Google Glass Part 2: Binocular
A head mounted display ("HMD") is a display device worn on or about the head. HMDs usually incorporate some sort of near-to-eye optical system to display an image within a few centimeters of the human eye. Single eye displays are referred to as monocular HMDs …
Context & Ripple Effects
Google’s wearable effort had already been framed as a planned consumer heads-up display in Google’s proposed heads-up glasses, while augmented-reality specialists had flagged serious technical hurdles. The binocular design described here shows that Google’s work was not confined to a single-eye display approach.
Olympus had also unveiled a Project Glass-style wearable prototype, making near-eye display design an emerging competitive field rather than a Google-only experiment.
First-order effects
- Google adds a binocular head-mounted-display configuration to its publicly visible Glass development work, widening the optical designs associated with the project.
- Wearable-display rivals such as Olympus face a clearer signal that Google is evaluating more than the monocular format commonly associated with heads-up glasses.
Second-order effects
- Optics and display-component suppliers gain reason to support both monocular and binocular configurations, because the product architecture remains unsettled.
- Google’s earlier plan to sell heads-up glasses makes ergonomics, image quality, and near-eye optics central product constraints rather than merely patent concepts.
Third-order effects
- If multiple vendors continue pursuing different near-eye display layouts, wearable computing is likely to compete first on optical comfort and usability before it becomes a standardized consumer-device category.
The trend: Head-mounted displays are moving from single product concepts toward competing optical architectures, with component and usability constraints shaping the market’s direction.