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Epson's $500 smart glasses are literally powered by your phone
Smart glasses have been kicking around for more than half a decade now, so it's a bit jarring when a new model is released and they look, well... ugly. Google has already demonstrated that it's possible to build a pair without bottle-thick lenses and chunky frames, and yet the market's newest arrival, Epson's Moverio BT-30C smart glasses, boast exactly that.
Epson's AR glasses give your drone a virtual playground
It's fun learning how to fly a drone, but a company called EdgyBees recently launched an AR game that could make honing your piloting skills even more fun. Now, you can download that AR game onto Epson's Moverio Drone Edition smart glasses, made specifically for DJI's models, for a more immersive experience. Drone Prix superimposes a virtual obstacle course on top of a first-person video of the sky captured by the machine's camera. It features over 30 different courses, a tracking guide to help you navigate them, a solo mode if you want to play alone and a competition mode if you want to play against other people around the world.
Epson and DJI team up for POV drone goggles
Phantom owners will soon be able to pilot their drones with a fresh perspective -- that of the UAV itself. DJI and Epson announced on Thursday that they are teaming up. Together, they'll expand DJI's SDK to allow Epson's Moverio BT-300 AR glasses to integrate with DJI's Phantom, Matrice and Inspire lines of remote-controlled flyers.
Augmented reality hardware is still way ahead of its software
Augmented reality -- using a device's camera to overlay information on the real world -- is a concept that's been around for years. But the combined failure of Google Glass and huge hype around virtual reality players like Oculus over the last few years have dampened the enthusiasm for the field a bit, relegating it to second-player status. Microsoft has reignited interest in AR thanks to Hololens, but the demos I saw at this year's Augmented World Expo made me think there's still a lot of work to be done. Particularly on the software side.
Epson unveils its third-generation Moverio AR glasses at MWC
Epson debuted the third iteration of its Moverio AR glasses series, dubbed the BT-300, at the Mobile World Conference in Barcelona on Monday. The new smart specs boast completely transparent lenses impregnated with OLED displays, a quad-core Intel Atom X5 processor and the Android 5.1 operating system. Plus, they weigh 20 percent less than their BT-200 predecessors, making them the world's lightest AR glasses. They're currently available for preorder and are expected to ship later this year.
Epson's smart glasses are for tech-loving mechanics
For the mall-pounding public, smart glasses are a hard sell. The combo of dorky looks and, well, lack of actual need has strangled the few attempts to commercialize them. Epson (of printer fame) thinks trade and industry is where the market/money is, and is adding another smart headset to its professional-friendly range. The Moverio Pro BT-2000 (yah, really) is based on Epson's existing BT-200 model, with a more rugged design and a juicier specification. This time around, Epson is tempting engineers with a 5-megapixel stereo/3D camera with depth sensing, head tracking and support for augmented reality, like if Dickies made HoloLens.
Not quite Google Glass: a week with Epson's awkward smart glasses
I had the full attention of Engadget's San Francisco office as I unpacked Epson's latest augmented reality headset, the Moverio BT-200. The glasses make for one heavy, awkward wearable: Coke-bottle thick lenses with inlaid transparent displays hovering in front of each eye. My coworkers and I passed them from desk to desk anyway, snapping goofy images for Instagram and musing over what to do with them. The glasses aren't Engadget's typical review fare -- it's not a product intended for consumers, and I wonder out loud how I'm going to explain the lenses to my readers. Without missing a beat, my editor Christopher Trout looks me square in the eye and gives me an answer. "Wear them," he says. "For a week. That's an assignment. You're doing it." Hoo boy.
Qualcomm offers developer support for virtual reality and digital eyewear
Smartwatches may be the most popular wearable products right now, but facewear is certainly on the up and up. Devices like Samsung's Gear VR and the Epson Moverio glasses are either already on the market or will be coming in the very near future, but what good are these devices if developers have limited access to them? Qualcomm's working on a solution of its own by releasing a developer kit for digital eyewear, and companies like Samsung, Epson and others are on board. The new platform, called the Vuforia SDK for Digital Eyewear, is supposed to aid developers in building hybrid virtual reality/augmented reality (VR/AR) apps that are capable of recognizing objects and images that are within your field of view; the company hopes this ability to lay interactive 3D content over the rest of the world will result in handy apps for gaming, education and shopping. The kit will be available this fall as a beta that will only be available to a small group of developers, and the company hasn't specified when it'll be open to everyone else.
Now you only have to barely move your hand to control your smart glasses
One main obstacle to making smart glasses mainstream is their awkward control methods, but that may change courtesy of Thalmic Labs, the maker of the $149 Myo muscle-sensing armband due in this fall. With the help of several enterprise partners, the startup has managed to integrate its futuristic wearable with Google Glass, Epson Moverio and Recon Jet, thus allowing users to quickly flick through documents, contacts and apps with subtle hand plus finger gestures, as opposed to fiddling with a tiny trackpad. In the videos after the break, it seems that there's great potential for the Myo in the medical space, heavy industries plus outdoor sports, albeit at the risk of making the users look a little silly.
This augmented reality motorcycle helmet could save your life
"I was in early morning traffic when an inattentive driver hit me from behind and I was thrown from my motorcycle." Ryan Shearman, founder and CEO of FUSAR Technologies, tells me at Augmented World Expo 2014. It's the kind of thing that could happen to any motorcyclist -- and indeed, happens too often -- but it also served as a spark of inspiration. "It started the wheels turning in my head: how can I make motorcycle riding safer?" His answer was to build a better helmet.
Epson's latest Android glasses finally arrive for the faithful few
We doubt that there's a horde of wearable fans jonesing for Epson's second-gen Moverio glasses -- not after Google's one-day Glass sale, anyway -- but they're at last available, several weeks behind schedule. Spend $700 and the just-shipping BT-200 headset will put a basic (and frankly decrepit) Android 4.0 interface in front of your eyes. It does have a few tricks up its sleeve that Google can't quite match, though. There's wireless video mirroring and Dolby Digital Plus surround sound; you'll also get long-overdue head-motion tracking and a camera whose LED makes it clear that you're recording. The new Moverio is far from reproducing the cachet (or social stigmas) of Google's eyepiece, but look at it this way: The money you save by skimping on trendier eyewear can be put toward nobler pursuits.
Temple Run in first-person, courtesy of Epson's Android glasses (hands-on)
We saw Epson's Moverio BT-200 glasses back at CES, and while not much has changed on the hardware front since then, the company dropped by SXSW to demo a few new games. There's also a new homemade camera rig, so it's now possible to share the excitement here. Moverio supports the full version of Android 4.0, but unlike smartphones and tablets running the same OS, these glasses include a pair of embedded transparent displays, which provide a surprisingly usable view, while also preserving some of your field of vision -- we absolutely would not recommend walking, driving or interacting with humans while wearing them, though.
Epson introduces new Moverio glasses with head-motion tracking and camera
Everybody knows about those other smart glasses, but they're certainly not the only ones making a big fuss these days. Epson has been working on a similar product called the Moverio BT-100, for the last few years, and it's ready to show off the next iteration of its signature wearable at CES. This one, the BT-200, will retail for the same $700 price point as the original, and comes with Android 4.0 support and a few new features and capabilities: Bluetooth 3.0 support, head-motion tracking aided by sensors and Dolby Digital Plus for surround sound are among the new options. Also, there's a front-facing camera with image and video capture, but bystanders won't need to worry about asking you if you're filming them -- an LED lights up on the lower left corner anytime you're trying to capture precious moments. But how does it look inside the glasses? Thanks to a pair of tiny transparent displays built into the glasses, you can view movies, play games, do augmented reality and conduct other tasks while walking around, talking to other people or any other normal activity. It comes with an Android device attached that doesn't actually feature a touchscreen; rather, it acts like a mouse of sorts, mimicking your movements on the display and letting you drag the cursor around to wherever you want. It also features wireless mirroring, so other people can watch you fall flat on your virtual face on a HDTV. Sound good to you? Check out our full gallery of images and save up $700 before March. Mat Smith contributed to this report.
Evena's smart glasses offer nurses a through-the-skin view of patients' veins (video)
It's not always easy for nurses to find the right vein for an intravenous drip -- the target vessels are sometimes hidden below the skin. Evena Medical's new Eyes-On smart glasses may make those injections a little easier. The Moverio-based eyewear overlays a 3D blood vessel map on the patient, helping the nurse insert even a tricky IV line on the first try. It can also tap into a hospital's medical records and share imagery with doctors in remote locations. There's no word on just which hospitals will use Eyes-On when it ships in the first quarter of 2014, but don't be surprised if it makes your hospital stay a little more bearable in the near future. Check out a video promo for the glasses after the break.
Epson dangles $1,000 bounty to attract augmented reality apps
Epson's Moverio BT-100 is one of the more hackable headsets thanks to its Android control box, but few developers have given it a good look. The company may have an incentive for those coders -- it's holding its first-ever Moverio hackathon on August 24th and 25th. Those who visit Epson's Long Beach headquarters on those days can design and pitch an augmented reality concept in hopes of winning a either $1,000 grand prize or one of two $500 runner-up awards. Space is very limited at just 50 slots, so you'll want to sign up quickly if you're interested. Whether or not you can attend, the hackathon is good news for Moverio owners that could soon get more use out of their $699 eyewear.
APX Labs mods Epson Moverio headset, adds camera, mic and motion sensors for improved AR
Epson's 3D display glasses, the Moverio BT-100 have been floating around as a development platform for a couple years, and APX Labs is the latest to hack the headset. APX Labs is a software firm best known for creating Terminator Vision augmented reality tech for the US military, and it decided to use the BT-100 as a vehicle to develop and showcase a smart glasses platform it's built to work for both business and consumer applications. In order to get the functionality it needed, APX grafted a 5 megapixel camera, mic and a full suite of motion sensors to provide nine-axis head tracking onto a Moverio headset.%Gallery-187866% All that gear is shoved into a 3D-printed module and attached to the BT-100 to turn it into a pair of smart glasses. In addition to the cameras and sensors, APX also hacked an Epson daughter board onto the Moverio's controller to allow an HDMI video feed from a smartphone to be shown on the displays. This result? A system that understands where you are, what you're seeing and hearing and a UI that allows users to glean information from the world around them using voice commands and head gestures. That should sound familiar to fans of Google Glass, but by using Epson's binocular displays, these smart glasses can convey depth in a way Mountain View's monocle cannot. (Not to mention that Glass doesn't even do AR apps... yet). The hardware we got to see was a crude prototype built for demo purposes only, but the software platform shows promise and Epson's got a version two Moverio headset in the works -- so perhaps you can see a bit of the future of smart glasses in the video after the break.
Epson's video board pumps composite inputs to the Moverio BT-100 headset (video)
Bummed that your $700 Moverio BT-100 headset doesn't have video input? Well, Epson's here to tease you with a board that plugs into the trackpad and accepts any composite video source. Despite best attempts to hide the identity of hardware it's being tested with and give the lawyers a weekend off, it's shown to receive feeds from a PS3, an iPad and a 360 with Kinect. Check out the honk-filled video of all the fun you're not having, and contact Epson if you've got an interesting idea for using the board, because they might just give you one. How about -- "I want to play games on it?" That sounds like a pretty good reason to us. [Thanks, Joe]
Epson Moverio BT-100 3D goggles now shipping in the U.S. for $699
Any Americans out there wanna buy a wacky head-mounted 3D display? Then Epson's Moverio BT-100 micro-projection headset ought to be right at the top of the your not-so-long list of options. It's just started shipping in the States for $699, including its Android-powered trackpad controller that streams and navigates content on the perceived '80-inch' transparent viewing window. You could even pair the Moverio with a Parrot AR.Drone and discover what it feels like to be an Apache pilot strafing your neighbor's rabbit.
Parrot AR.Drone joins with Epson Moverio BT-100: UAV gets down with HMD (video)
Let's say you've explored all the abandoned cathedrals in your hometown and have decimated all comers on the virtual battlefield -- if your interest in the Parrot AR.Drone has begun to wane, then take a gander at this bit of handiwork from Thomas Sohmers and dream of what could be. Essentially, he's taken the popular UAV from Parrot and has combined it with a transparent, head-mounted display that allows one to simultaneously view the AR.Drone and an overlay of its video feed. More than just a set of glasses, the Epson Moverio BT-100 was ideal for the task as it also features a handheld controller that just so happens to run Android. While Sohmers has met with good success in combining the two devices, the product isn't quite ready for mass consumption -- for example, it's said the AR.Drone can only rotate and move vertically at this point. While you'll have to use a bit of your imagination for the heads-up display component, you can find a demonstration of Sohmers' creation in a video after the break.
Epson's Moverio BT-100 brings some transparency and 3D to head-mounted displays
Head-mounted displays come in all kinds of flavors, from Dragonball Z-style scouters with transparent displays, to those that bring personal 3D viewing in a package that fits right in on the Game Grid. Epson, however, has combined those to features for the first time with its Moverio BT-100. Sporting classic blue-blocker looks, these shades have dual transparent lenses with 960 × 540 qHD resolution bringing you video in three dee, while audio is doled out by built-in earbuds with Dolby Mobile technology. Content is accessed via a Froyo-powered control unit equipped with 802.11b/g/n WiFi and 1GB of internal memory, plus there's an SD card slot (4GB card included) for storing media. Navigation and control comes courtesy of the controller's touch-sensitive trackpad and dedicated Android buttons, a 2D/3D toggle switch, and d-pad. The BT-100 will be available in Japan come November 25th for ¥59,980 ($771 US), but those interested in importing one can get all the device's juicy details at the Source links below.
