Post #36627 by View From Afar
What's particularly bizarre is that so many of these so called experts have invariably come across Microvision at various times (probably more than once) in their travels, by way of industry reports and lectures by Kurzweil and others, yet still the implications of RSD do not sink in. While some have undoubtedly tried out RSD microdisplay prototypes, most haven't and remain prisoners of the 'small screen' paradigm. Thus, they don't see what's staring them straight in the face, and won't until big companies like Canon come out of deep stealth. Then, BANG, it will hit them all, all at once. The result: a stampede.
It's a mindset really: the ingrained notion of looking 'at' things. To me, RSD is more akin to looking 'through' things. I always think of Microvision’s RSD microdisplay in terms of a keyhole or a knot hole in a wooden fence. At first glance, it's just a hole. But as you get closer, you can see there's something on the other side. When you get your eye right up to the hole, it's almost like you've stepped through the door or fence, finding yourself fully immersed in what's happening on the other side.
In this regard, patents describing increases in exit pupil size and fields of view make more sense. The ‘keyhole’ or ‘knot hole’ gets bigger and bigger; the fence or door gets thinner and thinner, permitting wider and wider viewing angles. The result: the viewer sees the whole image from further and further away.
I foresee a time where these capabilities combined with powerful light sources and advanced optics permit a multi-faceted crystalline device the size of a golf ball to sit on a coffee table allowing an effectively unlimited number of people anywhere in the room to see the same image just by looking at the crystal, even from a distance away. To see what I mean, hold a piece of crystal up to your eye while watching television and count the number of screens you see. Now think of it in reverse, i.e., where the image generator is inside the crystal, with each facet projecting the image out to a slice of the room.
Such a ‘television’ would be revolutionary not just technologically, but in other more subtle ways, for example, how we arrange our living rooms. I have two types of friends: those who entertain in a room with a television and those who entertain in a room without a television. Each presents a trade off. In the former, the room tends to be set up like a movie theatre, discouraging conversation in favour of viewing even when there is nothing worth viewing. In the other, the chairs tend to face each other, encouraging interaction, but often at the expense of doing so while sharing a common visual experience – an archetypical human activity. Sitting around a campfire is an example of the latter.
By placing images ‘in the eye of the beholder’ instead of a fixed point in space, Microvision’s technology has the capacity to resolve many trade offs and bottlenecks we assume exist as an unavoidable consequence of reality. In truth however, it is often our view of reality that creates the bottleneck or trade off. Change that view, create a new reality. Some longs understand this. Most experts do not.
In response to Post 36514 by Kaniksu3
From an article in SKY Magazine, the in-flight mag of Delta Air Lines. It is an article about 3G and whether or not people will use it since the display experience is so limited....
"Of course, it could be convincingly argued that European consumers are very different from those in the United States. But what troubles analysts is that 3G SPs are fixated on the paradigm of the PC. As more people got broadband access at work and home, use of the Internet exploded. Phone companies hope the same model will apply to cell phones. What they need to think about, analysts say, is that an information system that worked fine on a 19-inch personal computer screen may not be quite as captivating on a 3-ounce cell phone with a 2-inch screen.
“On the one hand, you can say it’s great to have all this speed,” says Ken Dulaney, an analyst at the Gartner research firm. “But as I look at what’s going on in mobile, I say, ‘What are we going to do with it?’”
For Dulaney, speed is not the answer. “[The SPs] think that the introduction of more speed will fix all the problems,” he says. “What they continue to do is take the PC paradigm of the browser and shrink it down onto a little tiny screen. And frankly, users don’t find it compelling.”
Bingo! Microvision's scanned beam tech will enable an entire industry. It's just a matter of time....tick, tick, tick....sleep well longs.
Steve
I love the image of a crystal "golf ball" on the table. Unfortunately, I don't think that could work. At any substantial distance from the eye there would be no way for the beam to paint a panoramic image on the viewer's retina. Still, the concept of eliminating the "movie screen" from the living room is sound.
ReplyDeleteWhen economies of scale permit low cost individual wireless HDTV viewers to be built, every high tech living room could have a basket of MVIS viewers available for family and guests. Users can sit where they want and share the experience with their friends. The host could individually switch the channel on his/her viewer to check the video feed from the front door to see if the pizza has arrived.
I don't see any reason in principle that half a dozen MVIS viewers would cost any more than people now pay for a huge flat screen display.
It's hard to imagine what forms the living room of the near future might take.
ReplyDeleteI like your idea of a basket of eyeglasses. But it is maybe more likely everyone will have one of their own that they'll bring with them.
It's possible that the first MVIS device in the living room is a wearable display for gaming. No reason that couldn't double as a TV. I also expect to have the 70" Laser TV mentioned on the recent Q3 conference call to replace my gigantic behemoth of a rear projection TV.