Hasta La Gadget!

The next generation in 3D visuals may well have just been revealed by Sony in a device called the HMZ-T2 Personal 3D viewer. This device has been almost secretly revealed at IFA 2012 with just a peep spoken by Sony – it bringing on a next-generation look and perhaps a bit more viable final product than last year’s model HMZ-T1. This device is ready to bring on a wearable 3D display for anyone willing to put the massive Geordi LaForge mask.

This device is a wearable device that won’t be gaining you the same cool points that Google’s Project Glass will, but you’ll certainly be paying a bit less in the end. Inside you’ve got a pair of 0.7-inch OLED monitors with 45 degree viewing angles. What you’ll be working with for audio is some next-level Virtualphone technology for virtual surround sound. That’s 360-degree 5.1 surround sound, for those of you hoping to get in full immersive mode.

The HMZ-T2 from Sony has a set of detachable and adjustable light shields for privacy when you’re in your own 3D world, and you’ll be able to clip them on or off whenever you like. You’ve got the ability to work with both 2D and 3D when you want, and the whole device is 20% lighter than last year’s offering.

You’ll be able to play games on your own or share with others what you’re seeing with a lovely dual-output switcher. You can have one person watching TV while another person plays games – we’re looking forward to seeing that happen, of course, as it seems pretty crazy indeed. This device will be working with a variety of systems for content and will be showing up on the market later this year!

Sony HMZ-T2 Personal 3D viewer changes your perspective is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

I read in bed a lot. I also watch TV in bed a lot. In fact, there’s a lot of things I do in bed that I probably shouldn’t (like eat dinner – yes, I do that sometimes), but sometimes, I just can’t help it. It’s just too comfortable.

Of course I do all that sitting down or propped up on my back with pillows. But in case you’re the type who actually prefers to lie down while doing all these (except for eating, that is), then you’ll be pleased to hear about Prism Glasses.

They’re kooky-looking eyewear that will “bend” your vision by ninety degrees so you can actually see “straight”, even when you’re lying down. With the glasses on, you can now read your favorite magazine or catch a rerun of Friends on TV without having to sit up.

The Prism Glasses are available online from Whatever Works for $24.99 (USD).

[via Dvice]

Have you ever boarded a submarine before? I am quite sure that when you were younger, you must have experimented with a particular scientific project that involved mirrors and tubes of cardboard, creating your very own periscope in the process. Well, the $24.99 Prism Glasses that you see here works in pretty much the same way, although you will not be sighting U-Boats and hoping to send one of the enemy’s subs down into the abyss, but rather, it will help you perform your bedtime reading ritual in a far more comfortable manner, as you can now just read a book that is resting on your chest without experiencing any neck cramps or eye strain.

Clever and innovative use of the Prism Glasses will also help you watch TV while you lie down lazily on the sofa or bed, as it does away with the need to raise your head. Apart from being ideal for those who want to chill out, it is also perfect for folks who do have some form of limited mobility.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Ultrasonic goggles help visually impaired get around in a safer manner, User-adjustable glasses is adaptable,

This week the folks in charge of social media surrounding the Google Project Glass hardware on order right this second have created a set of Hangouts for the betterment of the project – but it didn’t turn out all that great this afternoon. The first set of Google Glass Explorers hangouts ended in mass confusion and hopeful users ending up finding out little, if anything, about Google Glass that they didn’t already know. Google Glass product manager Steve Lee and community manager Sarah Price hoped to hear feedback and ideas throughout the day.

To hear feedback from users of the device which isn’t actually on the market yet, Lee and Price noted that they’d be “hopping into as many hangouts as possible.” Participants in the event were encouraged to start their own hangouts and get to chatting about Google Glass as soon and as much as possible. The result, without much if any direction, was a collection of video chats with users saying things like “what are we supposed to be doing here?”

This is the first event of many, we expect, from the Explorers project we saw launched last week. In-depth talks and informative releases will be appearing soon with what we must expect will be more direction than we’ve seen this afternoon. People invited to the Explorers club were either Google I/O participants or people who took the opportunity to purchase the early release of Google Glass that will be sent out at the start of 2013.

At the moment we’ve only to wait for more information on the project as Google distributes it. When the Google Glass units are distributed early next year, developers as well as hardcore Google lovers will be able to send out information on their own, and the final consumer-ready version will be prepped before the end of 2013 – or so tips have tipped.

Google Glass Explorers hangouts create chaos is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

This week we had a brief chat with Will Powell, a developer responsible for some rather fantastic advances in the world of what Google has suddenly made a very visible category of devices: wearable technology. With Google’s Project Glass nearer and nearer reality with each passing day, we asked Powell how his own projects were making advances at the same time, and how he saw advances in mobile gadgets as moving forward – and possibly away from smartphones and tablets entirely.

Those of you unfamiliar with Powell’s work, you can hit up the following three links and see the videos of the projects he’s done throughout this post. Some of the products Powell uses are the Vuzix STAR 1200 AR glasses, Raspberry Pi – the fabulous miniature computer, and of course, a good ol’ fashioned ASUS Eee Pad Transformer.

• Raspberry Pi takes on Google’s Project Glass
• DIY Project Glass makes Google’s AR vision real
• Will Powell brings on AR vision real-time translation

SlashGear: Where you working with wearable technology before Google’s Project
Glass was revealed to the world?

Powell: Yes at Keytree we were working with wearable technology before the unveiling of project glass. I was working on CEO Vision a glasses based augmented reality that you could reach out and touch objects to interact or add interactive objects on top of an iPad. I have also had lots of personal projects.

SG: What is your ultimate goal in creating this set of projects with
Raspberry Pi, Vuzix 1200 Star, etc?

P: I would say that the ultimate goal is really to show what is possible. With CEO Vision at Keytree we showed that you could use a sheet of paper to interact with sales figures and masses of data using the SAP Hana database technology. Then creating my own version of project glass and now extending those ideas to cover translations as well, was just to show what is possible using off-the-shelf technology. The translation idea was to take down barriers between people.

SG: Do you believe wearable technology will replace our most common mobile tech – smartphones, laptops – in the near future?

P: Yes I do, but with an horizon of a couple of years. I think that with the desire for more content and easier simpler devices, using what we are looking at and hearing to tell our digital devices what we want to find and share is the way forward. Even now we have to get a tablet, phone or laptop out to look something up. Glasses would completely change this because they are potentially always on and are now adding full time to at least one of our fundamental senses. Also many of us already wear glasses, according to Vision Council of America, approximately 75% of U.S. adults use some sort of vision correction. About 64% of them wear eyeglasses so people are already wearing something that could be made smart. That is a huge number of potential adopters for mobile personal information delivery.

I think we still have a way to go with working out how everything will fit together and how exactly we would interact with glasses based technology. With the transition from a computer to tablets and smartphones we opened up gestured with glasses we have the potential to have body language and real life actions as interaction mechanisms. And it would be the first time that there is no keyboard. There is also the potential for specifically targeted ads that could end up with us having some parodies come true. However, I do think we will have an app store for a glasses based device in the next few years.

SG: What projects do you have coming up next?

P: I have many more ideas about what glasses based applications can be used for and am building some of them. I am creating another video around translation to show the multi lingual nature of the concept. Further to that, we are looking at what areas of everyday life could be helped with glasses based tech and the collaboration between glasses users. The translation application highlighted that glasses are even better with wide adoption because Elizabeth could not see the subtitles of what I was saying without using the TV or tablet.

Stick around as Powell’s mind continues to expand on the possibilities in augmented reality, wearable technology, and more!

Wearable technology developer exclaims massive adoption potential is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.