I am a big fan of hi-tech stuff. And every time I see a cool newly-developed gadget I go wondering what will be next… All the research work done all over the world, all the new ideas that come to people’s minds lead to something new and sometimes even mind-blowing.
I mean, could you imagine such a thing as iPhone a couple years ago? Sure, we all love science fiction books and movies, but could you imagine holding it, having it for real? Here is a couple of things for you to dream about:
Video Glasses: Though I’d prefer an eye-integrated extra-high resolution display, this is also OK with me at the moment. These gadgets generally cost $200 to $400. They weigh 2 to 10 ounces, come with their own headphones and plug into portable video devices like iPods, DVD players, video game consoles, video cameras and even some cell phones. The only problem is the resolution of the image these glasses produce is not high enough. Here you can find a pretty aged, still a bit helpful review of top 10 video glasses. And I am looking forward to the newly developed SID:
Sony focused on the following four points: (1) A transmissivity of higher than 80%, which is high enough for use in dark places, (2) a color uniformity of Δu’v’ = 0.009 or lower, which is equivalent to that of TVs, and a luminance of higher than 2000cd/m2, which allows the use of see-through mode outdoors, (3) attaching the optical engine on the lateral side (temple) so that the thickness of the front portion (lens) can be reduced to less than 3mm like normal eyeglasses and (4) a weight of less than 80g to make the display comfortable to be worn for at least two hours.
To achieve these goals, Sony made efforts to simplify the device’s structure. And it adopted the structure and display method that use a holographic waveguide and an optical engine that is composed of an LED light source, a transmissive LCD panel, etc.
The light modulated by the transmissive LCD panel reaches the eyes via the holographic waveguide. The optical engine can be attached on the lateral side (temple) of the eyeglasses.
Holographic TV: Another dream of mine is being able to watch movies in 3D. Not wearing those “3D glasses” with one eye green and the other blue, but having a real-like picture in my living room. According to CNN, this could be real in 2020:
Dr Nasser Peyghambarian, chair of photonics and lasers at the university’s Optical Sciences department, told CNN that scientists have broken a barrier by making the first updatable three-dimensional displays with memory.
“This is a prerequisite for any type of moving holographic technology. The way it works presently is not suitable for 3D images,” he said.
The researchers produced displays that can be erased and rewritten in a matter of minutes.
To create television sets the images would need to be changing multiple times each second — but Peyghambarian is very optimistic this can happen.
He said the University of Arizona team, which is now ten-strong, has been working on advancing hologram technology since 1990 — so this is a major step forward. He believes that much of the difficulty in creating a holographic set has now been overcome.
“It took us a while to make that first breakthrough, but as soon as you have the first element of it working the rest often comes more rapidly,” he said. “What we are doing now is trying to make the model better. What we showed is just one color, what we are doing now is trying to use three colors. The original display was four inches by four inches and now we’re going for something at least as big as a computer screen.”
There are no more great barriers to overcome now, he said.
So this is the present state of the future TV-watching technologies. Keep wondering and be creative in your dreams!
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