--News-- I've been kind of quiet for a while because we just finished a deal with a new company called TekGear. TekGear has purchased the manufacturing and marketing rights for the M1 and will be taking an aggressive position in supplying products for this industry. Pricing will be attractive and new products are on the horizon. More news to follow, I'm sure. --Displays-- Re: Ken's question: > Does anyone know when the next display that is better than > the M1 will be out? *Note* This is strictly my opinion There are a few factors driving this: 1. Component Manufacturer Support While interest for wearable computing products is growing at a very nice rate, the market for commercial devices is still quite limited. Micro display companies are well aware of this fact and are focusing their efforts accordingly. One micro display company had estimated that 98% of their business would be near eye (i.e. HMD) and 2% would be projection. 6 months ago they revised their estimate to 2% near eye and 98% projection. This is a radical and prophetic change. More and more, micro display companies are changing the way they approach their markets - as near eye is taking a back seat to the projection market. What does this really mean? While the displays are relatively the same, the support subsystems, such as optics, electronics, and illumination methods, are all optimized for a projection system. Support for HMD devices is limited and costly. This means more development costs, higher panel prices and in turn a higher HMD cost. In an effort to bring more affordable products to market - higher panel prices do not fit into the price:performance ratio currently dictated by the wearable computing market. 2. Lack of applications There are many uses for wearable computers and head mounted displays but most of the "killer apps" are based on hand held displays (>6" diagonal). The generic applications available today are applications that are intended to be run on a laptop with an SVGA screen. Current affordable HMD technology does not run these types of applications well. Custom applications, on the other hand, have the potential to be customized for the display. Larger font sizes, thicker lines, etc... are user definable. These custom applications are limited in number but are growing. This is a circular market validation issue (i.e."chicken or the egg"). Without a >SVGA HMD killer apps won't be developed, yet without killer apps, no one will develop an affordable >SVGA HMD for a general market as the market is limited. 3. Competing Markets While wearable computing is an exciting market, other, less "sexy", industries compete for the development dollar. Industries such as industrial video, surveillance, defense, and medical imaging require HMDs and are more than satisfied with today's micro display technology - monochrome QVGA. The M1, for example, was created for a medical imaging company. They drove the design, features, and performance due to their commitment for quantity. Other OEM's incorporate the technology into their product lines because it meets their target price:performance ratio. 4. Risk Manufacturers supporting the overall commercial HMD market have been historically small companies. (i.e. revenues <$6M) Building a product for a market is very risky - varying requirements, price sensitivity, competition, etc... Building a product for a customer is not - set requirements, known target price, no competition. Small companies seek to reduce risk, therefore, tend to look for specific customers and spin off the technology, created for the individual, to the market. The wearable computing market is emerging and unpredictable. This makes it exciting yet risky. Every manufacturer is working on their own unique formula on cracking this market and one day it will happen. Hold tight, you will want to be here when it happens! - Tony -- Subcription/unsubscription/info requests: send e-mail with subject of "subscribe", "unsubscribe", or "info" toWear-Hard Mailing List Archive (searchable): http://wearables.blu.org
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