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Stick it in your eye:
The next leap forward in display technology is already installed in your head
by Michael Riska
Your typical neurosurgeon has to work his magic nearly blind, deep in the dismal swamp that is your brain. For reference, he looks to a monitor on his left that displays your last MRI. Your vital signs are displayed on a monitor to the right. The bright overhead lights bring a stinging sweat to his forehead, which runs directly into his eyes as he looks from monitor to brain, monitor to brain.
The slightest distraction could turn you into a drooling turnip.
But the clutter of the operating room, the jumble of visual displays that are so important to guiding the surgery, will soon be a thing of the past. A few weeks ago, the prototype of a new tool called Spectrum was delivered to the Cleveland Clinic Foundation by Microvision Inc. (MVIS:NASDAQ). Spectrum is a full-color retinal scanning display (RSD) that will superimpose crucial data directly onto the surgeon’s field of vision, without hampering his eyesight.
(Incidentally, the same technology could turn Taipan publisher J. Christoph Amberger’s beloved 19-inch color monitor into a thousand dollar doorstop.)
As a long-time Taipan subscriber, you probably have fond memories of Microvision. Back in November of 1996, Taipan’s resident microcap guru, Brian Hicks, recommended this company as a speculative play at under US$5. (See “Eye-popping profits in x-ray vision: How virtual retinal display glasses can give you superman sight,” Taipan, November 1996, p. 13f.)
Taipans taking Brian at his word were able to buy in at US$3.50... and then watched the stock ride the technology boom up to US$68 in March 2000 — for a truly eye-popping profit of 1,800+%! (We issued several buy signals along the way.) As I write this, Microvision is still trading at US$20... a handsome 470+% above our original recommendation!
New vistas
Microvision, a company out of Bothell, Washington, has had the good fortune to develop and patent the next leap forward in display technology. Its display medium — its screen, if you want to cling to that archaic term — is inside your eyeball.
The rest of the hardware is a tiny projector mounted on a headpiece, attached to a small computer that can be worn on your belt. To create a color image, the projector beams three low-energy lasers — red, green and blue — through the pupil and combines them directly on the retina to create the appropriate picture.
The projector “paints” an image, pixel by pixel, so it appears as part of your normal vision and doesn’t otherwise interfere with your eyesight. Essentially, it’s superimposing another layer of information onto what you see. It’s more or less the same way your television creates an image on a screen, except it’s all happening inside your eye.
The applications for this are endless. I’ve already given the example of the surgeon being able to view patient data while operating, without having to break his neck (and concentration) by constantly turning to look at monitors. Remember the retinal displays in the original “Terminator” movie, the way they helped Ah-nold with various data readouts while he was hunting his prey? Think about firefighters looking at floor plans while running through a burning building; engineers pulling up technical manuals on the job site; think about all the eye-popping new video games.
The next wave
While the enhancements to niche fields will be huge, a really killer application has to have mass appeal. Here’s why this technology is going to give a giant kick in the pants to all our cherished notions of what a visual display should be:
We’ve been hearing that, in the next few years, more people will be accessing the Internet from non-
PC devices than from traditional desktop computers. Mostly they’re talking about fancy cell phones with teensy-weensy monitors. But the way things are looking, viewing web pages on a miniature LCD is going to be about as satisfying as licking a rack of pork ribs made of plastic. The screens are too limited, and as soon as you start to expand them, you may as well turn the thing into a laptop.
Microvision is already integrating their RSD technology into handheld devices, like cell phones and pagers. This will completely eliminate the problem of screen capability for handhelds. By using a tiny projector to beam images directly into the eye, a user will have the illusion of looking at a full-size color monitor. If you think cell phones on the highways are obnoxious now, wait until everyone is having “Gilligan’s Island” reruns scanned onto their retinas at 80 mph.
Microvision has come up with the technology, they’ve patented it, and now they have to bring it to the market. The Spectrum prototype is a great first step, and they’ve got a monochrome version called Nomad ready to hit the streets this fall. To smooth the transition from technology developer to manufacturer of commercial display and imaging products, they’ve formed an advisory panel chaired by Dr. Aris Silzars, who is president of the Society for Information Display.
Microvision, Inc., 19910 North Creek Parkway, Bothell, WA 98011-3008. Tel. 425-415-6847; Fax 425-415-6600; Email: info@mvis.com; Website: www.mvis.com.
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