20 ingear TECH & NET thesundaytimes.co.uk/ingear 19.06.11 21 STNMAST2008 Aldwych @coffeebar Proceed 200yds free danish with any the world will never latte 1hr only!!! look the sAme AgAin Jess Augmented reality glasses take what you can see and add what you want to Status single Likes cyclists see. Mark Harris, right, has an exclusive trial — and can’t believe his eyes [email protected] FYI yr rear mudguard f all your sunglasses do is protect smartphone or tablet, will deliver one corner and information about cafes that the price will come down. iPhone, tablet or laptop connected by a your eyes and make you look cool, messages, navigation updates, Twitter highlighted as you pass. The glasses can “This is the product people have short cable. It’s this device that’s looks loose get ready to upgrade them. New feeds — whatever you request. The also show characters and scenes from been waiting for,” says Paul Travers, finding the location-based information, hi-tech shades are coming that will technology, made available for The computer games, bringing fantasy into president of Vuzix. “Imagine a graphics and messages that will be combine the power of today’s Sunday Times to test in prototype form, the real world. In the future, Vuzix role-playing game in which you are overlaid on your view of the world — a cleverest smartphones with the uses the principle of augmented reality glasses will be able to translate being stalked through real streets by a technology already working on iability to deliver information and (AR) to overlay words and images on the foreign-language posters into English. life-size fire-breathing monster. smartphone apps. Vuzix is already in entertainment where you can’t fail to real world that you see through the Early models will be expensive — the Dungeons & Dragons will never be the talks with AR companies such as Layar notice it — right in front of your eyes. glasses. Vuzix Star 1200 glasses due to go on sale same again. We already have over 3,000 and Wikitude to make their virtual You no longer have to fish out your If you are jogging you may want your later this year will cost $5,000 (£3,100) developers working on creating apps for worlds available on its sunglasses. Users mobile and navigate a tiny touchscreen. route superimposed on the view ahead, — but the manufacturer is betting their our glasses.” will be able to choose from thousands of Instead, these shades, connected to a with speed and distance information in use will quickly become widespread and The glasses receive data from an AR layers to view — ones where the streets are tagged with virtual computer art, ones that highlight high-street The CycleShop bargains and even ones that show only the location of parties. For bike repairs and sales, seeing things: how the glasses turn data into ‘reality’ Sitting between your eyes and the dark lenses are a pair of transparent turn left Stereo speaker Video display unit (cameras, Conventional outer lens lenses called beam splitters (see panel, not shown, clip on top) left). Video images are projected down VuZiX sTar 1200 ar through these, which use optical If you cycled into town wearing the new glasses, you might see, overlaid on your view, local business information, relevant tweets and even Facebook information on passers-by GLASSEs coatings to redirect polarised light into vuzix.com your eyes. The resulting images look Displays Twin WVGA (852x480) crisp, solid and colourful and hover in says Travers). The beam splitters make glasses, just above your sightline, and with Travers in a Starbucks in Seattle The technology has a long way to go. The company recently won a contract LCDs with beam splitters mid-air at a comfortable distance. the experience equivalent to watching a even more possibilities open up. The and there’s a robot dancing on the table. The prototype I borrowed is the from the US government to develop a Video 2-D or 3-D The experience jars a little at first. It 75in widescreen TV from 10ft away. The cameras work with apps running on the If I turn the paddle or my head, the equivalent of the first fax machine or high-definition microdisplay with Virtual screen size 75in widescreen takes some effort to divide your images are bright enough to see indoors computer or smartphone to recognise robot shifts seamlessly to match, even the first mobile phone: clunky, see-through holograms. Wireless equivalent at 10ft distance attention between high-resolution and out. certain symbols. When the cameras boogie-ing upside down when I flip the expensive and unattractive (the connections to smartphones are also on Audio Stereo sound with removable graphics and the real world, but it soon “We started out selling head-up pick up an image — say a barcode or an paddle. The cameras are recognising the addition of the cameras, which are the cards. noise-isolating earphones starts to feel natural — especially when displays for the defence industry and we advertising hoarding with a particular black and white symbol and projecting made of ugly black plastic, eliminates “The holy grail is for us to make Connects to iPhone, PC, Mac, media the images line up with reality. still make a number of systems for the shape or pattern — the app can overlay an animated 3-D object on top of reality. any last vestige of style). But at least it’s interactive displays that are player, TV The Star 1200s can also work as video US military,” Travers says. “Our glasses a virtual reality image. To demonstrate, High-street businesses displaying a arrived. indistinguishable from normal Weight 85g glasses for watching films streamed are used to control drones and direct Travers hands me a cardboard paddle to symbol could trigger similar Vuzix is working on slimming down sunglasses,” says Paul Travers. “And Price $5,000 (£3,100) from a phone or media player. They use bomb-disposal robots and for making hold in front of my face. In the real animations. That could make a trip to its AR displays. It already has high-end that’s not five years or 10 years down Cable to phone Adjustable nose bridge Beam splitter Available Late summer a built-in accelerometer and gyro video calls over radio in the most hostile world, it shows just a plain black and the shops more exciting. Some military eyewear that does away with the line; it’s much, much closer than or computer sensors to compensate for movements conditions.” white design. Through my glasses, companies have even demonstrated AR miniature LCD screens and beam that.” of your head. Quality is not quite Add the pair of miniature detachable though, I see a fully-formed 3-D robot apps that can recognise individuals splitters in favour of thin sheets of Get ready for a future so bright we’ll high-definition (that’s coming soon, cameras that clip on to the bridge of the moving and dancing on it. I’m sitting from a database of faces. transparent plastic called waveguides. all be wearing shades. ThE lEgEnd of ZElda: oCarina of TimE 3d iphone GAMinG GAMES HHHHH Nintendo 3DS; £40. new titles this week Age 12 Stuart Dredge reviews the hanging WiTh PoCket god: best new games for the friEnds JournEy To uranus Thirteen years old, this classic iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad HHHHH HHHHI game — now retooled for the £1.19 59p Child of EdEn 3DS with enhanced graphics MemnEon HHHHI and glasses-free 3-D — is still HHHHI Hanging with Friends is the Schoolboys and the immature Xbox 360 (with Kinect); enchanting. You play as a 59p sequel to a hugely popular will appreciate the title. £40. Age 7 character called Link, a jerkin- iPhone title, Words with Friends. Everyone else will simply enjoy clad hero who must navigate Nintendo was once the brains The latter was a Scrabble-like the ingenuity of this excellent The storyline is suspect and the dungeons and fight with sword, behind “memory gaming”, thanks word game where you spin-off from one of the first psychedelic graphics may seem shield and magic spells to to its Dr Kawashima titles for the competed online against many iPhone hits, Pocket God. That more suited to a nightclub than a prevent the evil Ganondorf from DS. Memneon is out to steal the players at a time. Hanging with game saw you playing a deity to video game, but don’t be put off. taking over the world. Also fictional doctor’s crown — and Friends attempts the same a tribe of cartoon characters Child of Eden is one of the best reasons so far to invest in a Kinect. In the distant future, the Eden of the title is an crucial to solving puzzles is your skill at playing the ocarina, a flute-like instrument. it’s one of the most impressive trick, this time with hangman. living on an island; this time electronic archive containing a record of humanity’s history. It’s under attack from a mysterious virus — and Sounds complicated? In fact the game is easy to pick up, thanks to the simple-to- memory games available for You can play up to 20 games at round you get to take your that’s where you come in. Flying over the landscapes of geometric shapes and luminous gardens that represent understand controls, while good use is made of the 3DS’s second screen as a way Apple’s smartphone (and the a time with friends (or subjects into space.