Most heads-up displays work by putting a monitor close to your eyes, one way or another. cNet’s got a hands-on story about the Avegant Virtual Retinal Display, a prototype that actually projects images directly onto your retina.
It sounds creepy, but it is, after all, how people see: light hitting the backs of our eyes. There’s a key quote from Avegant‘s Allan Evens, co-founder and CTO:
“I was looking around and one day I realized that we don’t stare at things that glow, we stare at light.”
Turning that into a prototype turns out to be pretty hard. The current state of the art requires a lot of HDMI cables and a MacBookPro, not to mention a set of glasses that even a Borg would disdain. Avegant is shooting for something usable and Kickstartable by CES in January.
Obvious applications: medical, military, gaming.
Here’s an Engadget video:
Expensive? Sure. Complex? Absolutely. Compelling and practical? Stay tuned.