ISRAEL: Conventional eyeglasses turn into a video screen with the push of a button

Record ID: 395467

  • Title: ISRAEL: Conventional eyeglasses turn into a video screen with the push of a button
  • Date: 28th December 2006
  • Summary: COMPANY WORKER LOOKING THROUGH OPTIC DEVICE WORKER MOVING OPTIC LENS WIDE OF MAN WORKING ON OPTIC DEVICE
  • Embargoed: 12th January 2007 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Israel
  • Country: Israel
  • Topics: Science / Technology,Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
  • Reuters ID: LVA127JA6VG512FT4T18W022AXFO
  • Story Text: An Israeli optics company has developed a miniature video projector that turns regular eyeglasses into a personal video screen.
    The technology, which until now has only been seen in movies like Mission: Impossible, projects a widescreen video image unnoticeable to anyone but the bespectacled individual.
    The difference between this eyewear and ordinary spectacles is only in the small, black box attached to the earpiece that receives the video signal and projects it into the lenses. The light waves then travel through fiber optics within the lenses where they are enlarged and directed at the eyes.
    "Any one who want to use these eyeglasses can connect it either to a cellular or to an iPod and then use the video signal from here to project and to see the movie," said Yaacov Amitay, CEO of Lumus Ltd. who manufactures the special eyeglasses.
    Amitay said the company's product can be used as regular, corrective eyeglasses and once a cable or a wireless device is connected, the video projected turns the conventional glasses into a video screen.
    "And see a movie through these eyeglasses is equivalent to see a movie on a wide screen of 70 or even more inches at a distance of two or three metres (10 feet)," Amitay said at the company's office in the city of Rehovot in central Israel.
    Ari Grobman, business development manager at Lumus Ltd., said the company has been approached by major manufacturers of cellular phones and portable media players, and expects the product to be on the market during 2007.
    Motorola is listed as an investor in the venture capital-funded company.
    The company adapted its product to the trends of mobile electronics, Grobman said, such as video enabled iPods and and next generation mobile phones.
    The Israeli company's product differ from others in the world by its small size and natural looks, Grobman said.
    "Imagine you are sitting in a meeting and you want to read an e-mail. Currently right now we see a lot of people in meetings look down at their blackberries, simply, you know, look away from the person who is giving the a presentation which in often cases is something that is really rude. Imagine if you could be wearing your glasses, no body even knows that they are video glasses. You just click a button on the phone that is in your pocket and very simply you just start reading away and you are looking attentively at the person who is giving the presentation," Grobman said.
    Aside from watching movies and checking e-mails, Grobman said the technology will eventually provide drivers with virtual navigation through GPS.
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