Wearable computing is shaping up to be the next big trend (or fad?) in technology, with Google presenting its Project Glass headset in spectacular fashion at this year’s Google I/O conference and news of Apple recently being granted a head mounted display patent. Looking to get its share of the spotlight, Olympus has announced its very own prototype of a glasses-mounted heads-up display (HUD): the MEG 4.0.
The Japanese firm has actually been working on wearable displays for a few years, but seeing how Google is moving the technology closer to consumers the timing seemed right to unveil its latest prototype.
The MEG 4.0 floats a 320 x 240 screen above the user’s regular eye-line and hooks up via Bluetooth to a nearby smartphone or tablet. It weighs around 30g and has up to 8h of battery life in intermittent display mode that will automatically turn on the display every 3 minutes during 15 seconds only.
There’s also a built-in accelerometer to detect the position of the user's head and react accordingly, but unlike Google, which has shown the potential for photography and even video conferencing with Project Glass, Olympus didn’t include a camera in their MEG 4.0 prototype.
There was no mention of pricing or availability or even a video demonstration of the technology.
For its part, Google has already opened preorders for an early "Explorer Edition" of its Project Glass head-mounted display but it is limited to I/O attendees and costs a whopping $1,500. Those should arrive early next year while a more consumer friendly rollout is planned for sometime during 2014.
