Forward
In March 2016 I received a request to look into www.e-glasses.net to see what it was about and to see if this might be of use for a person that has vision impairment. I wrote this small paper to explain what this was all about.The eGlasses website is not longer available online. It seems to have disappeared. Doing a quick look online, eSight seems to be something similar and also has a product available.
Introduction
e-glasses.net is a research and development (R&D) program based in Poland with “Consortium members” throughout continental Europe.In summary www.e-glassses.net is a pure R&D project that is currently in the research phase. Development and production are still quite a ways away.
From their website’s home page:
The eGlasses project is focused on the development of an open platform in the form of multisensory electronic glasses and on the integration and designing of new intelligent interaction methods using the eGlasses platform.
This is an initial development focused on long-term research and technological innovation in perceptual and super-perceptual (e.g. heart rate, temperature) computing. It is an emerging technology that is also focused on the creation of mobile, perceptual media.
Perceptual media refers to multimedia devices with added perceptual user interface capabilities. These devices integrate human-like perceptual awareness of the environment, with the ability to respond appropriately. This can be achieved by using automatic perception of an object’s properties and delivering information about the object’s status as a result of reasoning operations.
eGlasses Project Focus
Let’s take a look at the above paragraphs and lay out what they are working on.
The focus from www.e-glasses.net‘s home page states that they are working on an “open platform...”. Typically what this means is that they are going to develop this so that the general public (actually this means: “geeks” like me) can purchase the hardware they develop and write specific programs or applications that work on these glasses. The Programming language for these types of projects will be developed to be simple for people with some experience to figure out and use. From the website, the last update shows the glasses controlling a small wheeled robot.
The second part is “in the form of multisensory electronic glasses”. Multi sensory typically covers our 5 senses, sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. Looking at the picture that they show above it seems that they will be focusing on: sight, hearing, and possibly touch. if i could find the documents on the requirements it might be easy to find out in more detail what they are planning. Currently they are not available online from: http://www.e-glasses.net/?page_id=33. All of the links are broken.
Thirdly: “and on the integration and designing of new intelligent interaction methods using the eGlasses platform.” This is where things can get interesting. This is where people can start to experiment and have things like peoples faces recognized by the glasses and tell the user that they are facing “Mom”, “Dad”, “Grandpa”, “Grandma”. Of course, the glasses will have to be trained for each individual. These Glasses can be programmed to use eye movements to tell where you are looking and give you an enhanced view of the world. This is similar to going to the museum and seeing a painting of the Mona Lisa and a little bubble might pop up showing that it was painted by Leonardo Da Vinci between 1503 and 1519 and other interesting facts that are pulled from the World Wide Web. This part is similar to what Google has done with Google Glass (https://support.google.com/glass) There are others that are working on similar types of things.
If access to the requirements was available much more thorough explanation might be possible
Initial R&D
The second paragraph statesThis is an initial development focused on long-term research and technological innovation in perceptual and super-perceptual (e.g. heart rate, temperature) computing. It is an emerging technology that is also focused on the creation of mobile, perceptual media.The first line shows where they are currently. They are focused on the development of the technology and flushing out what it can and can’t do. Again, the lack of documentation hinders the ability to flush out what is possible today. Currently they have been working on this for the last two years and still seem to be working out the kinks; in my opinion.
The distinction between Perceptual (visual, auditory) and the super perceptual (heart rate, temperature) is interesting as they are looking at adding functionality beyond products that are currently on the market like FitBit or Apple Watch.
This is an emerging technology. In the technology field this is also known as “Vapour ware”. Vapour ware can be a really good idea that has not been implemented yet. Even if there is a prototype or early samples it can still be considered vaporware if there isn’t production volume or enough push (Money or factory time) behind it to become a real salable product. Most people consider Google Glass to still be vapour ware because it is not available to everyone.
Perceptual Media
The final paragraph in the introduction gives a brief reference to what Perceptual Media is with respect to this project. Looking at what they are doing it can be understood that this project, in the future, might be able to react to and interact with the world around it using similar human like traits. In the future it might be able to perceive what is going on around a user and by way of sounds or vibrations or other non visual cues tell the user what is “seen”. It even mentions that the eGlasses might even be able to respond to those inputs like a person might.
This is a manifestation of A.I. (Artificial Intelligence). A.I. will have to be covered in another post, or ten.
Summary of the Opportunity
A brief summary of what the opportunity these glasses might afford an acquaintance of the report’s sponsor is understood this way:A Young person has lost the ability to see and might benefit from a technological solution that will allow this person to be able to perceive the world and what is going on again in a similar but limited fashion to what they were accustomed to when they had visual perception.From the brief discussion that was had what is being requested is something like this: (From http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/VISOR)
This is a visor connected to implants that stimulate the visual cortex and allow blind people to “See”. unfortunately it is something from Star Trek the next Generation television series and is not available.
Conclusion
From what is presented on the website in video and in the various web pages; this technology is not yet ready for consumer use. it is not yet ready for the hobbyist either. it is still in the research phase at the university level.In a very brief search there are no products on the market that can bypass the eyes and feed visual stimulus to the brain. Currently the medical field is able to: replace and repair lenses in the eye, remove cataracts, repair nerve damage. ( There are some now, see: https://www.esighteyewear.com/)
Unfortunately without being able to see the requirements and specifications there isn’t a lot more that can be gleaned. The eGlasses website is now gone so finding those requirements and specifications will be much more difficult.
Let me know what you think in the comments.
Disclaimer: I am not endorsed by or use any of the products listed in this post.
