DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Laser in Fujitsu smartglasses fires images right into retina

I admit there are times that I'm glad I am getting older due to where I think things are headed in this country and world. But, among the things I will miss the most is technology and space science advances. As someone with bad eyesight, This one is pretty cool.

Web page

Fujitsu has developed smartglasses that project imagery directly onto the user's retina with a laser, instead of using small LCD screens like other wearables.

The prototype, being shown off at a Fujitsu technology expo in Tokyo this week, can be linked to a mobile device or a camera mounted on the glasses.

When linked to a smartphone, for instance, users can see webpages or other online information right on their retina. When linked to the camera, they can see what's directly in front of them.

The camera feed, from a small image sensor in the middle of the glasses, can be useful for people with vision loss, blurry vision, or other vision defects. While the glasses are being developed as a vision aid, the technology could open up new approaches to connected eyewear.

A laser projector is embedded in the left arm of the glasses and shines harmless RGB laser light onto two small angled mirrors. The light then traverses the eye lens and hits the retina. There is no need to focus the image.

In a demo of the glasses at the tech expo, the experience was a bit like trying Google Glass, with a rectangle of projected images of flowers appearing in the left eye. If the glasses and mirrors aren't positioned properly, however, the images can be hard to see. The glasses are also rather bulky but there are plans to refine the design.

The basic idea of projecting imagery onto a retina via laser has been around for decades, but miniaturizing the optics to realize a wearable form factor had been difficult until recently. Fujitsu and partner companies were able to produce a small mirror to project light into the eye.

"By using these glasses, people with low vision will be able to read books, newspapers, bulletin boards, timetables and walk around outside," said Mitsuru Sugawara, CEO of QD Laser, a Fujitsu spinoff based in Kawasaki that helped develop the glasses.

The glasses are wired to a control box about the size of a telephone directory, but the box will be shrunk to the size of a smartphone in the coming months, and the glasses will be made wireless in about three years, Sugawara said.

QD Laser plans to commercialize the glasses by March 2016, priced around US$2,000. They will be initially be targeted at users with poor vision, and made available in Japan, Europe and the U.S.

The Singularity is Near

Maybe I'm just old but I'm not sure I trust that the laser they are shining into my retina is "harmless"... A lot of the things we have done to our bodies down through the ages were viewed as harmless, until long after affects started to be recognized.

I agree, unless it is of great benefit to you to take the risk, why do it. I don't need a roadmap imprinted in front of my eye when walking down the street. I am capable of reading a paper map just fine.

I harass our son about his vapor cigarette, which he always says "It's better than smoking a real cigarette", which I always reply "Yeah, and they didn't think cigarettes were harmful for the first few hundred years they smoked them either."

I still have a few blind spots in my eyes from working fiber optics for years. Never trust a stupid coworker that claims the fiber is unplugged on the far end, but I guess that makes me stupid to believe him when I knew he wasn't that bright. I always check for myself now. I don't need anymore lasers shot into my eyes.