Vuzix Corporation (VUZI)

[Diva1963]

Vuzix developing 'smart' glasses
Fairport company developing an augmented reality

I bought my first computer in 1990 and it probably weighed 50 pounds. By 2000, I had a laptop. It was portable and connected, although I would ache from carrying the shoulder bag, and wifi was hard to find away from home. Today, I’ve got a smartphone in my pocket with access to anything in an instant.

Each of those devices represented a quantum leap forward from the technology before – smaller, more portable, more powerful, more interconnected.

RocNext: Innovation news
Follow us: LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter

So what’s the next leap forward besides having the internet wired directly into my head?

Paul Travers founded his company, Vuzix, in 1997, with a goal of creating a wearable video display. In the mid-1990s, that required a device the size of a football helmet, with straps to hold it to your head and wires leading out to a computer. It was an interesting concept, but of limited practical use. Travers knew he had a long way to go.

“The goal was to make something that you can wear outdoors, something that’s stylish, something that doesn’t make you look weird when you’re wearing it,” he said. “Something that looks like a standard pair of sunglasses.”

Wavelength optics make it all possible. Not surprisingly, Vuzix has received several patents based on this technology.

So far, most attempts at video eyewear use conventional reflective optics, which takes a small display and puts a lens in front of it to magnify the image.

It’s really too bulky to be practical. Fighter pilots use a heads-up-display that’s contained in a bulky helmet with a large visor. That’s not the sort of thing that I’m going to wear when I’m walking down the street.

Vuzix’s technology generates a display by projecting light into a piece of glass that contains a set of very small gratings. This technique makes it appear as if the projected image is inside the glass. It’s tiny, about the thickness of standard reading glasses, and it’s 95 percent see-through.

“This is game changing technology,” said Travers.

And I think he’s right.

But it isn’t just about the idea of projecting the latest updates from Facebook in front of your face, or letting you secretly watch funny cat videos while sitting in a boring meeting.

What will make this big is the way the display allows you to integrate computing technology with what’s going on in the real world, what Travers calls “augmented reality.”

You know those first down markers super imposed on the TV screen while you’re watching a football game? Imagine that technology coming to your every day life.

Say you’re in Manhattan and need an ATM machine. An arrow appears in your glasses to show the way, telling you where to turn left as a green balloon floats above a building at the end of the street to show you the location.

Or you’re a soldier on a battlefield, when a big red circle appears, alerting you to a truck approaching from the distance, and giving you information on its size and speed. Or you’re working in an emergency room, and a patient’s x-ray appears to be superimposed on their body as you’re treating them.

Google has shown interest in this technology, and while its hardware – Google Glass – is still in the conceptual stages, the company has made strides towards developing software for the consumer market. Google Goggles lets a user take a picture of a landmark or a product on a store shelf, and Google will provide information on the product.

Surprisingly, perhaps, Travers is not concerned about a giant like Google encroaching on his market. “People are knocking on our door that wouldn’t be if Google wasn’t in the same space,” he said.

Among the knockers is the U.S. military. Vuzix is developing a prototype of a helmet mounted system for the Army, and in June announced that it received a research grant from the Navy to develop augmented reality glasses for training applications.

How far are we from widespread consumer use? Travers said very close.

Within a year or so Vuzix will be shipping its product bundled with smartphones or sold as a separate accessory.

The key will be how Vuzix’s hardware comes together with easy-to-use consumer applications, pushing its technology from a mere novelty to something everyone wants to use; just the way it happened with the MP3 player, the smartphone, and the tablet.


http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20120920/BUSINESS0110/309200006/sean-lahman-Vuzix