on the screens that were still pretty close. Just like an old ViewMaster.

but that never seemed to take off, I remember discussions of similar focusing and motion sickness problems.
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Focus certainly wasn't the biggest problem. They had lenses. The motion sickness was mostly due to the computer not being fast enough to keep up with head motion.

Has the state of that art improved?
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Yes, I understand that it has.

Here's David Pogue's experience with a Google Glass prototype.
 
Earthborn said:
No. Most of these things project their images in such a way that they seem much more distant.

You need reading glasses.

They also had lenses, so that one could focus on the screens that were still pretty close. Just like an old ViewMaster.

Focus certainly wasn't the biggest problem. They had lenses. The motion sickness was mostly due to the computer not being fast enough to keep up with head motion.

Yes, I understand that it has.

Here's David Pogue's experience with a Google Glass prototype.
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Thanks a lot, Earthborn, just what I was looking for.

I did that test when I was wearing my contact lenses for shortsightedness, without them I can focus a lot closer, but 10cm with them is about the limit for comfort.

On to your links..
 
arthwollipot said:
You don't even need a glove. A miniaturised version of Kinect on the front of the glasses and you can just wave your hands in front of your face.
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You mean something like this?





Personally, I think it would be very difficult to type without something under your fingers. Virtual typing would be filled with typos.

Steve S
 
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Andrew Wiggin said:
The pickpocket walks down the street, and his goggles highlight anyone who's multitasking too much. Try to watch a movie and answer the phone at the same time, and bang there goes your wallet.
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In other words, seeing through the eyes of a Bender unit.
 
Corsair 115 said:
In other words, seeing through the eyes of a Bender unit.
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According to the Urban Dictionary a bender unit is:

A measurement equal to 2m (2000mm). Commonly used term derived from the spatial development of railway elements from a recent south western sydney rail corridor. Elements along the track are broken down into Standard Bender Units for ease of translation between designers.
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:confused:
 
Hipness, or lack there of: Wasn't Bender an Orson Scott Card character? A friend of Andrew Wiggin? A whiz at playing a computer game? :)
 
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steve s said:
You mean something like this?
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That's exactly what I was thinking of.

steve s said:
Personally, I think it would be very difficult to type without something under your fingers. Virtual typing would be filled with typos.
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But with something like this, you wouldn't need to type. For a start, speech-to-text. Second, opening up input to gestures would eliminate most of the reasons for needing a keyboard or mouse.

Of course, a keyboard would probably be retained for specialist functions such as programming. But most people don't do that - they just want to write emails and status updates, surf the web, fill out forms and shop. Voice-to-text would serve for most of these purposes.
 
Regarding my post #38 about chorded keyboards, I have found:

http://gkos.com/gkosnet/gd-qwerty.html which has a free open source download of a driver to convert a qwerty keyboard to a chord keyboard. Six fingers on the sdf & jkl keys does it all. Also on that page is the hint to disassemble a junker kbd and use the card and six switches to make you own device. I'm intrigued with the idea of something ergonomic to suit my dumb hands. Two pieces of PVC pipe, one in each hand? Rings on the keys so my numb fingers don't loose their places?

Hmmm, which end of the attic has the big box with the rat's nest of wall warts, mice, and power cords from scrapped machines? :)
 
Keyboards I don't see as too much of an issue. Virtulise them, or better yet, using something similar to what Steve S showed and text recognition software which already exists and can only get better, just hand write everything and it would appear as text for you.
 
So these need glasses, earphones, the cord with the computerthingy attached to it, and I assume some sort of keyboard.

Too many fiddly bits.
 
Sheesh, folks don't know who Bender is? What's next, they've never heard of the famous captain Zapp Brannigan?!?
 
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