- Joined
- Feb 28, 2013
- Messages
- 32,394
- Reputation
- -10,636
- Daps
- 22,236
- Reppin
- The Original Rec Room Gang
Or maybe I hijacked it, your welcome 
There’s more news with further evidence that we may be seeing the rumoured “Fortaleza Glasses” sometime soon! TechCrunch have discovered that Microsoft have bought patents for AR (augmented reality) devices from a company called Osterhout Design Group for a rumoured $100 – $150 million. Originally they had planned on buying ODG outright but eventually settled on just buying a large number of the company’s patents. Here’s a little more info in an excerpt from TechCrunch’s article:
In any case, you can follow the patent trail for the basics. It’s a trove of over 81 patents, with six issued patents and “at least” 75 patents in progress both in the U.S. and internationally. You can trace them for yourself here; and here and here are links to two of the granted patents to illustrate the kinds of technologies we are talking about. They cover things like “See-through near-eye display glasses including a partially reflective, partially transmitting optical element” and “Video display modification based on sensor input for a see-through near-to-eye display.”
The deal between Microsoft and Osterhout actually closed last November, with the patents quietly transferring in January 2014.
It’s not clear what Microsoft intends to do with the patents but there are a couple of very clear directions it could take. The first is developing its own head-borne computing devices.
There has been a lot of speculation about what Microsoft might choose to do in this department. One clear area of opportunity for the company is in the area of its Xbox gaming and entertainment console. Developing a headset for that could work well with the company’s Kinect gesture-based features, but also potentially as a new screen for experiencing not just games but other media.
Interestingly one of the patents I noticed links the headset up with a separate device that looks like a wristwatch.
I have also found a video of Ralph Osterhout himself holding a presentation of an early version of the technology from 3 years ago at the EG5 Conference:
Here is another video featuring both Atheer Labs’ Atheer One and META’s META Pro SpaceGlasses just to give you more examples of real AR glasses in action:
Finally, you can see some more images from the ODG patents in the gallery below as well as of course via the source links. Again I’ll say imagine the possibilities of AR (and hopefully VR too) combined with Kinect 2, we could could be on the verge of one of the most groundbreaking advances in videogame history! I can’t wait until E3!! Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Images
Exposed? So they gonna suck??