← Back to context

Comment by pentaphobe

3 days ago

Neat, but hardly a world first (the original title said "...the world’s first direct retinal projection display...")

I first read about direct retinal projection displays (using oscillating mirrors no less) in Mondo 2000 [^1]

Hard to find much on the "Private Eye" hardware as I guess Reflection Technology (the manufacturer) went outta business in the mid 90's

But a 700x280 display painted onto your retina that looked like a full-ish size display hovering in space nonetheless, and downright epic for 1989

[^1]: https://microship.com/winnelife-interview-with-steve-roberts...

For the curious, a bit more info and some pics on these sites

https://glassdevelopment.wordpress.com/2014/04/17/hmd-histor...

https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/reflection-technolog...

11 comments

pentaphobe

Reply
manbitesdog  11 hours ago

I contacted Bosch in 2020 about buying BML500P retinal projectors in bulk, but they postponed the sale for several months because they were in talks with a major undisclosed customer about potentially exclusive rights to the patent. I never heard back.

SapporoChris  2 days ago

"TDK demonstrates the world’s first direct retinal projection display for smart glasses using a meta-optic mirror". The qualifier is different. "using a meta-optic mirror" versus "using oscillating mirrors"

I appreciate your comment on the history.

  • m463  3 hours ago

    lol, qualified claims are funny.

    I remember reading that Sunnyvale CA was the safest city in the US!

    I looked at wikipedia, and they say that too.

    > Sunnyvale has consistently ranked as one of the safest ten cities (for cities of similar size) in the United States according to the FBI's crime reports.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunnyvale,_California#Crime

    also: "According to Sunnyvale's Department of Public Safety, confirmed gang members make up less than one percent of the population"

    With the qualifiers, is it actually safe there? :)

sleepybrett  8 hours ago

I saw a demo retinal dispaly at the university of washington in the late 90s.

  • specialist  6 hours ago

    At the HITlab?

    I interviewed Dan Bricklin in '88 or '89 (for a magazine). Trippy dude. Lots of ideas.

    Bricklin stated the optic nerve is exposed brain. So that when a laser projects an imagine directly on to the retina, it's like programming the brain.

    Nope.

    I decided right then and there I never needed a laser pointing at my eye ball.

kotaKat  11 hours ago

Don't forget the Sony DSC-HX99 retinal projection camera kit, built with QD Laser. They had a custom RETISSA NEOVIEWER commissioned for the camera to allow for low-vision users to leverage it for photography.

Sadly no longer available. I've seen through one and it was vividly clear and detailed without my glasses on at all and it felt so gamechanging to have that kind of display technology in my hands.

https://electronics.sony.com/imaging/compact-cameras/all-vlo...

It's now transformed though, into the RETISSA VIEWCLEAR for your phone - https://retissa-vc.qdlaser.com/en/