iLens – Eye Lens as next wearable tech gadget

 Display, Technology, Tools  No Responses »
Nov 092011
 

Losing Steve Jobs has its toll on the company but his spirit and vision of the company is quite clear; innovative, top-quality, interactive, and daily life gadgets making our life easier and more entertaining. Innovation and innovative products has no boundaries and is not associated with only one or two companies, but historically speaking, Apple has been quite successful in pulling off successful innovations and its time that they grab the next big market. Here, I would be discussing about the wearable gadget – iLens to be the next contender in the realm of sophisticated gadgets’ race.
Whats iLens ? It’s a wearable gadget eye lens. ‘i’ in iLens associates the name with Apple company. You still wondering why? Read from the top again.

Now, that every product is shrinking and becoming more personal and touching, this has a natural appeal to be the next contender to replace hand held mobiles, wacky phones, pads, and tops. Things already in research and will-be-in market are:

  • Electronic LED Lens -  You can view like an Eagle – zoom-in/out -
  • Built-in eye motion recognition technology
  • Surface computing

Whats left? Nothing. Challenges are many to bring this technology in to market. First, miniaturization of its every aspect whether it be communication peripherals, power (electrical ?), processor, lens polymer sustainability with all the other parts,  and may be many more. Next step is to bring in the surface computing via lens-camera, e.g. to navigate pages or use virtual keyboard.

Considerable reserach work done  at University of Washington Seattle suggests that the future of iLens doesnt feel like out of the world. Its happening in our life time, for sure!

Bionic Contact Lenses

 Posted by Pixzr at 9:58 am  Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,

Advent of Electronic Paper Displays (EPD) – Electronic Ink, get rid of normal paper!

 Display, Technology, Tools  No Responses »
Sep 052010
 

Ever wondered or seen fancy videos in which newspaper, glassdoors, or books are digitized?

Changing colors, updating news articles, moving pictures, or live Twitter feed in your morning newspaper!

Well, the time is close when this technology will ‘comfortably’ be in public hands. There is a huge potential in electronic paper displays. Millions (becoming billions now) have already been invested in RnD at university research institutes & electronics companies like Sony, Philips NXP, or LG… (to mention the least). EPDs are also sometimes referred as Electronic Ink Displays. The technology behind electronic ink displays is the concept of electronic ink itself. It works like this

(- a grandma explanation),

First take a special very very thin plastic. This plastic surface has very very tiny cavities or holes or pockets. Fill these pockets with the ink (a subsctance). When filled, the wizard of electronics will apply the electronic charge to makde different shapes. Just imagine it as your computer screen. But, now you will be able to play around with the physical pixels ;)

To read a more technical explanation, read this article

Imagine the new advertising platform and the overall impact on the economy of any country with the advent of EPDs.

There are lots of advantages of this technology, like

  • No paper usage – No Tree cutting
  • Reusable – hookup with internet to get updated stuff
  • Paper production, magazine printing costs zero.
  • Another stream of revenue for publishers.
  • Customized news for each individual, because of-course it will become a wifi device, so you might want to get online as well :) (similar product like SmartScanner might be a handy application for this – an article on Pixzr)
  • Realtime distribution of news
  • The display technology can be used in windows, glassdoors, car windscreens, etc.
  • No physical distribution of newspapers/magazines required
  • …. and more

I have got few of these videos which I think, covers most of the things I mentioned above and are very informative,

Well, since this technology is in its infancy, lets learn something new here which is relevant to our hi-tech future,

EPD a.k.a. Electronic Paper Displays will allow the display medium (special plastic) to retain the information (text/images) without using any substantial power.

eInk a.k.a. Electronic Ink: is a specific proprietary type of electronic paper manufactured by E Ink Corporation, founded in 1997 based on research started at the MIT Media Lab. It is currently available commercially in grayscale only and is commonly used in mobile devices such as e-Readers and to a lesser extent mobile phones and watches. [Wikipedia]

Check these links for more info:

Electronic Ink : http://www.eink.com/technology/

EPDs: http://www.nxp.com/news/content/file_1054.html

 Posted by Pixzr at 5:03 am  Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
© 2011 Pixzr email: contact at pixzr dot com Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha