ITRA Glass Technology, see the Future!

It really is incredible how many hours we each spend in front of a digital display these days  whether it be in the home, in the office, on holiday even at school, now it seems the race is on to bring us even more digital content while on the go! I myself spend a lot of time in front of some sort of digital screen so much so that people used to warn me (some still do) I would need glasses one day, they were probably right… but for the wrong reasons.

You will have by now heard of the infamous Google Glasses simply titled Google Glass, the pair of glasses designed to allow you to walk around with a pair of glasses that allow you to capture image and video of your life are a much talked of technology at the moment.

Now it seems that is not enough well at least that’s what the clever researchers at ITRA are attempting to say anyway, the Tiawan based company  have been busy developing  a pair of glasses themselves. Now if you cast your minds back to a well known movie “Minority Report” where Tom Cruise wore a pair of glasses which he used with a specialised glove to see a and interact with digital content by moving his hand to select things, well thats what ITRA have practically developed.

The system is called a floating augmented-reality touchscreen system (iAT, to the uninitiated) that would it say’s improve upon “Minority Report” Technology. I have heard it joked so many times about the skynet theories and jokes surrounding the scary new technology we keep dreaming up but I have to admit when things from Sci Fi movies start appearing in real life shouldn't we be?

Credit 20th Century Fox

The ITRA (Industrial technology Research Institute) have released a demo video of the aforementioned technology in action and I have to say it does look pretty sweet. In essence what it is is an augmented reality system which responds to touch user input.  As we know Google Glass uses voice commands generated by the user in order to perform functions, whereas the iTIA system projects a virtual touch based interface in front of the users field of vision which gives the appearance of floating in the air.

I can only do so much in describing the new innovation to you but you really do need to see what it looks like in action, check out the video demo from ITRA below.

See a live demo Video

i Touch In Air

The system on display in the initial demo stage of the video shows a bulky looking pair of goggles which is only natural from a testing perspective, but in the closing part of the video you can see a standard pair of glasses which could utilise this new technology medium. So not just a leap forward in terms of motion technology but also a wearable virtual computer system you can take on the go.

The commercial value of the product will no doubt be high, not just for the average consumer though but it has been mentioned that it could be used in other critical areas such as endoscopic surgery and military application undoubtedly which would benefit from hands free input.

The iTIA features a camera which is stated as being activated only when it detects a user's fingertip within a predetermined input distance range around about a foot away, this not only conserves battery power but also lets you access the system when you need it otherwise reverting the system to a simple stylish piece of eye-wear.

If you really want to get more technical Air Touches as they are being called when a user activates the system are sent to a host device such as a Laptop or Smartphone are linked to.

iTIA was officially introduced last week and will receive a 2013 R&D (Research and Development) 100 award this November, in addition to this ITRI also state that the technology is now being made available for licensing by mobile companies and anyone else interested in the technology. (you can bet Google will no doubt take a look at this)

iTIA was officially introduced last week and will receive a 2013 R&D (Research and Development) 100 award this November, in addition to this ITRI also state that the technology is now being made available for licensing by mobile companies and anyone else interested in the technology. (you can bet Google will no doubt take a look at this)