New augmented-reality glasses due out in 2013
November 21, 2012
Vuzix Smart Glasses M100 (credit: Vuzix Corporation)
Google Glass now has a competitor: Vuzix Corporation’s Vuzix Smart Glasses M100 — designed for on-the-go data access from your smartphone and the Internet.
It will have a WQVGA color 16×9 screen, look like a 4” cellphone screen at 14” and will work on either eye, and will be available commercially for $500 in mid-2013, Vuzix CEO Paul J. Travers told KurzweilAI.
Like Google Glass, the Vuzix M100 contains a virtual display with integrated camera, running Android OS, and will wirelessly connect via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi to your smartphone (iOS or Android) or other compatible device.
You’ll be able to connect to the Internet, answer the phone (with a visual address book), and read text messages and email.
It will offer visual navigation and basic augmented reality (AR) apps and has an integrated head tracker and GPS for spacial and positional awareness in AR apps. An integrated 720p camera enables video recording and still image capture.
Travers said a $999 software developer kit will in portions will be available almost immediately and with developer hardware in Q1 2013. That get you all the tools to develop apps for them, advanced access to information and of course one of the first pair we ship.
Vuzix also markets a variety of other wearable displays.
UPDATE 11/24/2012: Price and availability for commercial product and developer kit updated.
Vuzix smart glasses M100 (credit: Vuzix Corporation)
Comments (34)
by Keegan
Imagine looking at something and then talking. The movement from your jaw will cause that extended arm to wiggle all over the place. It would be incredibly annoying trying to focus on something so small with tiny vibrations from that arm.
This gadget gets no from me right off the bat.
by Muz
I know this display supports some kind of AR…but it is never going to be an overlay over the real world when it looks like a small non-transparent screen in the corner of your vision. I still like better the Vuzix company’s glasses with fully transparent displays. When they become normal sun glass style that will be culture changing.
by Editor
Re AR, you’re right. CEO Paul Travers mentioned to me that it’s not their primary focus.
by Terry
A display like this, with a single point of visual access, would be ideal for me. I only have mono focal vision, so having that small screen to the side of my eye would actually be pretty damn handy.
Though, I’d try it on my off eye (amblyopia and strabismus are in effect for me) and see if I couldn’t use it on that. It would mean the display is out of my main FoV, while being accessible when I need it.
Keeping an eye out for this! ;)
by Editor
UPDATE 11/24/2012: Price and availability for commercial product and developer kit updated.
by John
Thanks. Actually checked the website and found the white version much nicer than black one, doesn’t make you look like freakin universal soldier, but actually looks cool.
by Dan Robinson
Maybe other people’s eyes are more flexible than mine ever were. I’m wondering how you can focus on anything an inch or so from your eye. Years ago I thought about screens (two for 3D) back near my ears, viewed in semi-silvered magnifying mirrors. Then you could adjust screen brightness to emphasize screen brightlness or the real world.
by Gabriel
I have to admit….I didn’t expect this — I know AR is going to be a big thing this decade, but I still thought it would take another year or two before the mass consumer would have something available (I think Google Glasses was slated for 2014)…that this is already being available is crazy.
I guess what’s next is to have those digital avatar assistants with engaging personalities; what Kurzweil sees coming at any rate.
by melajara
432×240 is a ridiculous resolution, very lame.
And I don’t care with obnoxious “augmented reality”. What I would really like is a pair of glasses with plugin ear buds and high resolution to replace a HD screen in watching movies, documentaries or presentations on planes or in bed!
We are soon in 2013 and I’m still unable to find this. Progress is really slow, although there is some progress, e.g. look at http://cinemizer.zeiss.com/cinemizer-oled/en_de/product-information.html
Too bad they are in a shocking white! Anyway, did someone try this? Is it, at last, a decent replacement for a tv/monitor?
by pt
http://www.oculusvr.com/
1280×800 reso for first version, iirc. Really slow progress? Not quite.
by Editor
“432×240 is a ridiculous resolution”: that depends on the visual angle subtended by the display. 640×960 resolution would be ridiculous for a modern computer display (viewed 20 inches away), but viewing it 5 inches away on an iPhone 4 multiples the perceived linear resolution by 4, making 640×960 what Apple calls a “retina display.” The Vuzix display is even closer.
by John
> What I would really like is a pair of glasses with plugin ear buds and high resolution to replace a HD screen in watching movies, documentaries or presentations on planes or in bed!
Sony has such thing for ya. But this is different, it’s not about movies, but being in front of your computer literally all the time. It allows new level of human-machine integration.
by John
Very cool. Wonder what month exactly this gonna ship? Early 2013 or later?
by Marcos Marin
“Blonde not included”
by Mr.X
Exponential progress will take care of it.
by Mr.X
PS: You should not try so hard.
by Marcos Marin
Try what? to make a single post? lol
by Mr.X
Best “comeback” ever.You’re really “funny”!
by Marcos Marin
You’re the judge…
I promise I’ll try not to laugh.
by Mr.X
“You’re the judge…
I promise I’ll try not to laugh.”
At least I’m funny, you have to exercise control to refrain from laughing.Which is exactly my point: Don’t try so hard.
The judge thing is ridiculous, it should go without saying that I was expressing my opinion, not declaring “objective truth”.
by Marcos Marin
Oh, you certainly are! I never contested that. In fact you make it harder for me to refrain.
Wait a second, your point was that I tried too hard to refrain from laughing?
“not declaring “objective truth”.”
– You sure sound like it. But if you say so, I believe you.=)
by Mr.X
I will express myself clearly, so that your superior intellect may grasp the fruit of my muddy/fuzzy thinking process:
Trying harder often makes matters worse, makes it harder to do what one wants to do.Be it being funny, or trying to exercise self-control.
Think about this: If you try to refrain from thinking/feeling something, you will try to monitor the results (just test it).This means you focus on the thing you should avoid, bringing it to the front of your “mind’s eye.”
The trick seems to be noticing (allocation of cognitive rescources towards the “external environment”) the “thing”, and letting the thought/feeling/perception pass.
That was my admittetly unclearly stated point.
by bg
Is this how you flirt with people Mr. X? Get a room already.. Lets try to stay on topic here and not bicker about a thought you had which no one cares about anyways. *This applies for every single post you make (they seem to be increasing exponentially and is starting to cause alarm).
by H.K. Fauskanger
Say, they apparently had augmented reality glasses in 2015 as seen in “Back to the Future” part II. (People occasionally seem to refer to some kind of read-out or display inside their glasses.) As for the flying cars and the hoverboards … well, we still have three years to go, so keep faith!
by Marcos Marin
Bttf is coming up ever more frequently (exponentially?), I hope they make another one by 2015 to piggy back on all this marketing, though probably a remake to keep the current trend of dwindling creativity at hollywood, it would be hard to improve on that one anyways =)
by Jerry
A 16:9 WQVGA screen is 432×240 for anyone else wondering.
Not really sure how well you could read text at that low a res.
by Marcos Marin
You can even play games on smaller still resolutions! Deeper and better than modern ones at that too.
by Gorden Russell
But will they beat you up at the McDonald’s in Paris?
by Editor
Hey, à chacun son goût, which apparently means “I punch you face” at the McDonald’s in Paris.
by Mr.X
One day you will have learned these expressions (the way you learned this one), and then people won’t hit you because of misunderstandings;)
Seriously: We all know the background of the persons who attacked Dr.cyborg.
Culture is not entirely dependent on where you live, but you de facto environment (parents, siblings,acquiantances, other emmigrants at school etc).
People from so called “cultures of honour” are much more violent than others, the way people from the former conferderacy are in average more violent than people from the north.
Q.E.D!? Well, since I don’t remember the exact studies on this, I refer you to the works of Malcom Gladwell. Another thing, there was a Norwegian documentary on this (and other topics), very well made, with subtitles.Alas, I need to sort-out my favs.Too many youtube vids^^
Or without pc: These guys don’t belong to the same culture that made this expression, they’re Arabs/muslims by culture.
Anyway: I hope one day I can use these glasses to play new kinds of games.
by Mr.X
@Editor: In the USA you’ll get shot by guys posing as batman.This apparently means freedom.
by Bri
Only one question. How much!!!!!
by Editor
Their literature says $999 but some articles say $500. I’ll be getting an update from Paul Travers next week.
by Editor
This just in from CEO Paul Travers: It’s $500 for the commercial product; $999 is for the developer kit.