Bits Blog: Olympus and Apple Join Google With Wearable Computing

At left Google Glass, Olympus Meg 4.0 in the middle. At right, Apple patent for a goggle-like display.
It seems that everyone in tech has been busy working on wearable computing and augmented reality glasses.
Last week, Sergey Brin, Google’s co-founder, showed off augmented reality Google Glasses at the company’s Google I/O annual developer conference.
Now Olympus is pulling the curtains back on its own wearable computer glasses. In a news release, Olympus announced the “MEG 4.0 ultracompact wearable display prototype,” which it said “can be used in everyday life.” The company said that the MEG 4.0 “display does not obstruct the view of the outside world” and that the glasses only weighed 30 grams, including the battery.
The Meg 4.0 requires a Bluetooth connection to a smartphone, which is then used to share information back to the Olympus display. Pricing and a release date were not discussed in the release.
Meanwhile, Apple also seems to be working on wearable computers.
The company has filed repeated patents for displays that are embedded in goggles and glasses. This week Apple was also awarded a patent for a “Peripheral treatment for head-mounted displays” that can be used to project an image into someone’s eye.
While some companies focus on glasses as wearable computers, there is always the possibility of computerized contact lenses.
Babak Parviz, who is working at Google on the company’s glasses project, specializes in bionanotechnology, which is the fusion of tiny technologies and biology. Mr. Parviz was part of a team that built a tiny contact lens embedded with electronics.
A report issued by Forrester Research earlier this year noted that wearable computing will bring a “new platform war,” not dissimilar to the mobile app battles today, between Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook, along with each company’s developer communities.
“Imagine video games that happen in real space,” the report said.  “Or glasses that remind you of your colleague’s name that you really should know. Or paying for a coffee at Starbucks with your watch instead of your phone.”
As I noted in my column in The New York Times this week, these wearable computers are the future and will finally “allow technology to get out of the way.”

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