Eight Uses For a Head-Mounted Display
Devices such as the Liteye HMD, as well as other "head's up displays", have already found a legion of uses from military to the industrial sector. Engineers can use them to see "inside" a machine, mapping it to a labeled diagram. Doctors can use them to map portions of the brain while they perform surgery. Police can use them to assist in tactical situations against criminals.
But what about smaller businesses? Like any technology, the market curve for head-mounted displays is slowly emerging into the range where it's affordable for the private sector. A general-purpose wearable computer with a display mounted so it hangs unobtrusively before your eyes has many possibilities. We could use our imaginations and come up with a few suggestions. Somebody, somewhere, will some day think of these ideas again, perhaps without even reading them here first.
Wiki your world.
What if you could look at the Eiffel Tower and have Wikipedia fetch the page on it at the same time? Image recognition is coming into a time when it's going to be at least practical for man-made objects. We already have engineers and scientists use HMDs to provide stereoscopic views of CAD diagrams which overlay what they're looking at. How about if you could use this while hiking and camping, for instance, to identify edible plants?
Write your blog.
With wearable devices getting more comfortable and portable every year, it's only a matter of time before you could wear a hip-mounted keyboard and touch-type an article, with the HMD serving as a review and research space where you could look up facts as you go. To write while walking may sound silly to the average person, but creative writers everywhere wish they had such a system. Finally, a way to capture those ideas that come to you when you're out walking!
Augmented reality games.
Now that HMDs are coming into their own era, trivial entertainment uses don't seem like such an extravagant usage when the price is coming within the range of high-end gaming systems. We already have the Nintendo Wii, with its famous active remote, which allows the simulated motion of swinging a golf club or wielding a sword. Now we could take it to the next step. Virtual reality headsets are a poor substitute, because being completely cut off visually from the outside world requires you to stay in one place while playing. But imagine a golf course with a Wii remote, real course terrain, and a virtual ball on an HMD, complete with real-time data feedback.
Aid your memory.
Many of us have a social handicap where it's challenging to remember other people's names. For people with ADD, Alzheimer's, and other memory deficiencies, having a personal, unobtrusive little "teleprompter" would be a godsend.
Lifestreaming.
Already, this use is being deployed, after a fashion. "Lifestreaming", as any Read/Write-Web or LifeHacker fan could tell you, is the technique of continuously sharing your life online. We already have head-mounted cams and microphones where users podcast their every waking (and sleeping) moment to their audience. An HMD would just be an extra feature.
Map your path.
This is another area that's already being deployed. GPS data is one of the chief applications of an HMD, for police and military use as well as pilots and navigators. the next step is simply to put that map data right in your eye, where you don't have to take your eyes off the road or the controls to receive instant positional feedback.
Watch your kernel compile.
Linux and BSD geeks, and programmers of every stripe, often tout their wonderful command line, which allows them to engineer at the speed of thought. Now imagine having a command console right by your head wherever you go. Just like with writers, programmers could turn coding into an activity that doesn't require you to live in a chair your whole life.
Cheat at Jeopardy.
OK, we're kidding. We don't mean to imply that Ken Jennings, the holder of the all-time record for the longest winning streak on the US-syndicated game show "Jeopardy!" was using anything but his natural brain power. Nope, it would be ridiculous to think that he cleared 74 games in a row undefeated using a pocket Wikipedia link and an HMD implanted in his temple. We wouldn't dream of suggesting such a thing! Even though he had such a freakishly encyclopedic knowledge of so many obscure topics, and was able to recall any fact on them in seconds. No, not at all.
Filed Under: Industrial Technology
