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View Full Version : Notebook-Quality Display in the Palm of Your Hand


Ed Hansberry
02-12-2002, 01:03 AM
<a href="http://www.corporate-ir.net/ireye/ir_site.zhtml?ticker=mvis&script=410&layout=-6&item_id=257226">http://www.corporate-ir.net/ireye/ir_site.zhtml?ticker=mvis&script=410&layout=-6&item_id=257226</a><br /><br />Microvision is company that has been working for several years on getting visions in your head, literally. The basic premise is they beam an image into your eye which thinks it is looking at a 17" monitor, that is transparent. They already have some very cool things for medical and military applications allowing the user to look at full screen video/text/images at the same time looking <b><i>through</i></b> the image at whatever you are working on, be it a heart or some terrorist. :-) But they are relativly low tech compared to what they are currently working on.<br /><br />Here's a quote from their press released entitled: "Microvision Demonstrates Prototype Display Aimed At 3G Wireless, Consumer Electronics Markets; Notebook-Quality Display in the Palm of Your Hand"<br /><br />"In its drive to commercialize a miniature display that can meet the demanding mix of high performance and low cost, Microvision, Inc. (Nasdaq:MVIS) today announced it has demonstrated a fully-functional miniature display that uses just three light emitting diodes (LEDs) coupled with a vibrating mirror on a tiny micromechanical chip. "As the user holds a cell-phone-like device near one eye, the tiny display scans a single beam of multi-colored light through a small lens to project a full-color video image of the apparent size and resolution of a notebook or laptop display screen onto the eye. This prototype display represents a major milestone for the company, which believes its unique display can add functionality to such emerging consumer products as handheld wireless devices to gaming systems, portable DVD players and digital cameras. "<br /><br />The key to this is the blue LED. Red, yellow and even green LED's have been around for several years that were powerful enough for this type of application, but blue hasn't until recently, perhaps the past 12 months, at least at the power and price you can get them now. The blue LED is also what is going to allow the elusive blue laser everyone has been hearing for decades to finally come to consumer products over the next 12 months at reasonable prices. And as you know, it takes Red, Green and Blue to give you a full color display. I don't think any of us have a clue as to what visual display's we'll be seeing in the future. I know I won't miss my dusty old iPAQ display. ;-)

CTSLICK
02-12-2002, 03:20 PM
8O
I figure somebody has given at least a wave to the long term medical implications here. Can it REALLY be a good idea to fire a beam of light directly into your eye? I hope its ok because the technology sounds very cool.

Jason Dunn
02-12-2002, 04:23 PM
I figure somebody has given at least a wave to the long term medical implications here. Can it REALLY be a good idea to fire a beam of light directly into your eye? I hope its ok because the technology sounds very cool.


Sure, we have beams of light hitting our eyes all the time - it's how we see. :-) I'm no doctor, but as long as the light they use is in the same spectrum as the light hitting us all the time, it should be safe. Maybe. :wink:

st63z
02-12-2002, 04:53 PM
Oh, I remember this company. TekWar/Earth: Final Conflict, here we come! :)

st63z
02-12-2002, 05:00 PM
So what would be the most convenient form factor for such a display device? The ol' headgear goggle type or something you grip in your hand and hold to your eye or what?

Too bad Bluetooth doesn't have the bandwidth. It'd be cool to have an over-the-ear BT earset combined with this thing projecting to one eye (monocular image), or a full headset with stereo audio and binocular image...

Ed Hansberry
02-12-2002, 07:19 PM
So what would be the most convenient form factor for such a display device? The ol' headgear goggle type or something you grip in your hand and hold to your eye or what?
Remember those glasses Tom Cruise wore in the opening sequence of Mission Impossible 2? That would be the ultimate form factor for the near future. In about 50 years, a tranparent contact lense that contained 3 microscopic LED's. 8) 8O

James
02-12-2002, 11:12 PM
future. In about 50 years, a tranparent contact lense that contained 3 microscopic LED's. 8) 8O


In 50 years, I'd hope we'd have neural implants by then :)

st63z
02-13-2002, 01:07 AM
In about 50 years, a tranparent contact lense that contained 3 microscopic LED's. 8) 8O


No way, I just got rid of those thanks to LASIK, I'm not going back :(