Remember those wicked holographic augmented reality glasses that DARPA was so hot to build? They’re almost here. Hiding out at Vuzix’s CES booth we found a functional prototype for its Smart Glasses industrial class monocular display — a special lens attached to a proprietary display driver that produces a bright, 1.4mm holographic picture for one of your peepers. Vuzix told us the lenses were the fruit of a DARPA project, and could allow soldiers involved in air-to-surface operations to track jets, check their ordinance and mark targets for destruction. The military / industrial monocle will go on sale in Q3 of 2012 for somewhere between 00-3000.
Want to look a little more, well, normal while you’re augmenting your reality? You’re covered — or at least you will be in 2013. Not only will Vuzix’s consumer facing smart glasses offer you the same holographic heads-up technology that’ll power its military bound brother, it’ll cost you a bundle less, too: between 0-600. The unit we saw wasn’t final, but were told the final unit will be able to accept connections over HDMI, and may even be capable of displaying stereoscopic 3D content — you know, in case the real world wasn’t real enough. Hopefully, we’ll be able to tell you those fit next year. Ready to see how you’ll be gussying up reality in the future? Hit the break for our hands-on video coverage.
Continue reading Vuzix augmented reality Smart Glasses prototype hands-on (video)
Vuzix augmented reality Smart Glasses prototype hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Jan 2012 21:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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IBM's new memory storing the letters for the word THINK.
Computer and memory chips usually tend to get smaller over time, but in a paper published Thursday in Science IBM details how it’s building memory chips that would be 100 times more dense than today’s hard drives by starting with the smallest building blocks–atoms. Big Blue’s prototype chip is only 12 atoms across (click here for an awesome visualization of how small an atom is. No really, click it!) but is another way of thinking about ways to get beyond the limits of building ever smaller chips keeping Moore’s Law on track.
Andreas Heinrich, the project lead for IBMs efforts, explained in an interview that this tech may never be realized in part because it requires an entirely new type of manufacturing equipment to be built. However, IBM is learning how to manipulate atoms for storing bits and identified a new type of magnetism that could one day be used. Unlike the type of magnetism that keeps your magnets stuck to your fridge, IBM is looking at the reverse of those properties to make this highly dense type of memory.
It’s called antiferromagnetism, and the benefits of using it are not only its density, but that data wouldn’t be lost if it encountered a magnet. IBM is also playing with memory made using traditional magnets, but unfortunately at the atomic level nearby magnets tend to disrupt one another making it difficult to use them close together to store data. Applying antiferromagnetism prevents this and enables researchers to build smaller structures. Heinrich notes that the 12-atom memory chip prototype was only possible in a very low temperature environment, and to make a stable prototype in a room-temperature environment it would take a device that’s 150-atoms thick.
So clearly these aren’t ready for prime time in a hot data center anytime soon. I kid, but the real value of the research here is that there are folks out there continuing to try to advance computing not just for tomorrow but for decades down the line. When your future mobile phone packs a terabyte of storage it may be Heinrich and IBM you should thank. For more info check out IBM’s video below.
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Vuzix has announced plans to develop a stylish head-mounted display solution in the form of Smart Glasses, through a licensing partnership with Nokia. The yet-unnamed product would integrate a bright, high-contrast display with a pair of seemingly ordinary-looking sunglasses — sounds like a perfect companion to the ZionEyez in-glasses camera prototype we saw last month. In Vuzix’s words:
This amazing new technology starts with a compact display engine capable of hi contrast and brightness for outdoor use. The output is then relayed into a 1.4 mm thick plastic waveguide lens with input and output hologram structures on the surface which squeezes the light down the waveguide and then two dimensionally expands the image back into the user’s eye, creating an image that is then mixed into the real world.
Naturally, the company envisions its Smart Glasses solution as a web-connected device, letting you watch videos or browse the internet while still being able to see-and-avoid pedestrians as you walk on the sidewalk or obstacles while behind the wheel — try doing that with a Kindle or smartphone (better yet, please don’t). Vuzix expects its Smart Glasses solution to start appearing as early as this summer, but we’ll be getting an early look next week at CES.
Gallery: Vuzix SMART Glasses Technology
Continue reading Vuzix designs Smart Glasses to look like sunshades, tout connected transparent display
Vuzix designs Smart Glasses to look like sunshades, tout connected transparent display originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 07 Jan 2012 00:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Speedy prototyping denotes that automatic era of objects by use of solid free type fabrication. The inception of the concept in Eighties noticed the production of various forms of fashions as effectively prototype parts. The fast prototyping idea has unfold across numerous domains and options in numerous applications. Fast prototyping can be generally used in the manufacturing domains the place the idea is used for production high quality elements in comparatively low figures. In arts additionally, the concepts are used as an example by sculptors to generate advanced design and shapes that are meant for positive artwork exhibitions.
Fast Prototyping relies on digital designs taken from computerized designs or laptop Aided design (CAD) closely related to the animation modeling software. The ideas of fast prototyping would then remodel the virtual designs into thin horizontal cross sections, which then lead to the creation of cross sections in physical locations. These are created in succession until a point the place the entire model is complete.
In speedy prototyping, additive fabrication facilitates the studying of data from a CAD drawing by the machine. The machine will then get right into a layering course of the place either, powder, sheet or liquid material in layered in succession. This is how a mannequin in really generated from a collection of cross part representations. The feasibility of the methodology is that the layers that are executed in correspondence with the digital cross part from the CAD mannequin are introduced together and blended routinely to generate the final shape. One outstanding features of additive expertise is its dynamism, which can be utilized to generate any form or geometric feature.
In fast prototyping the term ‘speedy’ is used relatively. The truth is that the era of the desired model with out there strategies and procedures can discuss many hours and even stretch to numerous days in tandem with the method adopted in addition to the size and the complexity of the desired model. The time period ‘rapid’ is thus utilized in a relative sense contemplating that the additive technologies can in some instance be produced desired fashions in hours but again it will rely on the kind of a machine getting used, the size of mannequin in focus as well as the number of fashions to be generated concurrently in cases of multiple model production.
Convectional injection molding is known to be more economical particularly in manufacturing polymer products in massive volumes. On the opposite end additive technology can be recognized to be speedy and price effective within the cases where there’s a manufacturing of relatively small portions of parts. The remarkable advantage of rapid prototyping is that it has enabled designers as properly theme or concept modeling groups to generate parts or components as properly concepts representations by use of handy and moveable desktop measurement printers. Printing and design technologies abound available in the market yet fast prototyping cashes in on the merits of value effectiveness and speedy print out put and premium high quality, which give designers and idea developers the actual sense, and illustration of their design models.
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The English can’t resist a good retro revival: we fell back in love with the new Mini and Doctor Who, so now it’s time to do the same with the eco-friendly revamp of the Routemaster bus. Packed with a hybrid engine that doubles the fuel efficiency of a standard diesel (at 11.6mpg — but it’s a bus, so that’s a lot) but producing only half the emissions. It’ll carry 87 passengers and the vehicle heralds the return of the rear-door, so when it’s stuck in traffic, you can safely hop-off and walk the rest of the way. A fleet of eight buses will run London’s “38″ route from early next year and you can watch the prototype being hand-built in the video we’ve got for you after the interval.
Continue reading Meet London’s new Eco-Routemaster, same as the old Routemaster (video)
Meet London’s new Eco-Routemaster, same as the old Routemaster (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 18 Dec 2011 11:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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A new pair of glasses from Lumus won’t help you capture any precious moments, but it will help you get your discreet HBO fix. Unlike most video headgear, these marvels will let you peer past their lens-projected view screens, opening the door to an augmented reality that doesn’t rely on miniature displays. The lenses create an 87-inch virtual screen viewed from 10 feet that is only experienced by the individual wearing the headgear, onlookers will only see a pair of odd spectacles. 1080p buffs won’t be pleased to know that the this set of specs can only do 720p, but the Israeli company has said that a full-HD flavor is in the works. The bifocals won’t be hitting retail shelves anytime soon, but we’ll be sure to take them for a spin during CES next month. Hit the video after the break, which includes visuals of an earlier prototype in action.
Continue reading Lumus teases 720p video glasses, takes transparency to a new level (video)
Lumus teases 720p video glasses, takes transparency to a new level (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Dec 2011 03:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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