Here's a good geek test. Show someone you know the photograph below and tell him or her it's a "head-mounted display." If this person understands what you are talking about and gets excited in any way, then he or she is a certifiable geek. However, if, like 99 percent of the planet, you just get a shrug of the shoulder or a plain "huh?" -- you are dealing with a regular human being.

Unfortunately both my wife and I were a little too excited when I brought home the item below, the Olympus Eye-Trek FMD-250W. It's what is known as a head-mounted monitor or display or sometimes just "video glasses."

Yes, it looks like something out of Star Trek or a 1990s virtual reality demo. But what it really is is a way to watch movies in giant-screen form. When you jack into the right hardware, it throws in front of your eyeballs the equivalent of a 62-inch video screen (seen from a six-foot distance). It has little earphones you plug into yourself to keep the sounds to yourself.

Depending on what you can afford, you can get models that allow you to plug into VCRs, DVD players, video game machines, even laptops. These don't come cheap -- from $400 for the low-end to about $1,200 on the other extreme.

Apart from the price, the other thing to know in advance is the fact that the human head was not engineered to look at such big images so close to your eyeballs. In fact, after 2.5 hours of continuous use, the machine gives you a warning and shuts down.

Video glasses are here to stay. As with most things technical, the quality of the picture will continue to improve and the price will continue to come down.

I know my mom would have mixed feelings about this. She would love the warning and auto shut-off. But she did always say, "don't sit so close to the TV!"

Visit the Olympus Eye-Trek site to learn more:
http://www.olympusamerica.com/cpg_section/cpg_eyetrek.asp

Write in to techguru@sree.net and let me know what you think.

 

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