Michel Bajuk
X-ray vision and wireless Internet access may soon turn ordinary reporters to real- life Clark Kents. Hi-tech sunglasses with groovy features will also provide future super-reporters with vast database access, extraordinary communications capabilities and advanced analytical tools. All this voice-controlled with a user-friendly interface.
Science fiction? No. It may seem to be inspired by a William Gibson novel and the cult series Max Headroom. But journalists and other demanding information consumers will soon get cybervision.
This may be the most glamorous version of the head-mounted display, businesspeople will be able to access their office databases in New York while meeting counterparts in Singapore, and salespeople will never be without that little bit of information they need to close a deal.
Maybe the first models will not carry all the features mentioned above. But soon enough they will.
“Our goal is to create new generation portable computers. Machines with applications making it possible to perform advanced functions on the run,” says Professor John Pavlik, director of the Centre for New Media at Columbia University, New York.
The mobile journalists terminal (MJT) he has been working on is an interdisciplinary project co-managed with Steven Feiner, a computer science professor and manager of the Graphics and Users Interfaces Lab.
Cutting-edge technology is being implemented in the MJT: architects have developed systems to visualise hidden structures in buildings, while linguists are training computers to build advanced voice-recognition software. Programmers, mathematicians and applied physics academics are creating search engines with the ability to search visual content in pictures.
The system is called augmented reality, where information from the virtual world is overlaid on top of the real world.
This is where the device will find perhaps its most practical function: providing technicians with a visual overlay of whatever piece of machinery they are repairing. The applications will be similarly useful for ambulance personal, who may need critical information to save lives in the field.
Ultimately, says Feiner, the computer which will run the sophisticated head-mounted display system could fit into a packet of cigarettes.
But, at the moment, the head-set is a large set of glasses attached to a kind of helmet, with earphones – like the devices used to play virtual reality games. The computer which runs it is carried in a backpack and weighs 18kg.
The display’s semi-opaque menu offers pull- down menus, which is controlled by a mouse the user can access with their right hand.
The headset allows the wearer to view with either text information, video-clips or still photographs – all of which can be accessed through the Internet and come complete with sound bites.
Cordless communication will be supplied through increasingly sophisticated cellular networks or low orbiting satellite “constellations”, Pavlik envisages, providing sufficient bandwidth reception anywhere in the world.
He sees their augmented reality display possibly becoming a new interactive media that could provide news, Internet access, mapping and address guides to the general public.
Pavlik believes the device has a potential to become the “killer- application” of all new information and multimedia technology – if it can make it to the consumers’ market.
In two to four years he thinks the first terminal will be available, for about $1 000 (R5 250), and will be about the same size as an ordinary CD-player. The head-worn display will be replaced by something similar to a pair of ordinary glasses.
And like everything else to hit consumer shelves, he plans an exciting design for thier “specs”. “We want to create a useful terminal that people really want to wear,” says Pavlik.
Maybe they can even get Oakley to design the shades.