Xiaomi Unveils Its Own Smart Glasses

Beyond phones, Xiaomi has made just about every other smart device under the sun. So it was only a matter of time before the company gave smart glasses a go. And it looks like that has finally happened, as the company announced the simply named Xiaomi Smart Glasses.

On the face of it, the company’s smart glasses works just about as you’d expect. As Xiaomi describes it, the company’s smart glasses uses MicroLED for its display, which is claimed to be longer lasting and has higher pixel density than OLED. It also works in quite the non-conventional way. Rather than just projecting an image in front of your eye, this pair of smart glasses uses a neat combination of reflection and refraction to direct images to the wearer’s eye, all with a single lens. 

While the Xiaomi Smart Glasses has its display on the right lens, the left side houses its 5MP camera. Compared to the smartphones of today, the pixel count is pretty modest. But it is still enough to allow for more than just taking photos. With it, you can get text translations in real time. For those worried about privacy, the camera also has an indicator light to let other people know that it is in use.

Overall, the Xiaomi Smart Glasses looks to be the smallest one among its kind, being just slightly bulkier than your average eye wear. It also weighs in at 51g. Though all that being said, the company did not say if it will actually be selling these smart glasses to the average consumer.

Apple Patent Describes Showing 3D Images On Flat Screens Without Need For Glasses

Getting 3D images to work on consumer devices, especially without the need for specialised glasses, is not easy. But an Apple patent describes a method that the company is considering using to make it happen. But while it answers that half of the equation, it raises more on the other.

The Apple patent describes getting a flat screen, presumably that of an iPhone or iPad, to show 3D images for VR and AR content. But this doesn’t involve having two screens for the way VR and AR headsets work. Instead, it will alternate rows of pixels in a screen, so that one set of pixel rows show one image, and the other shows the second.

But as mentioned earlier, the patent only describes the way the screen will simulate the overlapping of two images for the 3D effect. What the patent doesn’t mention is the user side of things. Like the way this will help users create the 3D depth without the help of glasses or goggles. Nor does it say if there’s any supporting tech, like gaze detection that we see on the Nintendo 3DS.

As is always the case with patents, having one filed doesn’t mean Apple will actually make something with this tech. And considering the challenges behind it, it probably won’t be anytime soon until we see it, if ever.