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The author of 'Snow Crash' is working for an augmented reality company
Neal Stephenson's immersive swordfighting game might not have panned out, but that isn't deterring him from diving head-first into new technology ventures. The Snow Crash writer is now the Chief Futurist for Magic Leap, the secretive augmented reality startup that sparked a lot of buzz in October. He'll be finding ways to make practical use of the company's technology. He came onboard after the company bowled him over with a demo -- its "synthesized light field" can fool your brain into perceiving virtual depth without resorting to basic tricks like stereoscopy, he says.
Runtastic thinks you'll like exercising with a VR headset
Let's be frank: Indoor exercise can suck. You're usually stuck in a gym or your home, and you can't get feedback without either a pricey trainer or a distracting mobile app. Runtastic thinks there might be a better way. It just developed Oculus Rift versions of some of its strength and toning exercises that could liven things up. It sounds a bit ridiculous to strap on a virtual reality headset for your workout (and it probably still is), but the technology promises things that just aren't possible in the real world. You can get fit in much more interesting locales, such as the great outdoors or a beachside home, and the entire interface is designed to keep your hands free -- a virtual trainer and hovering stats let you see how well you're doing while in mid-lunge.
4K, gaming and a tale of two monitors
Unlike most gadgets and peripherals, our computer monitors tend to stay with us for a good chunk of time. My current 23-incher has been with me since the days of my Palm Centro. So when it comes to shopping for a new display, it certainly pays to know what you want out of it. Are you heavily into gaming and need a monitor with crazy-high refresh rates? Would you rather have as big a screen as possible for all those windows you have open every day? I recently spent a month with two of AOC's latest models: a 24-incher with NVIDIA G-Sync support for serious gaming, and a 4K 28-inch display that puts a premium on pixels. Could either one convince me to let go of my trusty Viewsonic?
The secret to this interactive hologram tech is water vapor
It's 2014 and while we don't have flying cars just yet it looks like interactive holographic displays could be a reality rather soon. The not-so-cleverly-named Leia Display System (LDS) uses a combination of light, water-vapor and air to provide a transparent canvas for projected images while sensors track movement and touch inputs from users. The videos we've embedded below show all manner of poking and prodding by users, a bit of Minority Report-style pinching and zooming things in mid-air and even using gestures to rotate and flick stuff out of the way. There's even a sample with a Mercedes sedan driving through the curtain and it "shattering" around the vehicle as it passes through.
NVIDIA found a way to quadruple display performance in low-res LCDs
Face it, the tech industry is obsessed with resolution; we want every display to be high definition, regardless of size. We also want our devices to be affordable, leaving device manufactures with an interesting problem: how do they manufacture low-cost products with high-resolution screens? NVIDIA researchers have one solution -- stack two low-resolution panels on top of each other to increase pixel density on the cheap. The solution is so simple it sounds ridiculous, but apparently, it works.
Framed gesture-controlled digital canvas debuts on Kickstarter, starting at $399
It's shaping up to be a big month for digital art displays. Electric Objects popped up on Kickstarter with its successfully funded 23-inch LCD for $299, and now a familiar face has turned to the funding site with its own rebooted version. Framed 2.0, an update to 2011's overpowered 40-inch model, includes integrated WiFi, a 720p front-facing camera and motion sensors, so you can interact with the frame using gestures. There's also a companion smartphone app, for purchasing and swapping art, creating schedules and adjusting settings. The first 250 backers can take home a 24-inch 1080p screen for $399. A 40-inch version will be available for $1,500, while a "super limited" 55-inch model will go for a whopping $10,000, including dinner with the design team in Tokyo. All three frames are available for pre-order on Kickstarter now, with select models shipping in November.
IRL: A 24-inch AOC monitor that doubles as a gigantic Android tablet
What can you do with 24 inches of Jelly Bean that you can't do with 10? Manufacturers like Acer, Asus and ViewSonic have been building oversized Android-powered devices for a couple years now; I was determined to find out why, so I spent a few weeks with AOC's own all-in-one. The hybrid external monitor will run you $370 on Amazon -- more than twice what you'll pay for a comparable 1080p screen -- but this pricier model adds stock Android 4.2.2 with a touchscreen interface. With the tap of a button, the integrated quad-core processor and eight gigs of storage spring into action, effectively converting this otherwise ordinary monitor into a complete Android-powered machine. There's even an integrated 720p webcam, and with stock Jelly Bean on board, you can install whatever apps you'd like from Google Play.
Images created with nano-pixels are smaller than the width of a human hair
A group of Oxford University scientists have accidentally created a new display technology -- one that could enable a new era of smart glasses, bendable displays and even artificial retinas. The team refers to its discovery as 'nano-pixels;' it's a tiny sandwich of phase change material and transparent electrodes that change color when given a tiny jolt of current. These stacks can be used to draw tiny images, like the examples above, each one smaller than the width of a human hair. "We didn't set out to invent a new kind of display," explained research lead Harish Bhaskaran, his team was just exploring the relationship between the electrical and optical properties of phase change materials. Creating nano-pixels just sort of happened along the way.
Sapphire phone displays are tough, but the realities are even tougher
Sapphire is the birthstone of September, the traditional gift on your 45th wedding anniversary and a material associated with both luxury and ruggedness. It can be found in opulent products like jewelry, camera lenses and fancy watches. Given that, it's also one of the toughest materials in the world, which makes it ideal for military-grade items like aviation displays and even missiles. So when rumors emerged that a sapphire display may be featured on the next iPhone, a chorus of excitement followed. However, many phone manufacturers don't share the same sense of optimism that Apple might hold toward this different kind of next-gen display.
The PhoneStation uses your smartphone as a head-mounted display
You'll find plenty of knockoff wearables at a trade show like Computex, but there are always a few gems mixed in among the boring copycats. Exhibit A: View Phone Technology, a little-known Taiwanese company, is showing off a head-mounted 3D display that puts content from your phone directly before your eyes. The aptly named PhoneStation converts video to 3D, letting you use any handset to stream movies and TV shows directly from YouTube.
Glasses-free 3D projector offers a cheap alternative to holograms
Holograms are undoubtedly spiffy-looking, but they're not exactly cheap; even a basic holographic projector made from off-the-shelf parts can cost thousands of dollars. MIT researchers may have a budget-friendly alternative in the future, though. They've built a glasses-free 3D projector that uses two liquid crystal modulators to angle outgoing light and present different images (eight in the prototype) depending on your point of view. And unlike some 3D systems, the picture should remain relatively vivid -- the technology uses a graphics card's computational power to preserve as much of an image's original information (and therefore its brightness) as possible.
Samsung's new monitors include one with a billion-color, 3,840 x 2,160 screen
Now that Samsung's shown us the GS5, Gear 2 smartwatch and its latest Chromebook, it's time for the company's lesser-known product teams to come out of the woodwork. Next up: the display division, which today introduced three new models for 2014, including one with a billion-color, 3,840 x 2,160 screen. That would be the beaut you see above, the 28-inch UD590, which is up for pre-order for $700. In addition to that stunner of a display, it does Picture-in-Picture, with no downgrading in resolution as you move to a smaller frame. There's also a dual-screen feature called Picture-by-Picture, which you could theoretically use for split-screen gaming, even though this was really designed with creative pros in mind. Design-wise, it's fashioned out of metal, with thin bezels and a T-shaped stand that leaves room for speakers and other items you might have on your desk. Around back, you'll find a single DisplayPort, along with two HDMI 1.4 sockets for outputting 4K.
Jacksonville Jaguars get the world's biggest LED-lit HD displays, little else
The Jacksonville Jaguars don't exactly generate much excitement on EverBank Field. However, they'll soon have something attention-worthy above that field: a pair of the world's largest LED-lit, HD-capable displays. Daktronics is installing end zone screens at the stadium that each measure 362 ft. wide by 60 ft. high, handily eclipsing the 200 ft. by 80 ft. panel at Charlotte Motor Speedway. All that visual real estate will serve up to three HD replay videos at once, even as it shows the (likely dismal) score. The setup is overkill for a football team whose chances of a Super Bowl are currently very slim. Look at it this way, though -- at least the move gives the Jaguars something to lord over their more successful rivals.
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.
Spike supersonic business jet swaps windows for a wraparound live-view display
We're pretty excited about the Spike S-512 supersonic business jet, but this latest feature could potentially make a three-hour Mach 1.6 hop from New York to London a bit nerve-wracking for uneasy fliers. A post on the company's blog this week describes one of the cabin features, a "thin display screen" that's embedded in the wall. Cameras mounted around the jet's exterior will power a panoramic view, which can also be swapped for other images or content that's more conductive to sleep, such as a solid dark color or a starry night scene. Removing the windows helps Spike trim the plane's weight while also reducing drag, enabling faster speeds and boosted fuel efficiency. We don't expect commercial airliners to follow suit, however, so if flying 1,218 mph in a windowless tube is something that strikes your fancy, you'll need to hop aboard an S-512 after the supersonic jet takes to the skies in 2018.
Avegant tests Glyph wearable display prototype, on track for CES debut
We weren't expecting to see the final Glyph prototype materialize until just before CES, but Avegant is ready to show off the latest consumer design in the flesh, presented above (and again after the break) for your viewing pleasure. The high-res retinal display projects an image directly into your eyes, enabling a much sharper picture than what you'd experience by looking at a traditional panel. According to Avegant reps, this alpha prototype currently undergoing testing has smaller optics and improved adjustments compared to the demo unit we tried out in October, and it's far more attractive, to boot. The company plans to launch a Kickstarter campaign on January 22nd, with a beta version of Glyph shipping to pre-order customers for $499 by the end of 2014.
Glyph is a high-res wearable display headed to Kickstarter for $499
We were sold on Avegant's retinal head-mounted display even when it looked like this, but the company's latest reveal has us throwing balls of cash at the screen. The consumer version will be branded as Glyph, and it's set to debut January 22nd on Kickstarter with a pre-order price of $499. Avegant had its previous-gen prototype on hand last month at Engadget Expand, and the refreshed version (pictured above) will be on display at CES -- it looks quite nice in the render, but this is a product you'll really need to see to believe. The device will sport integrated noise-canceling headphones with a flip-down display, enabling the unit to double as a standard set of cans when you're not in the mood to consume super-sharp video content projected from the built-in virtual retinal display. We spent a few minutes with the final headphone design this week, and audio sounded great, but you'll have to hang tight until CES for a full hands-on with the refreshed version. For now, click through for our hands-on demo with the previous prototype, narrated by Avegant CEO Ed Tang.
Mavericks is breaking multi-display setups for some
OS X Mavericks sports a number of bullet points meant to improve usability for multi-display setups, but it seems that while adding a menu bar to every screen has worked swimmingly, users with monitors that rely on DisplayLink technology have been swimming in nothing but frustration. DisplayLink monitors -- which connect to the host computer using USB or wireless means -- are experiencing a laundry list of issues. Here's the full tally of problems, straight from DisplayLink's official post on the matter: Some applications can show severe flickering on DisplayLink screens. Examples of applications that show this issue are Safari, QuickTime and the App Store. Some applications can show corruption and/or missing contents while updating windows contents. Examples are Maps, iBooks and the Dock. Display arrangement is not kept when using 2 or more DisplayLink displays. All screens black and unusable after unplugging a DisplayLink screen. This is caused by Apple's Window server crashing. This can be recovered by replugging the DisplayLink device. On the Retina MacBook Pro, changing the layout to mirror logs the user out. Again this is caused by Apple's Window server crashing. The company insists there's nothing it can do to remedy the situation and is instead asking Mac developers to report the bugs to Apple in the interest of getting a fix pushed out as quickly as possible. [via Ars Technica]
Avegant's head-mounted virtual retinal display offers brilliant definition, we go hands-on (video)
We've never seen a product quite like this, and for Avegant, that's very good news. The startup's prototype virtual retinal display (VRD) delivers insanely sharp definition and a realistic image even with low-resolution sources by projecting directly into each eye using an array of two million micromirrors. There's no screen inside, though your brain interprets the signal as an 80-inch panel viewed from eight feet away. The effect isn't entirely dissimilar to what you'll find with other products, such as Vuzix's Wrap glasses or Sony's HMZ, though the quality -- and the overall experience -- blows everything else out of the water. We've heard a bit about Avegant's prototype, but without an opportunity to test it out, we were skeptical. This technology is impossible to demonstrate through any other medium, which will present some marketing challenges for the six-person team. For the firm's current round of tech demos, that's no problem, but a consumer model is coming very soon, and when it hits, you're definitely going to want to try it out. The production model, which is slated to ship sometime in Q1 2014, will be a far cry from the prototype we tested this week. It's expected to weigh significantly less, with a much more manageable footprint, integrated sound and a battery pack for power on the go. It'll be just as powerful, however, despite the design tweaks. The HMD, which can handle 240Hz content (and beyond), will connect to a variety of sources -- DVD players, laptops, smartphones and game consoles -- and regardless of the quality of the stream, footage should look sharp and realistic. It'll serve as a head-tracking VR device during game play, a bit like the Oculus Rift, but it'll be just as appropriate for consuming movies and TV shows, or even browsing the web. We watched a few minutes of Life of Pi in 720p 3D, played a bit of Call of Duty and poked around a 360-degree video filmed at a traffic circle in Italy. It all looked great, and that latter clip, which was streaming from a smartphone, was a mere 360 x 180 pixels. The HMD is designed to make everyday media look great, but the developers we met, CTO Alan Evans and CEO Edward Tang, also envision a variety of content created specifically for the display. Imagine moving your head to look around a football stadium during a broadcast NFL game, or exploring distant cities in much the same way. We don't have any pricing info to share, but consumer prototypes are expected at CES and the device should make its way to a crowdfunding site within the next few months. We can't wait to watch a handful of movies on the to-be-named Avegant HMD during a flight to Asia or spend half a day shooting zombies with some shockingly immersive gameplay. In the meantime, there's a prototype hands-on to tide you over, embedded after the break.
NVIDIA Research's near-eye light field display prototype eyes-on (video)
A quick stroll through the Emerging Technologies section of SIGGRAPH usually reveals a collection of university projects and the latest Disney Research endeavor. However, we don't usually see the likes of NVIDIA amongst the fold there. This time around, though, the component maker is showing off an undertaking from its Research sector: near-eye light field displays. To show the project off, a pair of OLED mircodisplays were installed on a glasses-like frame with a box for the electronics stashed up top. Those Sony ECX332A panels measure 15.36 x 8.64mm wield a resolution of 1,280 x 720 through 24-bit color pixels (which equates to a smidge over 83 pixels per millimeter). The diminutive displays open up the door for thinner and lighter head-mounted units that can sort "accurate accommodation, convergence and binocular-disparity cues." The light field that's constructed directly over the pupil allows the viewer to focus at multiple depths and create a field of view of about 70 degrees. Both of those aspects were quite apparent to our peepers upon getting locked in for a quick demo. Despite being situated so close to the eye, the unit still provides some sharp images that we witnessed first hand. Of course, the close proximity causes some pixel loss at the hands of a decreased spacial resolution. One pretty neat aspect to this whole system is that software tweaks can be made to account for someone's glasses or contacts prescription -- software that's powered by NVIDIA GPUs and OpenGL, of course. Without having to modify the hardware, changes to the microdisplays are sorted sans the need to switch to another set or make physical adjustments. For a bit more explanation of the unit, check out the video that resides just past the break and full findings that were presented here in Anaheim at the coverage link that follows. %Gallery-194623%
