After Google has ended their wearable Glass journey, all the people interested in this type of wearable technology are wondering how this digital augmentation of their vision could proceed and how it may look like in the future.
Regardless of you call the Google Glass project a success or if you consider it a failure is up to you. As far as my judgement goes I really enjoyed the experience but in my own perception Google has never started selling these as final consumer products unlike the Android Wear devices which directly went into production state without a long test phase.
The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, also known for their more popular name “NASA”, is now working together with the San Francisco based company Osterhout Design Group (ODG) to produce a device that augments the astronaut’s view with digital information.
The technological conception behind the projection is different to the prisma that Google was utilizing for their Google Glass and might even allow information to be displayed within the helmet directly. It goes without saying that it is very important for astronauts to always be able to easily check the live data that they require for tasks they are carrying out in space.
Right now they have no means but reviewing instructions on printed sheets stapled together – not that tech savvy and not nearly as efficient as you would be on a computer on earth. Communicating with ground crew happens with an delay of approximately 20 minutes, so that is not a great solution either so this new device that is going to improve their productivity a great deal and might even increase their safeness in space if urgent environment information is displayed instantly in front of their eyes.
The R&D and engineering teams from both parties are working hard to make this solution happen soon and there is already a prototype being tested by astronauts and other crew members. We are excited by this news and can’t wait to see more of the solution and possibly a consumer version of this development.
Bloomberg: What Can Augmented Reality Glasses Be Used for?
Photo credit: ODG / NASA
Source: Bloomberg
