Sony’s got their own answer to virtual reality and augmented reality devices we’ve been seeing popping up from Oculus VR and Google – their SmartEyeGlass glasses are a direct competitor to the latter, and now a version of the chunky device is now ready for pre order in ten countries.
The glasses from Sony are a bit strange to look at, the chunky device using augmented reality to project a green image over both lenses at a resolution of about 419 x 138 pixels. This is a bit different to Google Glass’s projector, because Sony’s device overlays an image over the entire 3mm thick lens.
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Of course this less complicated monochrome technology allegedly allows for a longer battery life, but of course it’s not going to be much help in a world of wearables that’s already notorious for having not much battery power on board.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Bx7O_h09HKA
However, Sony’s SmartEyeGlass glasses have a whoel bunch of cool sensors and gadgets on board. you get an accelerometer that tracks when the device moves, a gyroscope that tracks position, as well as a brightness sensor and an electronic compass. All of these contribute to motion related functions, working together in concert.
Meanwhile, a CMOS image sensor can take 3MP images and 15fps QVGA video accounts for the visual functions of SmartEyeGlass. An odd feature of the glasses is a controller which is wired to the glasses themselves, which has an on board microphone, battery and speaker, as well as touch controls. It’s worth mentioning that among the VR devices currently being shown off, the controller is kind of unique to Sony’s product.
The development of SmartEyeglass came around sort of out of nowhere as Sony reacted to other products being demoed. In fact, the current pre order version of SmartEyeGlass is even a development version itself – known as SmartEyeglass Developer Edition SED-E.
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You can pre order your version of the device in the UK and US now for around £600 here or $800 in the US. SmartEyeglass will be released on March the 10th, but it still is a test version. Most likely test data will contribute to a more advanced model in the future.
With regards to what the device will look like in the future, you can count on the chunky look of the SmartEyeGlass being changed to something more aesthetically pleasing in the future. For now, they’re going to stay looking like a pair of ski goggles for a while longer.
Via: Techradar
Via: PC Mag