[ilya
Nearly four years, Google has released a video preview of what it might be like to use a augmented reality headset. He showed all kinds of useful information hanging in the corner of your vision, and the same information down in your perspective that you need to know critical details, such as how to get from one place to other. All we got was Google Glass
But now BMW takes some of the best ideas from this video and turn them into a product more useful. It's been a motorcycle helmet with a heads-up-display glass-like, allowing information such as speed limits, directions, and incoming phone calls to display in your view. BMW calls this helmet a concept for now, but there was a portable demo on display at CES.
The helmet has an exceptionally tight fit - I say this is normal for motorcycle helmets - and it took me a minute to get the eye in a place where I could read it. Once it was on, BMW put me on a stationary bike, with the roar, noise, and fans throwing wind in your face. He then started the bike out on a virtual drive with a screen in front of me posting a deserted road that winds past fields of grass and along the side of a cliff.
It is immediately clear why this technology is useful
Once the race started, a bright green box appeared in the center of my vision, with the increase the speed of the motorcycle displayed on the left and its smaller current speed displayed on the right. Note that, unlike BMW's promotional imagery, the demo I saw that included a color: green. The biggest problem for me was that the text was sitting just above the road. After adjusting the headset a bit, I am able to get to a comfortable place right where I could see my speed without taking his way. I do not know where the display is supposed to sit; BMW shows the bottom, but I can not even imagine how he would get there.
Yet even at this stage of the prototype, it was immediately clear how the BMW helmet can improve some of the key promises of glass. On one hand, this is a motorcycle helmet - not something you'll wear all day - so the eye can be much larger, making it easier to read. There is also a case of obvious and useful use: bikers do not have to look down to see their speed; it also offers relevant information - Traffic updates, maps, and so on -. they would not otherwise have a way to check
BMW hopes to put his helmet concept of a retail product in a few years. He probably still has a lot to do. While the display, which has an augmented reality eyepiece company called DigiLens already works well enough, much of the intelligence of the helmet - the ability to connect to the bike and your phone - seems to be incomplete, why BMW showed a script non-interactive demo. If BMW can get any work, this headset could be one of the first reality helmets plus a port value.
See all our CES 2016 news here