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Oakley and Intel's sunglasses put a personal trainer in your ears
Running can be a pretty lonely sport, but you may soon get a companion that's always ready to go. Oakley and Intel have teamed up to create a sunglasses-smart-earbuds hybrid that will tell you how you're doing during your run or bike ride. The Oakley Radar Pace will be available Oct. 1st for $449. I tried out a preview unit and, even though I'm not a serious runner, I'm actually really excited about what the device can do.
Vuzix plans to make smart sunglasses you'd actually like to wear
Although smart sunglasses exist (like Recon's above), they're seldom pretty by the usual standards -- you won't impress many people at the beach. If Vuzix has its way, though, these shades will be as fashionable as the eyewear from your favorite label. It has just reached a deal with an unnamed major electronics company that could lead to smart glasses that look just as good as "designer sunglasses;" see-through waveguide optics would keep the display relatively subtle. Just don't hold off on buying any traditional gear in the meantime. Vuzix doesn't expect to build prototypes before 2015, let alone a finished product. Still, it's good to know that smart sunglasses and style won't be mutually exclusive at some point in the future.
Oakley cooking up its own smart glasses, hoping to trump Project Glass with improved style
Oakley's Thump glasses haven't exactly succeeded in fending off the competition when it comes to portable music playback, but that isn't stopping it from working feverishly to develop the next round of vaguely intelligent eyewear. CEO Colin Baden told Bloomberg that the company has been toying with ways to project information onto sunglasses since 1997, hoping to start by augmenting the world of sports before ultimately blending into more consumery pursuits with shades that could run solo or pair up with a smartphone. Functionality is only part of the puzzle, says Baden, as aesthetics play an important role. "People get very particular when they put stuff on their face." This, perhaps, explains the lack of sales of the aforementioned Thumps.
Electrochromic sunglasses change color on demand
We'll admit, we didn't think MyDo's Bururu vibrating spectacles would be topped anytime soon, and while the University of Washington's smart sunglasses don't snatch the crown outright, they certainly make a solid case. The admittedly gaudy prototype certainly isn't the most attractive eyewear we've ever seen, but researchers are insisting that we focus on the electrochromic material that enables on demand color / tint changing rather than the bulky frames. The film can purportedly alter its transparency depending on the electric current that flows through it, essentially giving athletes and motorists an easy way to instantly adjust the level of reflection and tint depending on the ever-changing circumstances around them. Touted as "more active and more intelligent" that existing specs, this watch-battery-powered device allows the wearer to alter the shade by simply spinning a wee dial on the arm, and while we wish we could tell you that U-Dub's swank new specs would be arriving before the bright summer rays, it'll be quite "a few years" before these hit commercialization.[Via Primidi]
