Ordinary Chaos

Tag: display

  • Even Realities G1 Smart Glasses Review: Superb Display, But Slow Info

    Even Realities G1 Smart Glasses Review: Superb Display, But Slow Info

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    I’ve been wearing the Even Realities G1 glasses for four months, and while many people have commented on my new frames, only two friends asked if my glasses were “smart.” For someone who wore Google Glass in public and lived to tell the tale, this technological anonymity is high praise indeed. They look like glasses you might actually want to wear, and they don’t draw unnecessary attention to your (OK, my) face.

    But as Clark Kent accessed his superpowers after taking off his spectacles, inversely, this mild-mannered reporter benefits from real-time language translation, access to AI, turn-by-turn navigation, and a personal assistant, all by keeping his glasses on.

    Most smart glasses, like the Ray-Ban Meta, rely on Bluetooth audio, but the G1 features a small but brilliantly effective heads-up display called the Holistic Adaptive Optical System, or HAOS. Look carefully at the lenses and you’ll see a faint rectangle in each eye. This is where a micro-LED optical engine projector displays crisp, green digital text (640 x 200 pixels). Glance up (choose the angle via the app) and a seemingly two-foot-wide text homepage appears to float around five feet in front of you. Considering all this, it’s astonishingly clever given how light and, well, normal the frames feel.

    The digitally surfaced lens is actually two bonded lenses but manages to be no thicker or heavier than a standard design. Prescription lenses cost $129 extra and, aside from the occasional glimpse of the projector screen in bright sunshine, works as well as any glasses I’ve ever owned.

    Nestled on the end of each arm you’ll find two rubbery nodules. These contain the battery, buttons, and antennae that exchange real-time data with your phone over Bluetooth. They’re marginally heavier than standard glasses, but because the weight is kept away from the nose, they feel good. The frames are made from solid magnesium and have a cool matte finish, with the temples coated in silicon for added grip. Add in screwless hinges and a classic oval shape, and you’ve got a stylish proposition even before you charge them up.

    Even Realities G1 Smart Glasses Review Superb Display But Slow Info

    Photograph: Christopher Haslam

    The charging case is equally well designed and holds enough power to recharge the glasses 2.5 times. The 60-mAh battery in the glasses has enough power for 1.5 days.

    So, they’re nice glasses—but what do they actually do?

    Virtual Assistance

    The idea of the G1 is not to replace your smartphone but rather to offer a pared-back interface that gives you help and information when you need it, then vanishes when you don’t.

    After installing the app and syncing the glasses, when you glance up you will see a screen with the date, time, battery level, and upcoming diary dates (assuming you’ve given permissions). You can also receive messages and alerts from social and messaging apps. You can’t respond to any messages, though, which seems both odd and a shame given the onboard microphones and the transcription software used.

    The right side of the main display is for QuickNotes. If you pinch the small box on the right arm, a note will flash up saying “Quick Note Recording.” When you speak, your words will be saved and displayed on the screen when you next look up. If you mention a date, time, or place, the AI assistant will add it to your diary. It’s great if you are a fan of voice notes. I’m not, but as someone who meets new people all the time but remains terrible at remembering names, I loved being able to have names, and even job titles, on display, for my eyes only.

    Translation

    Open up the Translate box on the Even Realities app, choose from one of 13 languages (including Mandarin, Japanese, and Korean), decide what language you’d like things translated into (in this case English), and press Engage. If someone then speaks to you in that language, the G1 glasses will listen, translate, and write the words on your HUD.

    Annoyingly, however, it’s no Babelfish. With one-on-one conversations it worked OK, and I enjoyed understanding my wife’s rusty Spanish. Similarly, I had success rewatching Squid Game without subtitles. But without someone wearing their own pair and translating my English, it is one-way traffic.

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  • Sphere duplicates world’s largest LED display dome for Middle East venue

    Sphere duplicates world’s largest LED display dome for Middle East venue

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    The team behind the Sphere, the incredible Las Vegas building that boasts bragging rights as the world’s largest spherical building and hosts the world’s largest LED display on its exterior, has revealed plans to create a second version in the United Arab Emirates.

    The Sphere will be located on an undisclosed prominent site in Abu Dhabi. We’ve no word yet on its exact size, but Sphere Entertainment Co.’s press release says it will echo the scale of the 20,000 capacity original in Vegas. This has a height of 366 ft (111 m) and a width of 516 ft (157 m), while its record-breaking LED display consists of roughly 1.2 million LED pucks, with each puck in turn containing 48 individual LED diodes.

    The Department of Culture and Tourism (DCT) Abu Dhabi will pay Sphere Entertainment Co. a franchise fee for the right to build the venue and will also handle construction costs, with Sphere Entertainment Co. providing expertise. The project is the next step in a larger plan to bring the Sphere to multiple countries around the world.

    “The vision for Sphere has always included a global network of venues, and today’s announcement is a significant milestone toward that goal,” says James L. Dolan, Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Sphere Entertainment Co. “Sphere is redefining live entertainment and extending the reach of its transformative impact. We are proud to collaborate with DCT Abu Dhabi to develop Sphere in their city.”

    The current Las Vegas Sphere's interior features an immersive display that wraps around the audience and so-called "4D" tech that allows audience members to feel a breeze, a change in temperature and even experience smells
    The current Las Vegas Sphere’s interior features an immersive display that wraps around the audience and so-called “4D” tech that allows audience members to feel a breeze, a change in temperature and even experience smells

    Sphere Entertainment

    Since its opening, the Vegas Sphere has been host to multiple shows and events, including a number of immersive U2 concerts. Alongside its headline-grabbing LED exterior, the interior is packed with high-tech audio and visual equipment, plus a haptic system and environmental effects that allow audiences to feel a breeze, a change in temperature, and even experience smells.

    This new Abu Dhabi Sphere follows an aborted attempt to bring the spherical venue to London, which was cancelled by London Mayor Sadiq Khan following concerns about light pollution and disruption for locals. We’ve no word yet on when it’s expected to be completed.

    Source: Sphere Entertainment Co.



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  • Biggest drone display in history puts high-def 3D screens in the sky

    Biggest drone display in history puts high-def 3D screens in the sky

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    October 1 is China’s National Day – and the high-tech metropolis of Shenzhen celebrated with an eye-popping spectacle: a record-smashing swarm display of 10,197 drones in concert, showing just how far this next-gen entertainment technology has come.

    Shenzhen, of course, is the heart of China’s high-tech sector, and home to a number of drone manufacturers, notably including DJI. So the city has been treated to some terrific 3D aerial displays in the past – indeed, just four days ago, the Guinness World Records YouTube channel posted a video celebrating the record that’s just been superseded.

    In the video below, you can see that previous 7,598-drone swarm, co-ordinated through a single laptop, creating three-dimensional aerial images in a range of colors, back at the start of September. Amusingly, it used more than twice as many drones as the record-holder before it, but held its record for less than a month.

    Incredible Drone Display is World’s Biggest Ever – Guinness World Records

    But it seems a month is a long time in this game, because the National Day display over Shenzhen Bay Park feels like a step-change in the development of this remarkable swarm tech.

    Check out the new record-breaking show, complete with rudimentary motion graphics, soaring rainbow birds, thunderbolts crashing down from heaven, a wild 3D drone mothership, complete with screens on the sides, and a stunning 3D representation of the city of Shenzhen itself.

    Shenzhen Celebrates Chinese National Day with Mesmerizing Drone-Performing Light Show

    Actual coordinated motion of the drones themselves in flight still seems quite slow, but with more than 10,000 aerial pixels in play, some of the most interesting moments happen when the swarm simply treats the sky as a big screen, achieving the impression of motion simply by turning drones on and off, or changing their color as if they’re static pixels.

    And while the ‘resolution’ of this flying screen seems fairly unimpressive in the official video above, perhaps the overall effect is better represented in the video below, shot by an onlooker from a distance.

    China, of course, is where fireworks were invented – around 1,200 years ago, according the the Smithsonian Science Education Center. The country has also comprehensively dominated the multicopter drone space over the last decade, with daylight second, and is home to most, if not all of the biggest volume drone manufacturing facilities on Earth, so it’s no surprise that China is leading the charge in pushing co-ordinated drone swarm display technology forward.

    And as the X caption above suggests, this stuff isn’t just for dropping jaws in extraordinary entertainment displays like this. Small, cheap, agile UAVs like these have proven themselves indispensable in today’s warfare, and co-ordinated swarms of thousands of these little critters, controlled by onboard and remote swarm AIs, darting about at over 120 mph (200 km/h) like racing quads, are going to cause problems.

    But those are problems for another day; these displays are becoming truly stunning, and they’ll doubtless continue to evolve into the greatest mass public entertainment technology we’ve ever seen. Awesome stuff.

    Source: CCTV Video News Agency



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  • Apple Watch Series 10 Review: Sleep Apnea Notifications and a Bigger Display

    Apple Watch Series 10 Review: Sleep Apnea Notifications and a Bigger Display

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    On its 10th birthday, the Apple Watch faces some serious challenges. While it’s still one of the world’s most popular smartwatches and fitness trackers, the wearables market has become flooded with dupes and wannabes. Additionally, there are few good reasons to upgrade to a new Apple Watch, especially since a hand-me-down Series 6 is compatible with the latest updates to watchOS and looks basically the same as a brand-new model. An older Series 6 also has blood oxygen sensing, a now standard health feature that the newest Apple Watches do not have due to a patent dispute with the health-tech company Masimo Corp. Finally, and most devastatingly, the Apple Watch also faces serious competition from the Google Pixel Watch 3.

    After a decade spent defining a new market, the Apple Watch is just not the only good-looking smartwatch—or the only smartwatch worth owning—around anymore.

    Charged with making this year’s Apple Watch irresistible, the company made a bunch of upgrades. The Series 10 now comes in a polished jet black finish that is indeed very shiny. The watch’s case is also much thinner and lighter, with a new S10 chip that is single-sided to be flatter, and a brighter, bigger, wide-angle display. The Series 10 now tracks your breathing disturbances while you sleep and can tell you if you might have sleep apnea. It charges faster, has a new speaker, a new depth gauge, and a new water temperature sensor. And watchOS 11 is still the best watch OS. It just is.

    The Watch Series 10 might not deserve breathless adulation, and I’m pretty sure Beyoncé isn’t going to release pap photos of herself wearing it (unless she does, in which case, my bad), but this is still just the best smartwatch for iPhone users. The absence of blood oxygen sensing is a significant obstacle, but at the end of the day, it’s still the watch that’s the hardest for me to take off.

    Big Views

    The most unbelievable thing about the Series 10 is that the display on the 46-millimeter model is actually bigger than the display on the 49-mm Watch Ultra 2. This trickery is accomplished through the miracle of geometry. The watch case has curved edges and the display extends down the sides, while the Watch Ultra 2 has a flat display and a titanium case that protects the corners from bumps and bangs.

    Two views of a smartwatch on someone's wrist showing the difference of the screen in direct and indirect sunlight

    Photograph: Adrienne So

    It’s also much thinner and lighter than previous watches, and it’s especially noticeable when compared to the 45-mm Google Pixel Watch 3; Google’s watch is 14.3 mm deep while the Series 10 is just 9.7 mm deep. I personally don’t have problems wearing big, chunky sports watches—the bigger the better, I always say—but I do know people, including my own husband, who can’t sleep while wearing one because they’re too big.

    The back is also now metal, both to incorporate some hardware changes and to improve the hand feel, although I don’t actually see or feel that much of a difference when I compare it to the previous Apple Watch’s ceramic back. I do love the polished aluminum jet black finish, even though it shows my greasy fingertips like whoa.

    The curved edges do echo the Pixel Watch 3’s design, but the screens perform differently. I compared the two watch screens and the Series 10’s does have a wider viewing angle; the Pixel Watch 3’s display becomes unreadable much more quickly than the Series 10’s when you twist the watch away from you. I have a hard time finding this change to be that useful—I am a very active working mom of two kids and two dogs, yet somehow even I don’t find flicking my wrist towards my face to be that difficult.

    2 smartwatches side by side with large screens and different wristbands

    Photograph: Adrienne So

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  • Color ePaper display ditches batteries for wireless power

    Color ePaper display ditches batteries for wireless power

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    E Ink screens are not only kinder to your eyes, but offer great battery life due to their low power draw. But a new display from Digital View doesn’t have a battery at all, and gets the juice it needs from an overhead Wi-Charge wireless power module.

    Before all you digital bookworms get too excited, this development will have limited appeal for e-reader devices – as screens won’t refresh and pages won’t turn when out of power transmission range. But it could be a good shout for advertising panels in retail stores, information points in museums or art galleries, timetables at transport hubs or dynamic notices in meeting rooms.

    The onboard Wi-Fi can receive remote updates for the always-on display while an overhead Wi-Charge module wirelessly powers a number of units simultaneously – with full draw for each display reported to be around 500 mW for Wi-Fi connection, image/info retrieval and write, though a standby mode needs significantly less.

    Content management can be undertaken remotely, and a single AirCord module can wirelessly power multiple displays
    Content management can be undertaken remotely, and a single AirCord module can wirelessly power multiple displays

    Digital View

    The puck-like AirCord power transmission module is listed as an available option on the ESP6-13 ePaper monitor’s product page, and will require prior overhead installation in the building where these displays are to be used. Wi-Charge says that each transmitter makes use of infrared technology to “beam several watts of power at distances of 30 ft or more to thumb-sized receivers” embedded in the Digital View displays.

    The 13.3-inch E Ink Spectra 6 color ePaper display has a resolution of 1,200 x 1,600 pixels and “is highly visible in normal ambient light and very bright conditions, making it ideal for public signage.” Each ESP6-13 monitor is housed in an aluminum frame and comes with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and USB-C connectivity built in.

    “This innovative display combines Wi-Fi connectivity with wireless power, enabling remote content management and an unprecedented flexibility in placement as it needs no wires or battery replacements by being powered wirelessly,” said Wi-Charge in a LinkedIn post.

    As is common with business-oriented technologies, pricing has not been revealed but companies and institutions wanting to learn more are invited to contact the company directly.

    Source: Digital View



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  • Erasable handheld display cube shows 2D, 3D and even animated images

    Erasable handheld display cube shows 2D, 3D and even animated images

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    A new kind of 3D display could take the form of an acrylic cube with an image inside, which can be erased and rewritten to easily. The new technique can be used to make 2D, 3D and even animated images.

    The new display starts with a basic PDMS polymer, which is treated with a chemical “switch” that makes it sensitive to light. The active ingredient in the switch is a compound called azobenzene, paired with boron difluoride to boost its reactivity to light.

    This chemical switch is activated when red light is shone on it, so an image can be etched into the polymer by projecting an image in red light onto it. Blue light or a little bit of heat can reset the image, allowing it to be rewritten easily.

    The team tested it in a few different ways. Two-dimensional images can be drawn onto thin films of the treated polymer pretty easily, as seen in the image of a dog above. But it gets cooler when projected into a cube 6 in (15 cm) thick – by projecting light at the cube from different angles, an image can be built up in 2D slices to form a 3D image. The end result kind of looks like an object is suspended inside the cube. And again, hitting the cube with blue light or heat erases the image, ready for the next one.

    A cube of treated polymer can build multiple 2D slices together to create 3D images inside
    A cube of treated polymer can build multiple 2D slices together to create 3D images inside

    Ivan Aprahamian

    The researchers suggest these rewritable, handheld 3D displays could find applications in architectural plans, or even showing medical scans of organs or bones in three dimensions.

    “This is like 3D printing that is reversible,” said Ivan Aprahamian, co-corresponding author of the study. “You can take any polymer that has the optimal optic properties – that is, it’s translucent –and enhance it with our chemical switch. Now that polymer is a 3D display. You do not need virtual reality headsets or complicated instrumentation. All you need is the right piece of plastic and our technology.”

    An animated cat, created using the light activated polymer
    An animated cat, created using the light activated polymer

    Ivan Aprahamian

    Cooler still, the team found that they could animate the 2D images in a 3D cube, by projecting multiple 2D images as frames. When you turn the cube, it looks like the image is moving. It’s an intriguing idea, and one the researchers say will only get better with more research.

    “Scaling up requires tuning the chemical switch properties to improve resolution, contrast, and refresh rate,” said Alex Lippert, co-corresponding author of the study. “The projector system can in principle be scaled up and developed into a turnkey system with automated hardware and associated software for easy use.”

    The research was published in the journal Chem.

    Source: Dartmouth College



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  • Shigeru Ban Architects Unveils “Paper Log House” on Display at Philip Johnson’s Glass House

    Shigeru Ban Architects Unveils “Paper Log House” on Display at Philip Johnson’s Glass House

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