22 ms·

Intel made smart glasses that look normal

440 points by dphnx 9y ago

bsaul 9y ago
Oh yeah, that swipe gesture looks so natural... Now in addition to people talking out loud alone on the streets, people checking their notifications on their watch and phones at dinner, we'll have people looking at your teeth doing weird eye and head motions when you talk to them...
- lj3 9y ago
  I can't help but think wearable computers aren't going to become viable until we further refine brain computer interfaces.
  - syshum 9y ago
    I cant help but to think of the dystopia that will come from further refinement of brain computer interfaces
    - bjpirt 9y ago
      Not sure why this comment is being downvoted - seems like a perfectly valid concern, particularly if you've read Rainbows End by Verner Vinge
      - syshum 9y ago
        Most people on HN believe that technology will only ever improve society, with very limited negative effects that can be mitigated or eliminated with more technology. Over all they see any negative effects (both current and future) caused by technological advancement to be a technological problem that can be eliminated In their minds the dystopian worlds depicted in scifi and fantasy just simply can not happen, "we will not allow it"
        form-poor 9y ago
        Again - Downvoted within a minute of posting... No replies to challenge the idea. Dang, you really need to do something about this immature behavior.
        grzm 9y ago
        > "Most people on HN believe that technology will only ever improve society, with very limited negative effects that can be mitigated or eliminated with more technology." I think it's safe to say that there are people who are enthusiastic about the promises of technology and those who are concerned about how it can be used, and likely significant overlap of those two groups. The likelihood of making an error when making sweeping generalizations about the constituency of HN (or anything else, for that matter) is pretty much guaranteed to miss the mark for a large subset of the population. Your comment upthread likewise is very general and unsubstantive, and comes off as flip, for that matter. I suspect that has more to do with why your comment was down voted than about your particular concerns or position: after all, the comment doesn't say much. Granted, the comment you're replying to doesn't have a whole lot either, but that isn't an excuse for commenting poorly oneself. Dig in. Share specific thoughts or concerns you have. Help move the conversation in a constructive direction.
        syshum 9y ago
        >>Dig in. Share specific thoughts or concerns you have. Help move the conversation in a constructive direction. I have, most substantive comments get higher levels of down votes so why bother. HN has become a echo chamber and if you push to hard against the echo chamber you just get banned.
        grzm 9y ago
        Yeah, I can imagine that's frustrating. Is it something you actually want to take some action on? Do you want to help make HN a better place? Please don't take that as accusatory: it takes effort to be constructive, and each person has to make a decision whether or not that's worth the effort. If it's not (or perhaps at least not right now), it may not worth commenting at all: as you say, your comments have been attracting downvotes regardless. If you think it is worth the effort, then I'd ask you to take a step back and see if there may be ways you can change how you're commenting: Communication is a many way street, involving all parties involved. The only one you have control over however, is yourself, so really the only thing you can do. You mention "push[ing] hard against the echo chamber", so it sounds like you are interested in making HN a better place. I definitely think it's important to figure out ways to have constructive conversations about difficult topics. I also think there are ways of going about this that actively work against that. It's really important to keep in mind normal human psychology and behavior. Unconstructive complaining is very unlikely to move the needle in a positive direction. It adds to the noise and degrades the overall atmosphere. Commenting on the internet is hard: it's low bandwidth compared to many other forms we're used to: we don't have the benefit of intonation or body language. On a diverse forum, we can't rely on a common background in which to place what we're saying. It sometimes feels like there are more ways it can go wrong than to go right. So extra time and care is important, particularly if you're interested in discussing contentious issues. When things go wrong, it's really important to take a step back and see how you might have contributed to the situation, and, even if you think you didn't do anything wrong, to look at what you can do to actively prevent whatever went wrong in the future. It's perhaps trite, but I think it often can be summed up in "it's not what you say, it's how you say it", with the corollary that as the topic becomes more contentious, it's even more important to take care in how you say it. I hope you do choose to look at ways you might change how you comment to have the effect you want, to make HN the place you want it to be. HN is a community and how each member chooses to contribute makes HN what it is. We can each help make it the place we want it to be by how we participate: how we comment, vote, and submit.
  - yoz-y 9y ago
    Hm, I think that good EMG interfaces will come way sooner than a useful BCI.
  - dwighttk 9y ago
    or maybe just brains
y0ghur7_xxx 9y ago
This is actually something I would like to wear. It's like normal glasses, I am not recording videos of the people around me, and it could show me relevant information when needed without looking at my phone. I can think of a few use cases this could cover, in a very elegant way. The nice thing is, that they are completely "invisible" for other people around me.
- jclardy 9y ago
  I do think they are cool and could be useful, but not to the point of making someone that doesn't wear glasses want to wear them. My main problem is what does it give me over wearing a smart watch? The only thing I can think of is being slightly more discreet and the "gesture" not being rude to activate when you are in company. That is something I found out quickly when I started wearing an Apple Watch - even if you are just checking a text message it appears you are checking the time and want to leave. Since then I have greatly cut down on notifications going to my watch, and have even fewer that even ping on my phone. To me, having a camera on it is what would make it compelling, but at the same time make it creepy. Say being able show driving directions overlaid on the actual road, versus some floating text. Or you sit down at a desk with just a keyboard and mouse and your "displays" are only shown in your field of view - and you can customize, move and resize them as you wish.
  - nathan_long 9y ago
    > you sit down at a desk with just a keyboard and mouse and your "displays" are only shown in your field of view - and you can customize, move and resize them as you wish This. I don't wear glasses and don't like the idea of walking around with notifications floating around my eyes. But a set of monitors that fill my field of vision and fit in my pocket sounds awesome.
    - klibertp 9y ago
      From what I understand (I'd love to be wrong here) we have currently no AR or VR technology which could conceivably be used to work with a lot of text. The resolution is not there and it's possible that it won't ever be. Which is a damn shame, because I'd sell my kidney for the ability to work with two decently sized (virtual) displays from my couch or in the garden...
senectus1 9y ago
give me a small ring on my finger to control it and I'll buy a pair.
- ourmandave 9y ago
  It better be water resistant, what with all the wiseguys kissing it.
- ddalex 9y ago
  Funny you should say that - when I was working @Intel I wrote a proposal for a Bluetooth Low Power ring that provide a simple input device for headless devices with 1 rotary input and one press input, sufficient to scroll and click on items. Another proposal I had was a bracelet that would sense capacitance changes in the hand upon fingers touching each other; this way you could have a 12-key "keyboard" on the phalanges of the non-opposable fingers (3 phalanges x 4 fingers) touch-able by the thumb. Such technologies would require minimal power input and provide good interaction with any headset; but at the time Intel were not interested in the research needed to build a prototype.
  - kageneko 9y ago
    Speaking of ring interfaces, Ring [0] was a Kickstarter project that happened. I seem to recall that it did ship but didn't actually work too well. I suspect that your simpler interface would have been a lot more successful. I think some of it depends on which finger you're targeting, too. Wearing it on the index finger makes it easier to tap/push buttons using the thumb. In my HCI class, we went over this paper [1] (2010). It has a wide variety of always-available input and output and many of them would work well with these glasses. My hardware crush is a Myo [2], although I don't know how well it works. The videos of it look neat, at least :). Also, I had the exact same idea for a hand interface as a project for my Ubicomp class, but I didn't have the skills to do it. I ended up doing research for "smart jewelry" instead :| [0] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1761670738/ring-shortcut-everything/posts https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1761670738/ring-shortcu... [1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/FnT2011-AlwaysAvailable.pdf https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/... [2] https://www.myo.com/ https://www.myo.com/
ekblom 9y ago
In a few years, we will all be wearing those VR-goggles that Wade Watts is using in Ready Player One. Can't wait!
- sethammons 9y ago
  I'm more interested in the augmented reality glasses in the Daemon and Freedom books by Daniel Suarez. Those could be game changers.
pi-squared 9y ago
Yeah, right - "no one will use it for every tweet notification, it will only provide contextual information" - it will be used for whatever people want to use it and we know what people want to use it for (porn).
- deadbunny 9y ago
  Monochrome tiny porn? Now you mention it, probably...
- mynameisvlad 9y ago
  It's a monochrome display. Pretty hard to use it for porn.
  - IntronExon 9y ago
    ...But not impossible.
  - ainiriand 9y ago
    Monochrome like the fist computer displays, isn't it?
  - Broken_Hippo 9y ago
    Because no one would ever want to see porn during sex with their partner without being obvious about the whole thing? (depending on relationship and stuff, naturally)
  - klibertp 9y ago
    > Pretty hard to use it for porn. It's not hard, it's an innate characteristic of porn. It's the inverse of rule 36 - as long as a communication channel exists, it will be used for porn, no matter how inconvenient it might be. Also, playing it straight, someone will have a fetish for porn over that channel, no way around it.
  - cr0sh 9y ago
    Never had a classic mac, huh?
xedarius 9y ago
They're waiting for you Gordon ... in the test chamber.
temp987654 9y ago
Nope.
erikj 9y ago
I'm disappointed that "programming for Vaunt will involve JavaScript". We're stuck with this horribly designed language on the web because browsers don't run anything else (natively), and there is a strong trend in the field to replace it, either with compilation of saner languages to JS or with WebAssembly. We don't need to infect another nascent market with this atrocity, let it die.
- xamuel 9y ago
  ES5 was a trainwreck, but ES2015+ is actually a very good language, if you take the time to study it in depth.
  - andrewmcwatters 9y ago
    Lua is a much better embedded language.
- SquareWheel 9y ago
  WebAssembly has no intention of replacing JavaScript. Nor should it.
- seangrogg 9y ago
  The entire existing JS ecosystem can be leveraged for Vaunt, to include TypeScript/Flow/whatever else. They are target agnostic.
- xab9 9y ago
  Just get over it. Either JS will kill every other language or webassembly will save us. Place your bets.
  - XR0CSWV3h3kZWg 9y ago
    False dichotomy
- megy 9y ago
  Sure, but it is easy to use, easy to learn, and everyone has a compiler,
icantdrive55 9y ago
They don't look like normal glasses--thank goodness. I guess it's only a matter of time though.
dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
Paradoxically, the biggest selling point for me is that they're not produced by Google.
- maltalex 9y ago
  There's nothing paradoxical about that. Google products come with visible and invisible strings; this, at least for now, doesn't.
  - esquivalience 9y ago
    At least, not visible ones.
    - SmellyGeekBoy 9y ago
      If it helps, think Intel NUC vs. ChromeBox.
athenot 9y ago
I really like how much effort they put in to make things as natural and unintruive as possible. The article mentionned there's no interaction yet; I wonder if they could track eyeball movement and use eye blinks for clicking. (Someone else mentionned a ring as an input device which is also an excellent idea.)
jpalomaki 9y ago
Gestures might be needed for some cases, but there are many situations when you could just use the smartphone as the control device. Often I do have one hand available, but the problem using a smartphone is that it requires me to stare at the screen. For example walking in the city, driving the car.
bencollier49 9y ago
My immediate thought was "burn-in".
- sumnulu 9y ago
  Projects inverse image of every other notification, problem solved EyeSaver (TM)
maltalex 9y ago
Good for Intel. This might just be the start of a new, big, market at a time when they desperately need to diversify their sources of revenue. Seeing them achieve that through in-house innovation as opposed to copying (or buying) competing products would be great.
jotm 9y ago
I don't see the point of these overpriced smartwatches and glasses that can barely do one thing (display notifications), but I want my future full AR/VR glasses, so I'm glad the early adopters pay for it. Right now, what I'd want is a very simple, slim, long-lasting watch that would notify me of emails, messages, phone calls and notifications based on their origin (business account, work account, personal, random). It doesn't even need a display, different vibration modes and LED's would do fine.
- jgrahamc 9y ago
  I didn't until I bought an Apple Watch and now I wear it every day and find it a very useful accessory.
  - grk 9y ago
    I'm curious, what is it useful for? I've been thinking of getting one since it came out, but can't really imagine what I'd use it for after the coolness of the new gadget wears off.
    - jgrahamc 9y ago
      Notifications (WhatsApp, iMessage, SMS). I get a lot of them. Meetings (Google Calendar). I go to a lot of them.
    - criddell 9y ago
      I'm thinking of getting one for a single application - Drafts. It's basically a take-a-note app. You talk to the watch, it records and transcribes your message, storing it in an application that's similar to an email client. At the end of my day I would open my inbox and process my notes. I've also been getting into time tracking and I think there are some apps for starting and stopping timers from the watch.
      - saagarjha 9y ago
        Not to burst your bubble or anything, but as an Apple Watch user I've found that apps on the watch are nothing like you would have hoped: they're slow and limited. I'm not saying that Apple Watch isn't useful–I'm just saying that in my experience, its value comes from things other than apps.
Tade0 9y ago
> “You can ignore people more efficiently that way.” They should really have a chat with my SO. She can always tell if someone is paying attention. I think squinting is a pretty natural gesture that could be used for controlling this device. That is - if it's feasible to make it so.
TYPE_FASTER 9y ago
It's interesting that this is on the front page at the same time as the article about Apple. I would love a product with Apple quality that would provide real value AR. Hope they make it happen.
nogridbag 9y ago
Despite all the negativity around Google Glasses' camera, that was actually the best feature. You could really capture some great moments directly from your eye's perspective at the wink of an eye. My mother recently passed and out of all the photos and videos, my favorite was a 10 second video of me handing her flowers shot from Google Glasses. It looks like she's staring right back into my soul. I have a three month old daughter now and I find myself fumbling about with my phone trying to take photos of her. Just last night I dropped my Pixel phone while trying to capture a photo of her. Phone is fine, but she wasn't too happy with the loud noise of my phone hitting the wood floor :) I kind of miss Google Glasses simply for the camera feature. Instead of a minimal heads up display, I would much rather have a minimal wearable camera without all the extra functionality Google Glasses offered. Google Clips seems to be an alternative hands-free camera with different pros and cons (+I can be in the photo. -Can't capture the same type of photos from my eye viewpoint).
- pavel_lishin 9y ago
  Yup, another father here: I'd love an always-on camera that I can tell to save the last 30 seconds of playback. There are a lot of moments I'd love to have on video or camera that are there-and-gone - even if I had my phone in my pocket, by the time I pulled it out, it would be too late.
  - maltalex 9y ago
    Would you love that camera if it was pointed at you? The trade-off between the convenience of having an always-on camera and living in a society in which everyone has an always-on cameras seems like a no-brainer to me. There's even a Black Mirror episode like that - "The Entire History of You".
    - naasking 9y ago
      > Would you love that camera if it was pointed at you? If the camera had a light indicating when it was actually recording, that seems better. There are probably many small changes to make such cameras more acceptable.
walterbell 9y ago
> Intel intends to attract investors who can contribute to the business with strong sales channels, industry or design expertise, rather than financial backers. Luxottica-Essilor? They own global eyeglass distribution, both offline and online. They can take the Android market. Apple’s glasses are supposedly a couple of years away.
yohann305 9y ago
where can we sign-up? I googled vaunt and first thing that comes up is a bra company, NSFW: https://sneakyvaunt.com/ https://sneakyvaunt.com/
aurizon 9y ago
Intel is a dyed in the wool monopolist, which will mean the high cost will bar widespread acceptance
epmaybe 9y ago
I watched the Verge video this morning where they tried to explain how the hologram projector works, but I am still confused. How can it ensure a sharp image shining directly through your own intraocular lens (not the glasses themselves) to the retina? If you have a "longer" or "shorter" eyeball the light ray's focus point will not be on the retina itself.
- epmaybe 9y ago
  In reading the article I see that they are using VCSE Laser. Does that answer the question?
  - mojomark 9y ago
    Just think of it this way: all natural light (i.e. the typical incoherent light you see reflected or emitted off of surfaces in your environment) emit wavefronts that eminate spherically from each reflection (or emission) point. As such, the spherical wavefronts from light eminating from objects close towards your eye (i.e. less than ~8m away, a.k.a optical infinity), will have a curvature that the optics of your eye (i.e. your cornea and lens) work or morph in order to focus into a point on your retina. The closer the object is to your eye, the greater the curvature (i.e. the higher the angle of divergence). However, objects further from your eye (i.e. greater than ~8m, or optical infinity), from your eye's perspective, will have a wavefront that is still curved, but that is essentially flat, such that your eye's optics do not have to morph to focus thes objects. All objects past optical infinity appear "in focus" unless your eye attempts to focus (i.e. the lens morphs or "accomodates") on an object in the foreground. A laser beam essentially emulates a flat wavefront because the photons comprising the beam have a very small angle of divergence. Thus, light eminating from a laser will appear in focus just like an object placed at optical infinity. Actually, this is part of the principle underpinning the accomodation-vergence conflict.
- defterGoose 9y ago
  Laser light is "coherent" both spatially and temporally. Spatial coherence allows the beam to be "collimated", which basically just means that it looks like a cylinder and not a cone. That's why you can shine a laser at the moon and see the spot; most of the energy from the laser makes it to the same place, bounces back to your eyes, and you get a bright spot. Shining a flashlight doesn't work because the light spreads out too much. Technically some of the light still gets to the moon and back to your eyes, it's just below the threshold of your eye's ability to distinguish differences in brightness. For the glasses, the laser is probably being scanned using a mems mirror (like how a DLP tv works, sorta), and modulated in brightness periodically to create the pixels. Since there's only one "point" of contact between your lens and the beam, the lens doesn't distort the beam like it would an image. That's where the idea of focus comes in. If you were looking at a photograph with your eye, there would be many sources and colors of light. Since the lens refracts incoming light based on direction, position, and color, your lens' job is to make sure the "pixels" of the photograph stay spatially organized with respect to each other. That's what being in focus means. And since the laser has only one color and one direction, all that light stays together and makes a nice dot on your retina. The only thing left to do is make a correction to the overall distortion pattern your lens introduces ,which is similar for pretty much everyone. Same reason you need to add barrel distortion before sending video to an HMD. I think that's what they were showing with that "warping" red image of the glasses' display.
pavlov 9y ago
Basically the Pebble of AR. Since Intel doesn’t productize themselves, I wonder who Intel will find to build and sell it. Traditional PC companies don’t seem like a great fit, but I have a feeling the launch partners will be companies like Asus anyway.
clueless123 9y ago
IMHO, Soon, smart glasses will be as ubiquitous as cellphones. We as humans keep increasing our communications and multitasking. This item covers both.
marcus_holmes 9y ago
I want these, and then I want an app on them that will tell me if the person standing directly in front of me is on my LinkedIn/Facebook, and if so, what their name is and what they do.
- tomtoise 9y ago
  That'd be quite the technological feat considering they don't currently have cameras built in.
  - remir 9y ago
    The Facebook app already know where you are. If both you and the other person have the Fb app, then I'm sure this feature could be implemented relatively easily.
- Nition 9y ago
  Unfortunately as the other reply says, there's no camera to see who's there. But as someone who's bad with names I generally agree, in fact I don't even need the Internet connectivity. Just let me write a note on someone - "John Smith. Met at Steve's BBQ" - and have it show up when the camera sees them again.
alvil 9y ago
This is what we need, idiots. Catching you with such glasses, you would regret it for the rest of your life.
asah 9y ago
I would be excited if these can display charts, graphs, pictures and video -- stuff that's too detailed for a smart watch and Alexa can't speak out loud. I was just learning how to make a "Julia Child" omelette and would've loved to have her technique (<5 secs!) on repeat while I perform the maneuver.
myrandomcomment 9y ago
So the tech geek in my wants to love these things. It is so SciFi future-y. I just cannot see using them. 1. I paid to have my eyes fixed so I do not need glasses. 2. I am not sure what value any of this brings. I have not see the killer app.. That being said there is an irrational part of me that wants to hold out for the in eyeball version of this. The real issue is the killer app, now that I think about it, is the brain interface where you can think about they information you want and have it come up. Until then...well.
moogly 9y ago
Restaurant reviews, recipes, shopping lists. Yeah, I'll wait for something more compelling I guess.
- nradov 9y ago
  Well that's the point. Intel is releasing a developer preview in the hopes that third parties will create something more compelling.
Uhhrrr 9y ago
This will lead to all glasses wearers being treated with suspicion, until such time as cameras are also readily available in shirt buttons and everything else. At that point recording will become unavoidable and therefore normalized.
- ryanpetrich 9y ago
  The device under discussion does not have a camera.
  - Uhhrrr 9y ago
    Fair enough, but this tidbit from the article would still give people pause: >no microphone (for now)
- rocky1138 9y ago
  > recording will become unavoidable and therefore normalized This is already the case.
JoeAltmaier 9y ago
Surveillance will become ubiquitous. There's no plausible scenario where it doesn't, right? Can't legislate it away once the sensors/cameras become unnoticeably small. So we'll need new social norms to control what people share about what they learn. E.g. we already don't mention what we hear from behind bathroom doors in polite company. We'll need rules so that people can continue to operate as humans in this new paradigm.
crispytx 9y ago
"uses retinal projection to put a display in your eyeball..." That sounds awful! Like some shit from Black Mirror! Jesus, Fuck!
- crispytx 9y ago
  I'd like to clarify, tech is great and all, but I don't want to become a fucking cyborg. What the hell is wrong with these people?
  - sctb 9y ago
    Would you please start commenting civilly and substantively? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - crispytx 9y ago
      Did I say something offensive to cyborgs? My bad. Cyborgs are people too, well sort of...
sebringj 9y ago
I can picture using this with a voice interface w/ full screen transparent overlay toggle for navigating the world. Eye-swiping seems too difficult. Couple that with sensing where your hands are and you could manipulate 3d interfaces with gestures. People talking to themselves on a Jawbone was weird enough. Now they'll be full skitso where everyone's a talking mime with their own personal minority report / terminator UI.
nradov 9y ago
I think there's definitely a market for endurance athletes. Runners and cyclists would like to see time, speed, distance, cadence, power output, navigation, etc without having to look down at a wristwatch or bike computer. Those people are accustomed to spending a lot on sports equipment. There are existing products like the Everysight Raptor and Garmin Varia View but they're bulky or goofy looking or obstruct vision, so Intel has plenty of space to offer a better alternative.
- bagacrap 9y ago
  I think cyclists would need it more than runners, but cyclists are too small of a market to be worth the r&d cost. That's why current offerings are bad. Cyclist-oriented tech has to piggy back on more popular tech, the way bike lights got a LOT better very quickly after smart phones started pushing li-ion tech.
- QasimK 9y ago
  I agree in general that it would be useful in these situations. As someone who wears glasses, I find it impossible to run with them because of the movement or them just falling off. Are people who wear glasses able to run with them - am I doing something wrong?
  - nradov 9y ago
    A lot of runners wear sunglasses, sometimes with prescription lenses. Talk to your optometrist. Everyone has a unique head shape so you might have to try several pairs until you find one that stays in place.
  - Jemmeh 9y ago
    At the gym I don't really need it on the machines. Treadmill is flat, ellpitical removes bounce. But if I'm sprinting outside they can start to slide. Get a strap for your glasses and have it pulled fairly tight to your head. They are cheap. One similar to this. It needs to be the correct shape for your glasses frame so it's probably best to go to a real store and try a few straps in person. https://www.amazon.com/Peeper-Keepers-Eyeglass-Retainer-Holder/dp/B002UL6XKS https://www.amazon.com/Peeper-Keepers-Eyeglass-Retainer-Hold...
dlokshin 9y ago
Interesting marketing choice that all of the images are of the actual glasses, and none of the images are of what your eyes see.
- hbosch 9y ago
  From the description it sounds incredibly difficult to photograph or represent the UI in an accurate way.
manmal 9y ago
I‘m not sure I would want these. Shining a laser (even though it will be safe and well tested) right into my eyes seems a bit.. risky. I presume the laser will be controlled by its own microcontroller, well tested and „unhackable“.. but still, if we can learn anything from Spectre, it’s that inconspicuous system parts can open a security hole. Burning holes into a retina is quickly done given the right amount of power. There’s also the thing that blue light accelerates retina cell death.. I‘d rather wait for some long term studies before putting these on.
- lev99 9y ago
  I imagine there could be hardware limits on the laser.
- driverdan 9y ago
  Just because you don't understand something doesn't mean it's unsafe. From the description it sounds like the laser is incapable of a high enough output to damage your eyes.
  - manmal 9y ago
    In that case, only my 2nd concern would hold - potential unforseeable long term effects. I‘ll pass the beta invite on that one.
lev99 9y ago
Did anyone get tech specs on the display? How many characters can it display at once? One line or multiple lines? What's the resolution? Are images supported? I don't think a monochrome device will sell, but the display is (to me) by far the most interesting development here.
- mojomark 9y ago
  It's in the article: It's a monochrome Virtual Retinal Display (VRD), powered by a monochrome VCSEL light source and MEMS scanner. The resolution of the image is 400X100 pixels.
floatboth 9y ago
This will be the most useful for high school kids cheating at tests :D
bravo22 9y ago
"holographic grading" should really be "holographic grating".
2muchcoffeeman 9y ago
These are only normal if you enjoy keeping up with the latest fashions. I don’t like huge thick rimmed glasses and I never will.
- eutropia 9y ago
  As someone who wears glasses that look like those every day -- I think they look great! Big glasses like these help frame my overly-large head and face features, making me look better :)
- adrianmonk 9y ago
  Whether it fits your personal style has no bearing at all on whether it's normal. I don't like v-neck shirts, so personally I never wear them, but they're definitely normal.
gnicholas 9y ago
Interesting that they chose red as the display color. One of the co-creators of Google Glass said that they initially all thought red would be good, but after trying different colors the consensus was that it was terrible. This was because there wasn't enough contrast with the background environment. It sounds like Intel's tech is fundamentally different—they paint your retina with a laser—and this may make the background issue irrelevant. And it was certainly part of the safety pitch, which was that this is a very low-powered laser. If it had blue or green in it they couldn't make this claim.
- xab9 9y ago
  I need your clothes, boots and your motorcycle.
- fermienrico 9y ago
  >> Google Glass said that they initially all thought red would be good, but after trying different colors the consensus was that it was terrible They should have looked at a larger sample size. Red is used in rangefinder viewfinders for over 30+ years. Leica M240 has red and white as options. Red is by far the best from all standpoints - contrast, legibility and versatility. Red dot sights are used in firearms and they are also by far superior to any other color. I am doubtful of Google engineers and whether they put enough thought into exploring colors by using a larger sample size or cross checking different industries.
tritium 9y ago
Q. Hey, this won't just try to show me more Twitter bullshit, will it? A. No, no, no! Heh heh! It will show you Yelp bullshit. Much better, yes? Q. Ah... so the advertising will finally be the kind we all yearn for? A. Yessssss! Wow. Thanks guys.
nvus 9y ago
Good news after bad news: meltdown and spectre.
kazinator 9y ago
Knowing Intel, project will be canned in a year or two; back to x86 chips and related peripherals.
vadimberman 9y ago
Wearables are one area where not having feature bloat means a MUCH better product. Battery life, normal temperature, reliability vs a gimmick that 1 out of a 1,000 users will want.
anotherevan 9y ago
I think this looks awesome. The only problem is I have two pairs of glasses - one for reading/computer and one for everything else - so I'll need two of them. If I was them, I would add a bone conduction speaker in the stem so it can give you audible information as well. I also like the ring input device another commenter mentioned.[1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16308730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16308730
- earenndil 9y ago
  > If I was them, I would add a bone conduction speaker in the stem so it can give you audible information as well. It would probably be too heavy, part of their 'non-intrusiveness' goal is to make it be very light.
  - anotherevan 9y ago
    Yeah, maybe. Hopefully they'll get the miniaturisation down enough to include it in version two!
rland 9y ago
I can't help but think of how much more productive a factory worker or repairman would be with these glasses, if it were possible to display instructions, dimensions, parts of a reference manual, etc... The first successful business in the "glasses with HUD" space will be one that targets businesses which manufacture complex things using human beings.
- trisimix 9y ago
  If you can display it on that tiny ass screen you could probably just program a machine to do it. Sounds like a business that wouldnt last long.
  - riekus 9y ago
    A machine that walks into a hotel to service an elevator?
trisimix 9y ago
How much though?
erikpukinskis 9y ago
Special things start to happen with retinal projection + bufferless, clockless, stochastic rendering of signed distance fields.
- erikpukinskis 9y ago
  Key: bufferless - Don't wait for an image, just stream pixels as fast as you find them clockless - No world "ticks", the world is an append-only log of "percepts"¹ which can be projected onto any time. stochastic - Don't wait for certainty about a pixel, just push out the most probable ones first signed distance field - Afformentioned "percepts" don't have well defined boundaries like a polygon, instead "fields" centered on a point describe how light moves around them. Any two fields can be trivially summed, so you can ignore most of a scene when searching for a specific pixel near a small number of local fields. Together they allow you to supply the eyes with nearly zero-latency data with arbitrarily low computing power. ¹ As an aside, there is evidence humans don't see a "now" tick either, we perceive "fields out of time" directly, log them, and interpolate their relationship to "now" thereafter, such that we feel that we are "seeing" something which our eyes have already stopped reporting about. Thus SDFs and clockless rendering are a natural fit and map well to human perception.
navium 9y ago
Hope this spectre doesn't meltdown.
sdrothrock 9y ago
> Using a Vaunt display is unlike anything else I’ve tried. It projects a rectangle of red text and icons down in the lower right of your visual field. Interesting choice of location -- I would have thought it would be better to put it somewhere above the normal field of view, as most people tend to look up when thinking and trying to recall something. The kind of information smart glasses offer seems like it could be more naturally accessed that way.
adultSwim 9y ago
Want!
adultSwim 9y ago
When can I actually buy a pair? How much will they cost? This is the kind of product I would be really interested in using. I was sad when Google Glass died after pushback in the Bay Area.
adultSwim 9y ago
For me, real life ad-block is the killer app for AR.

440 points by dphnx 9y ago

Oh yeah, that swipe gesture looks so natural... Now in addition to people talking out loud alone on the streets, people checking their notifications on their watch and phones at dinner, we'll have people looking at your teeth doing weird eye and head motions when you talk to them...

lj3 9y ago
I can't help but think wearable computers aren't going to become viable until we further refine brain computer interfaces.
- syshum 9y ago
  I cant help but to think of the dystopia that will come from further refinement of brain computer interfaces
  - bjpirt 9y ago
    Not sure why this comment is being downvoted - seems like a perfectly valid concern, particularly if you've read Rainbows End by Verner Vinge
    - syshum 9y ago
      Most people on HN believe that technology will only ever improve society, with very limited negative effects that can be mitigated or eliminated with more technology. Over all they see any negative effects (both current and future) caused by technological advancement to be a technological problem that can be eliminated In their minds the dystopian worlds depicted in scifi and fantasy just simply can not happen, "we will not allow it"
      - form-poor 9y ago
        Again - Downvoted within a minute of posting... No replies to challenge the idea. Dang, you really need to do something about this immature behavior.
      - grzm 9y ago
        > "Most people on HN believe that technology will only ever improve society, with very limited negative effects that can be mitigated or eliminated with more technology." I think it's safe to say that there are people who are enthusiastic about the promises of technology and those who are concerned about how it can be used, and likely significant overlap of those two groups. The likelihood of making an error when making sweeping generalizations about the constituency of HN (or anything else, for that matter) is pretty much guaranteed to miss the mark for a large subset of the population. Your comment upthread likewise is very general and unsubstantive, and comes off as flip, for that matter. I suspect that has more to do with why your comment was down voted than about your particular concerns or position: after all, the comment doesn't say much. Granted, the comment you're replying to doesn't have a whole lot either, but that isn't an excuse for commenting poorly oneself. Dig in. Share specific thoughts or concerns you have. Help move the conversation in a constructive direction.
        syshum 9y ago
        >>Dig in. Share specific thoughts or concerns you have. Help move the conversation in a constructive direction. I have, most substantive comments get higher levels of down votes so why bother. HN has become a echo chamber and if you push to hard against the echo chamber you just get banned.
        grzm 9y ago
        Yeah, I can imagine that's frustrating. Is it something you actually want to take some action on? Do you want to help make HN a better place? Please don't take that as accusatory: it takes effort to be constructive, and each person has to make a decision whether or not that's worth the effort. If it's not (or perhaps at least not right now), it may not worth commenting at all: as you say, your comments have been attracting downvotes regardless. If you think it is worth the effort, then I'd ask you to take a step back and see if there may be ways you can change how you're commenting: Communication is a many way street, involving all parties involved. The only one you have control over however, is yourself, so really the only thing you can do. You mention "push[ing] hard against the echo chamber", so it sounds like you are interested in making HN a better place. I definitely think it's important to figure out ways to have constructive conversations about difficult topics. I also think there are ways of going about this that actively work against that. It's really important to keep in mind normal human psychology and behavior. Unconstructive complaining is very unlikely to move the needle in a positive direction. It adds to the noise and degrades the overall atmosphere. Commenting on the internet is hard: it's low bandwidth compared to many other forms we're used to: we don't have the benefit of intonation or body language. On a diverse forum, we can't rely on a common background in which to place what we're saying. It sometimes feels like there are more ways it can go wrong than to go right. So extra time and care is important, particularly if you're interested in discussing contentious issues. When things go wrong, it's really important to take a step back and see how you might have contributed to the situation, and, even if you think you didn't do anything wrong, to look at what you can do to actively prevent whatever went wrong in the future. It's perhaps trite, but I think it often can be summed up in "it's not what you say, it's how you say it", with the corollary that as the topic becomes more contentious, it's even more important to take care in how you say it. I hope you do choose to look at ways you might change how you comment to have the effect you want, to make HN the place you want it to be. HN is a community and how each member chooses to contribute makes HN what it is. We can each help make it the place we want it to be by how we participate: how we comment, vote, and submit.
- yoz-y 9y ago
  Hm, I think that good EMG interfaces will come way sooner than a useful BCI.
- dwighttk 9y ago
  or maybe just brains

y0ghur7_xxx 9y ago

This is actually something I would like to wear. It's like normal glasses, I am not recording videos of the people around me, and it could show me relevant information when needed without looking at my phone. I can think of a few use cases this could cover, in a very elegant way. The nice thing is, that they are completely "invisible" for other people around me.

jclardy 9y ago
I do think they are cool and could be useful, but not to the point of making someone that doesn't wear glasses want to wear them. My main problem is what does it give me over wearing a smart watch? The only thing I can think of is being slightly more discreet and the "gesture" not being rude to activate when you are in company. That is something I found out quickly when I started wearing an Apple Watch - even if you are just checking a text message it appears you are checking the time and want to leave. Since then I have greatly cut down on notifications going to my watch, and have even fewer that even ping on my phone. To me, having a camera on it is what would make it compelling, but at the same time make it creepy. Say being able show driving directions overlaid on the actual road, versus some floating text. Or you sit down at a desk with just a keyboard and mouse and your "displays" are only shown in your field of view - and you can customize, move and resize them as you wish.
- nathan_long 9y ago
  > you sit down at a desk with just a keyboard and mouse and your "displays" are only shown in your field of view - and you can customize, move and resize them as you wish This. I don't wear glasses and don't like the idea of walking around with notifications floating around my eyes. But a set of monitors that fill my field of vision and fit in my pocket sounds awesome.
  - klibertp 9y ago
    From what I understand (I'd love to be wrong here) we have currently no AR or VR technology which could conceivably be used to work with a lot of text. The resolution is not there and it's possible that it won't ever be. Which is a damn shame, because I'd sell my kidney for the ability to work with two decently sized (virtual) displays from my couch or in the garden...

senectus1 9y ago

give me a small ring on my finger to control it and I'll buy a pair.

ourmandave 9y ago
It better be water resistant, what with all the wiseguys kissing it.
ddalex 9y ago
Funny you should say that - when I was working @Intel I wrote a proposal for a Bluetooth Low Power ring that provide a simple input device for headless devices with 1 rotary input and one press input, sufficient to scroll and click on items. Another proposal I had was a bracelet that would sense capacitance changes in the hand upon fingers touching each other; this way you could have a 12-key "keyboard" on the phalanges of the non-opposable fingers (3 phalanges x 4 fingers) touch-able by the thumb. Such technologies would require minimal power input and provide good interaction with any headset; but at the time Intel were not interested in the research needed to build a prototype.
- kageneko 9y ago
  Speaking of ring interfaces, Ring [0] was a Kickstarter project that happened. I seem to recall that it did ship but didn't actually work too well. I suspect that your simpler interface would have been a lot more successful. I think some of it depends on which finger you're targeting, too. Wearing it on the index finger makes it easier to tap/push buttons using the thumb. In my HCI class, we went over this paper [1] (2010). It has a wide variety of always-available input and output and many of them would work well with these glasses. My hardware crush is a Myo [2], although I don't know how well it works. The videos of it look neat, at least :). Also, I had the exact same idea for a hand interface as a project for my Ubicomp class, but I didn't have the skills to do it. I ended up doing research for "smart jewelry" instead :| [0] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1761670738/ring-shortcut-everything/posts https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1761670738/ring-shortcu... [1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/FnT2011-AlwaysAvailable.pdf https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/... [2] https://www.myo.com/ https://www.myo.com/

ekblom 9y ago

In a few years, we will all be wearing those VR-goggles that Wade Watts is using in Ready Player One. Can't wait!

sethammons 9y ago
I'm more interested in the augmented reality glasses in the Daemon and Freedom books by Daniel Suarez. Those could be game changers.

pi-squared 9y ago

Yeah, right - "no one will use it for every tweet notification, it will only provide contextual information" - it will be used for whatever people want to use it and we know what people want to use it for (porn).

deadbunny 9y ago
Monochrome tiny porn? Now you mention it, probably...
mynameisvlad 9y ago
It's a monochrome display. Pretty hard to use it for porn.
- IntronExon 9y ago
  ...But not impossible.
- ainiriand 9y ago
  Monochrome like the fist computer displays, isn't it?
- Broken_Hippo 9y ago
  Because no one would ever want to see porn during sex with their partner without being obvious about the whole thing? (depending on relationship and stuff, naturally)
- klibertp 9y ago
  > Pretty hard to use it for porn. It's not hard, it's an innate characteristic of porn. It's the inverse of rule 36 - as long as a communication channel exists, it will be used for porn, no matter how inconvenient it might be. Also, playing it straight, someone will have a fetish for porn over that channel, no way around it.
- cr0sh 9y ago
  Never had a classic mac, huh?

xedarius 9y ago

They're waiting for you Gordon ... in the test chamber.

temp987654 9y ago

Nope.

erikj 9y ago

I'm disappointed that "programming for Vaunt will involve JavaScript". We're stuck with this horribly designed language on the web because browsers don't run anything else (natively), and there is a strong trend in the field to replace it, either with compilation of saner languages to JS or with WebAssembly. We don't need to infect another nascent market with this atrocity, let it die.

xamuel 9y ago
ES5 was a trainwreck, but ES2015+ is actually a very good language, if you take the time to study it in depth.
- andrewmcwatters 9y ago
  Lua is a much better embedded language.
SquareWheel 9y ago
WebAssembly has no intention of replacing JavaScript. Nor should it.
seangrogg 9y ago
The entire existing JS ecosystem can be leveraged for Vaunt, to include TypeScript/Flow/whatever else. They are target agnostic.
xab9 9y ago
Just get over it. Either JS will kill every other language or webassembly will save us. Place your bets.
- XR0CSWV3h3kZWg 9y ago
  False dichotomy
megy 9y ago
Sure, but it is easy to use, easy to learn, and everyone has a compiler,

icantdrive55 9y ago

They don't look like normal glasses--thank goodness. I guess it's only a matter of time though.

dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago

Paradoxically, the biggest selling point for me is that they're not produced by Google.

maltalex 9y ago
There's nothing paradoxical about that. Google products come with visible and invisible strings; this, at least for now, doesn't.
- esquivalience 9y ago
  At least, not visible ones.
  - SmellyGeekBoy 9y ago
    If it helps, think Intel NUC vs. ChromeBox.

athenot 9y ago

I really like how much effort they put in to make things as natural and unintruive as possible. The article mentionned there's no interaction yet; I wonder if they could track eyeball movement and use eye blinks for clicking. (Someone else mentionned a ring as an input device which is also an excellent idea.)

jpalomaki 9y ago

Gestures might be needed for some cases, but there are many situations when you could just use the smartphone as the control device. Often I do have one hand available, but the problem using a smartphone is that it requires me to stare at the screen. For example walking in the city, driving the car.

bencollier49 9y ago

My immediate thought was "burn-in".

sumnulu 9y ago
Projects inverse image of every other notification, problem solved EyeSaver (TM)

maltalex 9y ago

Good for Intel. This might just be the start of a new, big, market at a time when they desperately need to diversify their sources of revenue. Seeing them achieve that through in-house innovation as opposed to copying (or buying) competing products would be great.

jotm 9y ago

I don't see the point of these overpriced smartwatches and glasses that can barely do one thing (display notifications), but I want my future full AR/VR glasses, so I'm glad the early adopters pay for it. Right now, what I'd want is a very simple, slim, long-lasting watch that would notify me of emails, messages, phone calls and notifications based on their origin (business account, work account, personal, random). It doesn't even need a display, different vibration modes and LED's would do fine.

jgrahamc 9y ago
I didn't until I bought an Apple Watch and now I wear it every day and find it a very useful accessory.
- grk 9y ago
  I'm curious, what is it useful for? I've been thinking of getting one since it came out, but can't really imagine what I'd use it for after the coolness of the new gadget wears off.
  - jgrahamc 9y ago
    Notifications (WhatsApp, iMessage, SMS). I get a lot of them. Meetings (Google Calendar). I go to a lot of them.
  - criddell 9y ago
    I'm thinking of getting one for a single application - Drafts. It's basically a take-a-note app. You talk to the watch, it records and transcribes your message, storing it in an application that's similar to an email client. At the end of my day I would open my inbox and process my notes. I've also been getting into time tracking and I think there are some apps for starting and stopping timers from the watch.
    - saagarjha 9y ago
      Not to burst your bubble or anything, but as an Apple Watch user I've found that apps on the watch are nothing like you would have hoped: they're slow and limited. I'm not saying that Apple Watch isn't useful–I'm just saying that in my experience, its value comes from things other than apps.

Tade0 9y ago

> “You can ignore people more efficiently that way.” They should really have a chat with my SO. She can always tell if someone is paying attention. I think squinting is a pretty natural gesture that could be used for controlling this device. That is - if it's feasible to make it so.

TYPE_FASTER 9y ago

It's interesting that this is on the front page at the same time as the article about Apple. I would love a product with Apple quality that would provide real value AR. Hope they make it happen.

nogridbag 9y ago

Despite all the negativity around Google Glasses' camera, that was actually the best feature. You could really capture some great moments directly from your eye's perspective at the wink of an eye. My mother recently passed and out of all the photos and videos, my favorite was a 10 second video of me handing her flowers shot from Google Glasses. It looks like she's staring right back into my soul. I have a three month old daughter now and I find myself fumbling about with my phone trying to take photos of her. Just last night I dropped my Pixel phone while trying to capture a photo of her. Phone is fine, but she wasn't too happy with the loud noise of my phone hitting the wood floor :) I kind of miss Google Glasses simply for the camera feature. Instead of a minimal heads up display, I would much rather have a minimal wearable camera without all the extra functionality Google Glasses offered. Google Clips seems to be an alternative hands-free camera with different pros and cons (+I can be in the photo. -Can't capture the same type of photos from my eye viewpoint).

pavel_lishin 9y ago
Yup, another father here: I'd love an always-on camera that I can tell to save the last 30 seconds of playback. There are a lot of moments I'd love to have on video or camera that are there-and-gone - even if I had my phone in my pocket, by the time I pulled it out, it would be too late.
- maltalex 9y ago
  Would you love that camera if it was pointed at you? The trade-off between the convenience of having an always-on camera and living in a society in which everyone has an always-on cameras seems like a no-brainer to me. There's even a Black Mirror episode like that - "The Entire History of You".
  - naasking 9y ago
    > Would you love that camera if it was pointed at you? If the camera had a light indicating when it was actually recording, that seems better. There are probably many small changes to make such cameras more acceptable.

walterbell 9y ago

> Intel intends to attract investors who can contribute to the business with strong sales channels, industry or design expertise, rather than financial backers. Luxottica-Essilor? They own global eyeglass distribution, both offline and online. They can take the Android market. Apple’s glasses are supposedly a couple of years away.

yohann305 9y ago

where can we sign-up? I googled vaunt and first thing that comes up is a bra company, NSFW: https://sneakyvaunt.com/ https://sneakyvaunt.com/

aurizon 9y ago

Intel is a dyed in the wool monopolist, which will mean the high cost will bar widespread acceptance

epmaybe 9y ago

I watched the Verge video this morning where they tried to explain how the hologram projector works, but I am still confused. How can it ensure a sharp image shining directly through your own intraocular lens (not the glasses themselves) to the retina? If you have a "longer" or "shorter" eyeball the light ray's focus point will not be on the retina itself.

epmaybe 9y ago
In reading the article I see that they are using VCSE Laser. Does that answer the question?
- mojomark 9y ago
  Just think of it this way: all natural light (i.e. the typical incoherent light you see reflected or emitted off of surfaces in your environment) emit wavefronts that eminate spherically from each reflection (or emission) point. As such, the spherical wavefronts from light eminating from objects close towards your eye (i.e. less than ~8m away, a.k.a optical infinity), will have a curvature that the optics of your eye (i.e. your cornea and lens) work or morph in order to focus into a point on your retina. The closer the object is to your eye, the greater the curvature (i.e. the higher the angle of divergence). However, objects further from your eye (i.e. greater than ~8m, or optical infinity), from your eye's perspective, will have a wavefront that is still curved, but that is essentially flat, such that your eye's optics do not have to morph to focus thes objects. All objects past optical infinity appear "in focus" unless your eye attempts to focus (i.e. the lens morphs or "accomodates") on an object in the foreground. A laser beam essentially emulates a flat wavefront because the photons comprising the beam have a very small angle of divergence. Thus, light eminating from a laser will appear in focus just like an object placed at optical infinity. Actually, this is part of the principle underpinning the accomodation-vergence conflict.
defterGoose 9y ago
Laser light is "coherent" both spatially and temporally. Spatial coherence allows the beam to be "collimated", which basically just means that it looks like a cylinder and not a cone. That's why you can shine a laser at the moon and see the spot; most of the energy from the laser makes it to the same place, bounces back to your eyes, and you get a bright spot. Shining a flashlight doesn't work because the light spreads out too much. Technically some of the light still gets to the moon and back to your eyes, it's just below the threshold of your eye's ability to distinguish differences in brightness. For the glasses, the laser is probably being scanned using a mems mirror (like how a DLP tv works, sorta), and modulated in brightness periodically to create the pixels. Since there's only one "point" of contact between your lens and the beam, the lens doesn't distort the beam like it would an image. That's where the idea of focus comes in. If you were looking at a photograph with your eye, there would be many sources and colors of light. Since the lens refracts incoming light based on direction, position, and color, your lens' job is to make sure the "pixels" of the photograph stay spatially organized with respect to each other. That's what being in focus means. And since the laser has only one color and one direction, all that light stays together and makes a nice dot on your retina. The only thing left to do is make a correction to the overall distortion pattern your lens introduces ,which is similar for pretty much everyone. Same reason you need to add barrel distortion before sending video to an HMD. I think that's what they were showing with that "warping" red image of the glasses' display.

pavlov 9y ago

Basically the Pebble of AR. Since Intel doesn’t productize themselves, I wonder who Intel will find to build and sell it. Traditional PC companies don’t seem like a great fit, but I have a feeling the launch partners will be companies like Asus anyway.

clueless123 9y ago

IMHO, Soon, smart glasses will be as ubiquitous as cellphones. We as humans keep increasing our communications and multitasking. This item covers both.

marcus_holmes 9y ago

I want these, and then I want an app on them that will tell me if the person standing directly in front of me is on my LinkedIn/Facebook, and if so, what their name is and what they do.

tomtoise 9y ago
That'd be quite the technological feat considering they don't currently have cameras built in.
- remir 9y ago
  The Facebook app already know where you are. If both you and the other person have the Fb app, then I'm sure this feature could be implemented relatively easily.
Nition 9y ago
Unfortunately as the other reply says, there's no camera to see who's there. But as someone who's bad with names I generally agree, in fact I don't even need the Internet connectivity. Just let me write a note on someone - "John Smith. Met at Steve's BBQ" - and have it show up when the camera sees them again.

alvil 9y ago

This is what we need, idiots. Catching you with such glasses, you would regret it for the rest of your life.

asah 9y ago

I would be excited if these can display charts, graphs, pictures and video -- stuff that's too detailed for a smart watch and Alexa can't speak out loud. I was just learning how to make a "Julia Child" omelette and would've loved to have her technique (<5 secs!) on repeat while I perform the maneuver.

myrandomcomment 9y ago

So the tech geek in my wants to love these things. It is so SciFi future-y. I just cannot see using them. 1. I paid to have my eyes fixed so I do not need glasses. 2. I am not sure what value any of this brings. I have not see the killer app.. That being said there is an irrational part of me that wants to hold out for the in eyeball version of this. The real issue is the killer app, now that I think about it, is the brain interface where you can think about they information you want and have it come up. Until then...well.

moogly 9y ago

Restaurant reviews, recipes, shopping lists. Yeah, I'll wait for something more compelling I guess.

nradov 9y ago
Well that's the point. Intel is releasing a developer preview in the hopes that third parties will create something more compelling.

Uhhrrr 9y ago

This will lead to all glasses wearers being treated with suspicion, until such time as cameras are also readily available in shirt buttons and everything else. At that point recording will become unavoidable and therefore normalized.

ryanpetrich 9y ago
The device under discussion does not have a camera.
- Uhhrrr 9y ago
  Fair enough, but this tidbit from the article would still give people pause: >no microphone (for now)
rocky1138 9y ago
> recording will become unavoidable and therefore normalized This is already the case.

JoeAltmaier 9y ago

Surveillance will become ubiquitous. There's no plausible scenario where it doesn't, right? Can't legislate it away once the sensors/cameras become unnoticeably small. So we'll need new social norms to control what people share about what they learn. E.g. we already don't mention what we hear from behind bathroom doors in polite company. We'll need rules so that people can continue to operate as humans in this new paradigm.

crispytx 9y ago

"uses retinal projection to put a display in your eyeball..." That sounds awful! Like some shit from Black Mirror! Jesus, Fuck!

crispytx 9y ago
I'd like to clarify, tech is great and all, but I don't want to become a fucking cyborg. What the hell is wrong with these people?
- sctb 9y ago
  Would you please start commenting civilly and substantively? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - crispytx 9y ago
    Did I say something offensive to cyborgs? My bad. Cyborgs are people too, well sort of...

sebringj 9y ago

I can picture using this with a voice interface w/ full screen transparent overlay toggle for navigating the world. Eye-swiping seems too difficult. Couple that with sensing where your hands are and you could manipulate 3d interfaces with gestures. People talking to themselves on a Jawbone was weird enough. Now they'll be full skitso where everyone's a talking mime with their own personal minority report / terminator UI.

nradov 9y ago

I think there's definitely a market for endurance athletes. Runners and cyclists would like to see time, speed, distance, cadence, power output, navigation, etc without having to look down at a wristwatch or bike computer. Those people are accustomed to spending a lot on sports equipment. There are existing products like the Everysight Raptor and Garmin Varia View but they're bulky or goofy looking or obstruct vision, so Intel has plenty of space to offer a better alternative.

bagacrap 9y ago
I think cyclists would need it more than runners, but cyclists are too small of a market to be worth the r&d cost. That's why current offerings are bad. Cyclist-oriented tech has to piggy back on more popular tech, the way bike lights got a LOT better very quickly after smart phones started pushing li-ion tech.
QasimK 9y ago
I agree in general that it would be useful in these situations. As someone who wears glasses, I find it impossible to run with them because of the movement or them just falling off. Are people who wear glasses able to run with them - am I doing something wrong?
- nradov 9y ago
  A lot of runners wear sunglasses, sometimes with prescription lenses. Talk to your optometrist. Everyone has a unique head shape so you might have to try several pairs until you find one that stays in place.
- Jemmeh 9y ago
  At the gym I don't really need it on the machines. Treadmill is flat, ellpitical removes bounce. But if I'm sprinting outside they can start to slide. Get a strap for your glasses and have it pulled fairly tight to your head. They are cheap. One similar to this. It needs to be the correct shape for your glasses frame so it's probably best to go to a real store and try a few straps in person. https://www.amazon.com/Peeper-Keepers-Eyeglass-Retainer-Holder/dp/B002UL6XKS https://www.amazon.com/Peeper-Keepers-Eyeglass-Retainer-Hold...

dlokshin 9y ago

Interesting marketing choice that all of the images are of the actual glasses, and none of the images are of what your eyes see.

hbosch 9y ago
From the description it sounds incredibly difficult to photograph or represent the UI in an accurate way.

manmal 9y ago

I‘m not sure I would want these. Shining a laser (even though it will be safe and well tested) right into my eyes seems a bit.. risky. I presume the laser will be controlled by its own microcontroller, well tested and „unhackable“.. but still, if we can learn anything from Spectre, it’s that inconspicuous system parts can open a security hole. Burning holes into a retina is quickly done given the right amount of power. There’s also the thing that blue light accelerates retina cell death.. I‘d rather wait for some long term studies before putting these on.

lev99 9y ago
I imagine there could be hardware limits on the laser.
driverdan 9y ago
Just because you don't understand something doesn't mean it's unsafe. From the description it sounds like the laser is incapable of a high enough output to damage your eyes.
- manmal 9y ago
  In that case, only my 2nd concern would hold - potential unforseeable long term effects. I‘ll pass the beta invite on that one.

lev99 9y ago

Did anyone get tech specs on the display? How many characters can it display at once? One line or multiple lines? What's the resolution? Are images supported? I don't think a monochrome device will sell, but the display is (to me) by far the most interesting development here.

mojomark 9y ago
It's in the article: It's a monochrome Virtual Retinal Display (VRD), powered by a monochrome VCSEL light source and MEMS scanner. The resolution of the image is 400X100 pixels.

floatboth 9y ago

This will be the most useful for high school kids cheating at tests :D

bravo22 9y ago

"holographic grading" should really be "holographic grating".

2muchcoffeeman 9y ago

These are only normal if you enjoy keeping up with the latest fashions. I don’t like huge thick rimmed glasses and I never will.

eutropia 9y ago
As someone who wears glasses that look like those every day -- I think they look great! Big glasses like these help frame my overly-large head and face features, making me look better :)
adrianmonk 9y ago
Whether it fits your personal style has no bearing at all on whether it's normal. I don't like v-neck shirts, so personally I never wear them, but they're definitely normal.

gnicholas 9y ago

Interesting that they chose red as the display color. One of the co-creators of Google Glass said that they initially all thought red would be good, but after trying different colors the consensus was that it was terrible. This was because there wasn't enough contrast with the background environment. It sounds like Intel's tech is fundamentally different—they paint your retina with a laser—and this may make the background issue irrelevant. And it was certainly part of the safety pitch, which was that this is a very low-powered laser. If it had blue or green in it they couldn't make this claim.

xab9 9y ago
I need your clothes, boots and your motorcycle.
fermienrico 9y ago
>> Google Glass said that they initially all thought red would be good, but after trying different colors the consensus was that it was terrible They should have looked at a larger sample size. Red is used in rangefinder viewfinders for over 30+ years. Leica M240 has red and white as options. Red is by far the best from all standpoints - contrast, legibility and versatility. Red dot sights are used in firearms and they are also by far superior to any other color. I am doubtful of Google engineers and whether they put enough thought into exploring colors by using a larger sample size or cross checking different industries.

tritium 9y ago

Q. Hey, this won't just try to show me more Twitter bullshit, will it? A. No, no, no! Heh heh! It will show you Yelp bullshit. Much better, yes? Q. Ah... so the advertising will finally be the kind we all yearn for? A. Yessssss! Wow. Thanks guys.

nvus 9y ago

Good news after bad news: meltdown and spectre.

kazinator 9y ago

Knowing Intel, project will be canned in a year or two; back to x86 chips and related peripherals.

vadimberman 9y ago

Wearables are one area where not having feature bloat means a MUCH better product. Battery life, normal temperature, reliability vs a gimmick that 1 out of a 1,000 users will want.

anotherevan 9y ago

I think this looks awesome. The only problem is I have two pairs of glasses - one for reading/computer and one for everything else - so I'll need two of them. If I was them, I would add a bone conduction speaker in the stem so it can give you audible information as well. I also like the ring input device another commenter mentioned.[1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16308730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16308730

earenndil 9y ago
> If I was them, I would add a bone conduction speaker in the stem so it can give you audible information as well. It would probably be too heavy, part of their 'non-intrusiveness' goal is to make it be very light.
- anotherevan 9y ago
  Yeah, maybe. Hopefully they'll get the miniaturisation down enough to include it in version two!

rland 9y ago

I can't help but think of how much more productive a factory worker or repairman would be with these glasses, if it were possible to display instructions, dimensions, parts of a reference manual, etc... The first successful business in the "glasses with HUD" space will be one that targets businesses which manufacture complex things using human beings.

trisimix 9y ago
If you can display it on that tiny ass screen you could probably just program a machine to do it. Sounds like a business that wouldnt last long.
- riekus 9y ago
  A machine that walks into a hotel to service an elevator?

trisimix 9y ago

How much though?

erikpukinskis 9y ago

Special things start to happen with retinal projection + bufferless, clockless, stochastic rendering of signed distance fields.

erikpukinskis 9y ago
Key: bufferless - Don't wait for an image, just stream pixels as fast as you find them clockless - No world "ticks", the world is an append-only log of "percepts"¹ which can be projected onto any time. stochastic - Don't wait for certainty about a pixel, just push out the most probable ones first signed distance field - Afformentioned "percepts" don't have well defined boundaries like a polygon, instead "fields" centered on a point describe how light moves around them. Any two fields can be trivially summed, so you can ignore most of a scene when searching for a specific pixel near a small number of local fields. Together they allow you to supply the eyes with nearly zero-latency data with arbitrarily low computing power. ¹ As an aside, there is evidence humans don't see a "now" tick either, we perceive "fields out of time" directly, log them, and interpolate their relationship to "now" thereafter, such that we feel that we are "seeing" something which our eyes have already stopped reporting about. Thus SDFs and clockless rendering are a natural fit and map well to human perception.

navium 9y ago

Hope this spectre doesn't meltdown.

sdrothrock 9y ago

> Using a Vaunt display is unlike anything else I’ve tried. It projects a rectangle of red text and icons down in the lower right of your visual field. Interesting choice of location -- I would have thought it would be better to put it somewhere above the normal field of view, as most people tend to look up when thinking and trying to recall something. The kind of information smart glasses offer seems like it could be more naturally accessed that way.

adultSwim 9y ago

Want!

adultSwim 9y ago

When can I actually buy a pair? How much will they cost? This is the kind of product I would be really interested in using. I was sad when Google Glass died after pushback in the Bay Area.

adultSwim 9y ago

For me, real life ad-block is the killer app for AR.