Media players and web browsers in the form of eyewear, showing images superimposed with real landscape are no longer figments of human imagination. In Japan, Nikon has recently introduced its UP300x and UP300 head-mounted display (HMD) which can do everything I had just mentioned.
Called “all-in-one audio-visual gadgets,” (as they should be) the head mount is equipped with a single-eye display that has both media player and web browser (similarto that of the IE version 6) functionalities. The display shows the equivalent of a 51-inch screen within a 3 meter distance. Using Windows CE 5.0 Pro as the operating system, contents from the computer can be copied through the use of a USB.
In the words of Tatsurou Hokugou from Nikkei Electronics (from Nikkei Shimbun or Nikkei Newspaper, Japan’s equivalent of Wall Street Journal):
“When I actually used the player, images looked floating in the real landscape. The “multi selector” on the external side of the headphone is used for operation. A directional keypad and a wheel selector are equipped in the multi selector.”
Nikon’s UP300 and UP300x will start shipping by mid-December. Pre-orders will be taken starting October 15 with the headsets costing around US$1,000 per. Future, here we come.
Via Nikkei
