CEO Paul Travers on what the new Wrap range means for mobile entertainment.
Remember the days when Virtual Reality was the next big thing? Paul Travers does – he was working on head-mounted displays as long ago as 1992.
And while VR may have been ultimately been seen as a consumer technology gimmick, the technology behind it continued to evolve thanks to serious applications in the defence and healthcare industries, among others.
As CEO of Vuzix Corporation, Travers has been active in those fields, but he’s also been refining the technology for consumers in the last five years, with a series of ‘video eyewear’ products, capable of being plugged into mobile devices, portable DVD players and PCs.
The latest incarnation, the Wrap range, was unveiled in London this week. The big selling point of the Wrap230, Wrap280 and Wrap920 is that when plugged into a device and worn, they give users the equivalent of a 44-inch to 67-inch viewing screen.
“They look much more like a conventional pair of sunglasses,” says Travers. “The first headsets we launched five years ago were more like something you’d see in Star Trek!”
The boom in mobile entertainment is what’s fuelling Vuzix’s consumer business today, according to Travers. “The largest portion of our sales today is related to watching movies,” he says. “But it’s a really easy fit too with the streaming video that’s coming in on devices like the iPhone.”
The Wrap series includes support for 3D movies – currently all the rage in Hollywood – with Travers saying Vuzix is working hard to understand which 3D formats will prevail among the 50+ different technologies currently being touted.
“It’s hard to tell who’s going to win that war, but we’re making sure that over time we support the best standards out there,” he says.
“The mobile space could lead the way in 3D content delivery though. Today, using a pair of video eyewear, anyone can watch a movie like Coraline in 3D on their phone, without needing to get a new handset first. In the home, you’re looking at needing a $4,000 LCD television set, or using something like anaglyph technology, which does a frankly poor job.”
However, an equally interesting mobile area for Vuzix right now is augmented reality – applications overlaying data onto the camera feeds of handsets. AR is causing a big stir on platforms like Android and iPhone at the moment, and Travers thinks it’s an ideal fit for his company’s products too.
“It’s getting a lot of notice, but for now you’ve got to hold your phone up and have the camera pointed at the real world, walking about like you’re looking for water in the desert!” he says.
“It will really take off when there’s a heads-up display in your sunglasses so you can walk down the street and there it is. Pick the name of any augmented reality company today, and we’re working with them.”
More than 2,000 copies of Vuzix’s SDK have been downloaded by developers already, says Travers, who says he saw some innovative apps based on the eyewear at the recent ISMAR 2009 augmented reality conference. No wonder he’s got ambitious visions of the future.
“Over time, you’ll be able to wear these walking down the street, and they’ll function just like conventional sunglasses,” he says. “They’ll be see-through, but as you’re walking past a McDonalds a Big Mac might jump out at you!”
A frightening prospect, if we’re honest. But Travers says another new feature will be incorporating cameras into the eyewear, with announcements planned around the CES show next January.
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