New Virtual Screens and Improved Batteries Could Revolutionize Handhelds

She looks like a Borg Babe on Star Shrek! If you want to be picked on and look like a total geek, this looks like the product for you. In order to be socially acceptable, they need to make the display fully conceiled into a form factor similar to the sunglasses worn by Keaneau Reeves in The Matrix.

RTA = Read The Article

"The company will spend the next 18 to 24 months reducing the size, weight, power consumption and, especially, cost of the miniature display."

That's the prototype. Of course the final version will be much smaller Read before you open your mouths. You'll look less dumb.

I disagree with the socially acceptable aspect. It probably took quite a while before spectacles were considered socially acceptable by the medieval Europeans and Chinese. Those were times when looking nerdy could get your head lopped off. Nevertheless, the world eventually looked past the obvious aesthetic issues to see the merit in being able to stare at the opposite sex behind a pair of dark shades. So bring on the Borg babe and those luscious lips -- assimilate me baby.

It's called progress, men.

As usual, you have missed the point. This is about a display that is only a couple of inches across that can display a SVGA screen. NOT about a device you clip to your head. You've totally ignored an amazing bit of technology and focused on a limitation of the prototype.

OF COURSE, the final version won't be this big. It will probably look like a pair of glasses wirelessly connected to a handheld device you write on. Or maybe you'll only hold it up to your eye during the few seconds you need to check the address you are looking for. I don't know.

Geez, have some vision. Some of you seem incapable of understanding that electronics always get smaller and better. You've seen it all your life but it somehow hasn't sunk in. What you are looking at is a prototype, not available for sale, that the company is going to spend 2 YEARS working to make smaller. Think about how much smaller and better all types of electronics get in 2 years.

Now keep your dumb comments to yourselves and wait until a real version gets shipped in 2004.

Will Bluetooth be fast enough though to keep refreshing the screen, entering text, etc?

This is amazing technology people. Before we know it, we'll just have to wear glasses, eye or sun, to use our PDA. Wouldn't surprise me if this had a little piece of plastic (like 5x3 inches), where you enter in text, "tap", etc. Also wouldn't surprise me if this used a mouse like interface to get around. Anyhow, very cool!

Mario
PalmInfoCenter Moderator

Where's the accessories???! I want a big slide-on modem! I want a leather belt-clip case.

New Technology?

Only if you ran this story three years ago!

I hope it's not going to take them 2 years to shrink the bloody thing. They are alway way behind the technology curve.

hmmm.. those shade... still look pretty big.. if only the screen was thinner it might look decent...

A guy was driving along in his car, dialing on his mobile phone, when he ran into a wall. Too bad. This caused mobile phones to not catch on anywhere in the world. If it weren't for this, billions of them might have been sold. Too bad.

Yeah they'll be playing Bejeweled instead of looking for some terrorists.

*Person walking along, then all of a sudden...* "THE BLUE SCREEN, THE BLUE SCREEN!!!! THE HUMANITY!!!! THE PAIN!!!"

In less than 20 years this will be built into your EYE.

Actually, there was a Japanese animated series about that very concept. The neat thing about it, was that this guy's eye had access to every public and private network on earth and he could interact with it purely by thought!

Here's more info on it if anyone's curious:

http://makeashorterlink.com/?S12F12D6

8==8 Bones 8==8

> Dude, talk about being a geek.

"Dude", if you looked in the dictionary for the the word "geek", you'd find a picture of someone dressed better than you are. Posting comments onto sites like this one makes you a major league geek. Either accept it or go watch some football and never come back.

What makes you think its energy is "higher than normal" under normal use?

My main concern would be that the scanning hardware would fail. Then, you would indeed have a high intensity beam of light focussing on a tiny part of your retina.

i agree with ssummer, I use my palm intensely now, such a gadget would require a big amount of light to be readable, judging by the fact that the display would relatively far from your eye (see photo).

I thought the comments were fairly amusing in parts -- I enjoy reading this site when I have a little downtime to get a laugh; it's better than a lot of the other websites out there today. The batteries thing is definitely the big news, as long phosphate can be substituted for cobalt. I'm not a chemist but I didn't think you could do that... As at least one comment points out, virtual head-up displays are nothing new. They've even made it onto Cadillacs in recent years. Anyway, I'm impressed that you guys don't feel like big geeks when you pull out your handheld in the middle of party to jot down someone's e-mail address. There's a reason why telephone numbers only have 7 digits, guys -- to make them easy enough to remember that even you can manage it...

its 10 digits in my area now....

If it was even larger, it could have other, ahem, recreational uses.