An Israeli optics company says it has developed a
miniature video projector that turns regular
eyeglasses into a personal video screen.
The technology, which until now has only been
seen in movies such as Mission Impossible,
projects a widescreen video image unnoticeable to
anyone but the bespectacled individual.
"Imagine you're sitting in a meeting and you want
to read an e-mail you just click a button on the
phone in your pocket and you start reading away
while you're looking attentively at the person
who's giving the presentation," Ari Grobman,
business development manager at Lumus Ltd., said
in an interview.
Lumus has been approached by major manufacturers
of cellular phones and portable media players and
expects the product to be on the market during
2007.
Motorola Inc. is listed as an investor in the venture capital-funded company.
The product can be used as regular, corrective
eyeglasses, but it also creates an image matching
that of a 70-inch television screen viewed from
10 feet away, Grobman said.
The difference between this eyewear and ordinary
spectacles is only in the small, black box
attached to the earpiece that receives the video
signal and projects it into the lenses. The light
waves then travel through fiber optics within the
lenses where they are enlarged and directed at
the eyes.
Aside from watching movies and checking e-mails,
Grobman said the technology will eventually
provide drivers with virtual navigation through
GPS.