Turn Pages with Your Eyes

Instruction manuals are often hard to read while trying to complete a task such as fixing a car or, perhaps, (on a more delicate scale) fixing a human. But multitasking may become much easier for surgeons, and the rest of us, as we'll soon be able to see instructions and displays by just putting on Freaunhofer's new data glasses and looking up. The days of rummaging through the pages of a mechanical handbook while belly-up under your car could be over.

For those of you who read M.T. Anderson's, Feed, your worst nightmare is coming true. (Okay, this is a slight exaggeration, seeing as the glasses are not implanted within our brains. Still, our techonology is closer than ever to the power the 'feed'.)

OLED microdisplay allows you to see not only the real world but also a wealth of virtual information completely controlled by your eyes. The photodiodes work as a camera, tracking the user's eye movement, while the OLED pixels display the document within the glasses. A simple glance at the back or forward arrow will change the page to the users liking. The page is displayed to the user at about 1 metre in height.

Researchers presented the system at the electronica trade fair in Munich in November 2012. Fraunhofer Institue for Optronics developed the device with COMEDD and near-the-eye technologies specialist TRIVISIO.