Advanced Television

‘Direct-to-Eye’ TV gets closer

January 28, 2016

Not so many years ago, Dr Abe Peled, the much-missed CEO – at the time – of content protection specialist NDS (now part of the giant Cisco Systems conglomerate) joked that until broadcasters started feeding programming direct into the brain, then his encryption system would be quite adequate!

But Peled’s cautionary forecast is now a bit closer if one company has its way.

The market was quite dismissive of Google’s eye-wear glasses, but it seems there’s a second wave of technology about to be presented to the market. Dr Harry Zervos, an analyst who specialises in Near To Eye technology (and published by IDTechEx) and commented on by Display Daily’s Steve Sechrist, highlights this new wave of smart eyewear, and in particular ‘eye-worn’ devices.

Zervos says the new creativity comes from contact lens developments, and in particular medical uses where labs have created bio-sensors for the eye, including devices that are small enough to carry on-board microprocessors with the objective of saving the sight of patients.

Sechrist reminds readers that Google, notwithstanding its Google Glasses development, is separately working via its Google X projects on auto-focusing contact lenses, again with medical applications.

He adds that at a recent presentation from IDTechEx, Canadian company Medella showed a prototype lens with modules that are likely to be needed to create an eye-worn display. This was first shown at the University of Washington, and reported in IEEE’s Spectrum report.

The concept is quite breathtaking, and in one contact lens, there’s an antenna, power-conversion technology, solar-cell, and a semi-transparent display. As Sechrist says: “We may indeed be coming full circle, as the display of the future may eventually be no (external) display at all. And after billions of dollars in capital investment, research and human visioning, isn’t that an interesting prospect?”

Categories: Blogs, Inside Satellite