Mac|Life - January 2010

The internationally focused gadget guru sees augmented reality making a quantum leap forward.

MICHAEL BROOK EDITOR, T3 BONA FIDES: One of Mac|Life’s sister magazines from across the pond, T3 (“Tomorrow’s Technology Today”) not only publishes in the UK, but also has 21 country-specific international editions, making it one of the world’s premier sources for gadget news and reviews. With 10 years experience reporting on technology, Michael Brook leads this formidable charge.

Hope you don’t mind, Mr. Brook, but we saw iVision as an effective tool for bar hopping.

Augmented reality apps bring science-fictiony data overlays to the iPhone—which isn’t a terribly ideal place for them, as the iPhone keeps reality (augmented or otherwise) at arm’s length from our eyes. Brook’s iVision concept fixes all that by placing augmented reality mere millimeters from our corneas, letting it integrate perfectly with our natural vision. Viewing life through iVision—with digital data served directly on top of all that we see—completes the promise of everything augmented reality technology has to offer.

“Each lens will have a built-in HUD,” Brook says, “so you’ll be able to view the output of your augmented reality apps directly on your glasses. No need to hold up the iPhone. It will use Bluetooth, or a more advanced wireless standard, for connectivity. Low power, no need for constant charging. GPS positioning, etcetera, will be done on the iPhone with info relayed to the glasses for processing within the unit. Features

like caller ID will naturally be viewed on the glasses, and when listening to music, track data will also appear on the head-up display.”

And then there’s the curious Oakley/Apple logo on the iVision frames. We told our experts that it’s common for Mac|Life fauxtotypes to imagine a marriage between Apple and some equally iconographic megabrand. In years past, we conjectured Apple synergizing with LEGO and Audi, and we were thrilled when Brook followed our lead, and used Oakley in his product brief.

“Apple has most areas of tech covered with the iPhone and computing products,” Brook says. “The glasses idea brings them squarely into the world of fashion, which, let’s face it, they’re already knee deep in from a tech point of view. Teaming up with a forward-thinking brand like Oakley allows them to be first to market with a groundbreaking product that makes more of existing tech.”