Smart glasses from Intel project images onto the retina of the eye. Vuzix showed off its smart augmented reality glasses

Smart glasses, which also include glasses virtual reality, are a piece of wearable electronics that the user can use to obtain information while wearing it on his head like regular glasses - Google Glass and others, or like a helmet-mask - Oculus Rift, Samsung Gear VR etc.

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Almost all of us were in complete admiration after she showed off her Hololens augmented reality device. Simultaneously with this event, there was interest in Google Glass in its current version, and many agreed that Google does not offer the technology that users would like to have in their lives. However, Google has a backup plan, and the video I suggest you watch suggests that it's a pretty good plan.

“Where there is demand, there is supply” - this simple truth They are well known in Electronics, often “snooping” on competitors popular features their products. Therefore, in the manufacturer’s desire to develop a new, potentially profitable area virtual reality glasses there is nothing surprising - you need to challenge the Oculus Rift, right?

Latest news from the blog Sam Mobile they are convinced that the release of Korean glasses is just around the corner. More details - under the cut.

While teenagers spend almost 24 hours a day with their smartphones (), most older people are skeptical about the reign of the Internet and the popularity of gadgets that have access to it. And on the nose already new era wearable electronics, and, perhaps, in a year, a grandmother who has barely mastered SMS will have to be introduced to Glass. Studio Fine Brothers Productions I decided to show the smart glasses to the older generation and film the reaction on video. What came out of this can be seen below.

Recently, US residents had the opportunity to purchase such a high-tech gadget as Google Glass for one day. In order to be one of the first owners of the device of the future, they had to shell out $1,500 from their wallets. Quite a lot of money, considering so far limited opportunities Glass, both in the field of applications and in elementary . It becomes doubly interesting to know how much it costs to assemble one Glasses for Google? You will find the answer to this question below.

Vaunt are very unusual smart glasses. They have no cameras, no buttons, no touchpad, no speakers or microphones. And in general, at first glance, of the things that are necessary for a “smart” set-top box, they only have the faint flicker of a projector that sends an image to the retina. But if you integrate everything listed into them, you will get it again.

The Vaunt project, born in the New Devices Group (NDG) department Intel, started like Google five years ago - with an "early access program" for developers. They must give feedback and adapt the gadget to the needs of the market. Only Intel has a different approach: instead of convincing users that they need smart glasses, the company changes smart glasses to suit the wishes of users.

According to the very few testers, the Vaunt prototype feels almost indistinguishable from regular glasses. The look is complemented by several design styles, work with prescription lenses and the possibility of long-term wear.

We live in a world where our watches have LTE, our phones can turn faces into cartoon characters in real time. Everyone expects miracles from glasses, but Intel is relying on functional reduction. It's connected with main goal The whole development is to create, at any cost, glasses that can be worn all day.

The Vaunt codename inside Intel is "Superlite", and there's a reason for that: they need to weigh less than 50 grams. This is heavier than most glasses, but Google Glass adds another 33 grams to any pair, so the achievement is obvious. Electronics and batteries had to be placed so that they did not put too much pressure on the nose and ears. Add anything else to Vault and they become inconvenient.

All of the Vaunt's electronics are contained within two small modules built into the arms, so that the arms can bend, as is the normal design of such things. Other smart glasses have batteries and computing modules designed so that the arms do not bend under different sizes heads This discreet feature is very important in wearing comfort.

Design suppressed functionality. Vaunt can only display a bit of single-color smartphone information in the periphery of your vision—simple messages like directions or notifications. This is a smart watch, only for the head. But Intel has big plans for the tiny display. Let's take a closer look at the technical characteristics.

On the right temple is a set of electronics designed to power a low-power VCSEL diode laser. The laser produces a red monochrome image with a resolution of about 400x150 pixels on a holographic reflector on the right lens of the glasses. The image is reflected in back eyeball directly onto the retina. The left temple also contains electronics and the glasses are balanced.

Intel says there's no need to worry about the laser's effects on the eye—it's so low-power that it's at the very low end of laser class 1.

All Hardware Made specifically for Vaunt. There is an Intel-developed chip, extremely energy-efficient light sources, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), and a three-dimensional prismatic design built into the lens to reflect waves of the correct length into the eye. The resulting image is called the retinal projection. The very principle of image formation implies its constant stay in focus, which gives the same high quality(if you can talk about low-resolution monochrome projection that way) without and with prescription lenses.

The glasses use Bluetooth to communicate with a smartphone. The case also houses an application processor and several sensors, including an accelerometer and compass. They are responsible for the minimalistic user interface: Detects head gestures and helps the device understand where the wearer is looking. There is no microphone in the prototype, but one may appear in the production sample to work with voice assistant, like Alexa.

Before equipping the Vaunt, you must complete a quick and simple procedure measurement of interpupillary distance followed by software configuration Images. This is familiar to anyone who has ever made their own prescription glasses. The setting is needed to ensure that the image appears in the desired part of the field of view - a rectangle of red text and icons in the lower right corner. The display itself is invisible, it is simply not visible if information is not displayed.

Intel engineers have ensured that smart glasses do not disturb the user by their very presence and do not interfere with his ability to see the world around him. At least not more than ordinary ones. Data in the periphery of vision is read more subconsciously than consciously - perhaps this big advantage for a device that previously would have partially blocked a person’s main channel of perception of the world.

In theory, your consciousness in Vaunt will be unloaded by the subconscious. Practice will show how much of a working concept this is.

Intel emphasizes that it wanted to remove line-of-sight notifications. Vaunt shows them about 15 degrees below the relaxed vision zone. The LED display (as in some Vuzix glasses) is too invasive, that is, it encroaches heavily on the field of view, can interfere, and so on; it won't disappear unless you want to look at it, and that's exactly what happens in Vaunt.

The manufacturer is not yet ready to share information about the software. But I’m happy to tell you the obvious: Vaunt downloads information from your smartphone, allowing you to spend less attention on it. The glasses will work in tandem with smartphone applications on and, support for voice assistants is expected.

Notifications are the first to go, but this is not a scenario that consumers like. Many people generally do not want to be distracted by letters and messages. Intel wants to go further: provide contextual information. There are no details, but hypothetical examples from company representatives are alarmingly similar to Google advertising Glass: “You're in the kitchen, you're cooking. You can just say, “Alexa, I need a cookie recipe,” and bam! He appears in your glasses."

Interaction options on at this stage the project is also vague. Sometimes in Intel's stories the voice comes first, sometimes the head movements, and in some places the ball is ruled by smart algorithms that themselves display relevant (in their “opinion”) information when they deem it necessary. One thing is clear: whatever the final model of working with the interface turns out to be, it will be restrained, because there is nothing to do with your hands, no scrolling and clicking, no nervous winking. With Intel glasses, the user is less likely to look like a fool.

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It is worth noting that Bluetooth allows you to turn your smartphone into a control panel. For example, pressing the volume buttons could switch the types of data output. And don't forget about the information that paired devices have. The smartphone knows where you are, and the glasses tell it where you are looking. Sounds good. promised something similar with service Now several years ago, but everything became meaningless due to lack of interest in her product.

At the moment, Intel is only saying that within 5-6 years it will develop a system with AI elements that would understand the user's needs for contextual information.

The most important quality Vaunt is their invisibility, coupled with the absence of annoyingness. Project employees do not want to replace existing displays, but to create new type devices. For now, it looks like it will duplicate the functionality of a smartphone, but if developers can offer a truly unique user experience, Intel will open up the market, just as it did with watches.

The smartphone is not going anywhere, it will only become easier over time so that it becomes less annoying unnecessary functions. And augmented reality becomes even simpler, which without a camera is removed to the periphery and into the subconscious. Perhaps this is how computers of the future should work.

Researching new scenarios for a new device requires the efforts of a large, distributed community of developers. To do this, Intel will launch an “early access program” in 2018, sending prototypes to engineers around the world, as Google did for Glass in its Explorer program. The engineers will roll out the applications, and everyone else will understand whether Vaunt makes sense.

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Little is known about development for Vaunt. Intel is not ready to describe in detail how it works software or what the SDK will look like, but what is known allows us to talk about programming in JavaScript. One of Vaunt's chief engineers is Brian Hernacki, who worked on the webOS architecture. Intel's New Devices Group product manager Itai Vonshak, deeply involved in the project, has experience at Palm, then LG and Pebble. This is just something to think about.

While working on televisions, Vonshak could absorb basic principle: user device is only the end point to which information is sent from servers. The main thing is to find the right pitch. The engineer confirms that Vaunt is mobile platform for a new type of interaction with data from the Internet. And this, according to Wonshak, is the distinctive quality and strength of glasses.

But even a breakthrough gadget needs the right presentation. According to sources from The Verge, this is due to the fact that Intel is aware of its weak skills in consumer retail and is looking for partners who could cover the need for marketing and sales channels for the platform. Money is secondary here, since the chipmaker is able to sponsor any project. It very rarely brings products to market under its own brand and feels better as a provider of ideas and platforms. However, even Intel, working with frame and lens manufacturers, sees great promise for the new product among those who already wear glasses.

You need to sell glasses through optical stores. If you do this, part of the bespectacled audience of 2.5 billion people will support the innovation. Intel, despite its connection with Oakley, does not have significant experience working with them. According to sources, the most likely scenario for the spread of a new product is the opening of a separate startup that benefits from comprehensive Intel support and a consortium of its partners.

A big problem could be competition with a monopolist like Luxxottica, which controls many eyewear market channels around the world. The second problem is the ecosystem. - this is not Apple or Google, it does not have a well-functioning software ecosystem, or a policy in the field of its closedness/openness. The company has to do convenient tools for developers, establish relationships with them, hone the platform, while simultaneously bringing users to it.

In relations with Vaunt consumers, projects such as or will help. They let people get used to the fact that a computer in a glasses case is normal. But they have too much with the new product different possibilities. The most interesting option is when Vaunt replaces regular glasses, which PC solutions are already designed to work with.

The first real smart glasses that do not cause a mixture of negative emotions. And let the oldfags criticize us, but this is augmented reality in a new interpretation. It's time to keep an eye out for yet another potential breakthrough and dream that Intel's project will yield a device that's as useful as it will seem amazing to the first person to put it on at the optical store.

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The idea of ​​“smart” glasses haunts gadget developers even after the actual failure of a similar project by Google. Developers from Laforge Optical claim that they managed to create alternative model glasses, which takes into account and corrects all the shortcomings of the “Google” model.

Several years ago, Google engineers decided to realize the long-standing dream of many people - to expand the capabilities of human perception with the help of innovative “smart” glasses. However Google project actually failed, this happened for several reasons, but the most important of them was that the glasses created were far from the ideal of comfort, practicality and functionality. And while Google is trying to create new “professional” glasses today, the mass consumer market has effectively lost the opportunity to get their hands on something similar.

The situation was changed by inventors from Laforge Optical, who created their own “smart” glasses for Everyday life. The invention was called Shima Glasses. The glasses implemented fundamentally new methods of displaying and collecting important information. The main achievement of Shima Glasses is that the device actually does not require active control by the user.

The functionality of Shima Glasses is extremely wide. The glasses can work in conjunction with any mobile device and support GPS technology, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Magnifying glasses with prescription forms are used as lenses. This combination allows the device to be not only glasses, but also display a wide variety of information on the lens-screens.

With Shima Glasses you can listen to music, read notifications, mail, SMS and do many other things. The glasses will tell you the weather forecast and last news, will remind you of important events. In other words, new glasses create “ additional reality" It is also important that the data displayed on the lenses is visible only from the “user” side of the lenses.

In addition to all of the above, innovative glasses can work as a fitness tracker. They will display the speed of movement and remember the number of steps. The glasses will also switch to "driver" mode when driving speed increases over 17 mph. In the new mode, Shima Glasses will also display road signs, display important driving information on the display, including information about traffic jams in the city.

Just ten years ago, it would have been difficult to imagine how much the world around us would change thanks to technological improvements in minimizing production processes and creating technology with functionality that the generation of the early 2000s could only dream of while reading science fiction novels. As new technologies are introduced and development communication links through global network Internet with search engines, social networks and mega-portals, the technology, which became in demand, required everything in the process of use by users large capacities and direct implementation into human activities at home and at work. We stand at the beginning of the path of human development, where digital information will play key role in the formation of personality, and the speed of processing and methods of obtaining data will be the standard of success.

The appearance of the first wearable computers appears to us en masse in the form of “smart” glasses, which allow you to receive and create digital content without interrupting your main activity, which saves a lot of time. The pioneer in this area was Google company, which has far-reaching plans for development digital world, but the company will not become a monopolist in the production of computer glasses, since competitors are already stepping on their heels and are releasing or finishing developing their analogues.

Review of smart glasses

World Brain global web, Google aims for even greater market dominance digital technologies, releasing a mass wearable computer in the form of glasses. The gadget will have an operating system Android system 4.0.4, as well as good hardware. The overview screen will use the latest development, allowing you to view the image through transparent display, which will allow you to focus on your surroundings along with what is happening on the glasses monitor. At this stage of development, the new items have connected the phone together mobile communications, Internet and augmented reality, which means the integration of real objects into virtual environment through a recording camera with a resolution of 5 megapixels and allowing you to record video at 720p. The headset is controlled via voice commands, as well as gestures and touches recognized by the touchpad located behind the screen on the arm of the glasses. Sound will be transmitted through vibration through bone conduction behind the ear.

Home computing power there will be a TI OMAP 4430 ARM Cortex-A9 processor. RAM The memory is 1 GB and the total memory is 16 GB. The gadget has all wireless interfaces that will allow you to quickly connect to the Internet or another device. Earlier, some skeptics voiced the opinion that in Russia “smart” glasses would be banned from circulation, as they fall under the law on special technical means For covert surveillance, prohibited by the FSB for sale en masse. But law enforcement officials denied this information and stated that the purchase of Google Glass on the territory of the Russian Federation is legal, since the camera is not hidden.

Interesting option smart glasses, different from Google themes, which is not a stand-alone device, but a continuation mobile device, interaction with which is carried out through wireless communication Bluetooth and uses operating system Android or Windows Phone. The picture is displayed through a small rectangular display located in the corner of the lens of the glasses, on which the image is projected using a microprojector built into the temple. The result is a picture with a resolution of 320×240 pixels with the ability to display simple graphics and text messages, which is quite enough for an undemanding user. The gadget's feature set includes electronic compass, accelerometer, altimeter and light measurement option.

A sports analogue of Google Glass, which has a full set small computer, which includes 2x nuclear processor, display, camera and GPS. There are also sensors that will help people leading active image life is a thermometer, gyroscope, accelerometer, altimeter and magnetometer. The design of smart glasses is intended for extreme overloads, during sports or in the work process. field conditions. The device has a camera that allows you to shoot in 720p mode and volume internal memory 8 GB and also wireless Wi-Fi interface and Bluetooth. Today it is one of the main competitors of Google Glass.

Another Google competitor that has quite powerful hardware that allows you to multimedia applications type of games. The device is equipped with an OMAP 4430 processor with a frequency of 1 GHz and RAM 1 GB, built-in memory is 4 GB. In its arsenal it has headphones, a camera, a miniature screen, but unlike its older brother, it does not have a transparent structure, which does not at all limit the all-round view. The image size for the eye is comparable to a 4-inch screen located at a distance of 30 cm. The device can work with devices on Android based and iOS, and also duplicates information from the display of a mobile device via wireless Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. The camera is capable of recording at 720p resolution. The device will provide comfortable work with a web browser and has GPS.

The most stylish Google competitor Glass from Japanese developers, which has a thin temple that looks impressive on the user’s head. The device does not have a screen and projects an image in front of your right eye, so if you were looking at five inch screen. This is not a standalone device and works in tandem with a smartphone under Android control, iOS or Windows Phone. The arc-shaped structure of the device has headphones and a microphone and looks more like an old-style headset. The manufacturer carried out the development in the spirit of the Japanese technological model, which is far ahead of its competitors.