Automotive Testing Expo Europe

MVIS on ZDNet

Nerd fashion dilemma

Microvision has built a laser HUD (heads-up display), a lightweight unit that fits above your brow and projects a see-through monochrome image onto your retina using a very, very, very low-power red laser. (Full color will have to wait for cheap green and blue lasers.) Microvision sells it as part of a system designed to superimpose schematic diagrams over machinery that's being worked on by a mechanic.



So what?



I admit that I'm not secure enough to adopt this device--I'd need to see Tom Cruise (or at least Tom Arnold) wearing one before I took the plunge--and it weighs in at $4,000, which is a bit outside my range. But cell phones were exotic and expensive when they came out, too. Then it emerged that they conferred a distinct advantage in your business--and personal life--so the rest of us dived in and penetration increased as prices plummeted.



Now, imagine continuous, large-screen (this is important--cell phone screens are fatally cramped for most applications), wireless access to e-mail, IM, your files and Google--from a professional perspective, you d be unstoppable. If someone comes up with a cheap, tiny, high-resolution version of the laser HUD--perhaps integrated with a Bluetooth headset and Blackberry-style keypad--I predict a pretty dramatic take-up, even if it does make you look like Wonder Geek. You heard it here first.--Ed Gottsman
Well, we didn't hear it there first, but a great post all the same.

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