Rearranged EyeTap

Here's 4 ideas on how the EyeTap might be rearranged and thereby improved:

IDEA #1: Move the Pi to Your Pocket

• Why: this allows you to reduce the bulk on your head and upgrade the pi from a zero to a more powerful full sized Pi 3 which I suspect we'll need to do any image recognition. You are tethered to a battery in your pocket anyways, so might as well be tethered to the Pi too. Just put the pi on a belt clip or something if your pockets are getting too full (or too warm!).

• How: Keep the "Spy Camera Flex Adapter" integrated in the glasses. However, the "Spy Camera to RPi flex cable" should be lengthened so that it reaches your hip/pocket mounted Pi3. All wiring from the micro display to the Pi would also have to be lengthened. The tether to your pocket will admittedly be thicker. Maybe wrap the flex cable around the micro display wiring like a burrito? lol

IDEA #2: Make an IMU and GPS Standard Hardware for All EyeTaps

• Why: IMUs allow us to do very interesting things in AR. They can detect your head's orientation in 3D space, and if you have a barometer integrated into it, then your altitude as well. GPS gives your position on earth.

• Use Cases: If eyetaps share this information with each other, we can then overlay information like a public profile when you look at another eyetap user (e.g. screen name, any information about their interests they'd like to share, etc.) You can also place digital artifacts in the world (e.g. digital post-it notes) with associated GPS coordinates and other eyetap users can see them lying about when they come close to those coordinates. When you look at the night sky, you can overlay names of the stars, much like the Sky Map app does on your smartphone. IMUs can also be used to interact with the UI projected into your eye (e.g. look at a button for 2 seconds to press it). To do anything cool in AR, you need an IMU and, to a lesser extent, a GPS chip in your eyetap.

• How: Now that we've freed up some room by removing the pi from the glasses, replace it with a tiny IMU chip, preferably one with a barometer (10-dof). The wiring will have to run down to our hip mounted RPi, but all the hardware on our glasses could share a single power wire and ground wire. As for the GPS chip, it could reside with the raspberry pi. Also, alternatively, we could use a separate barometer chip residing with the raspberry pi as well.

IDEA #3: Preserve your Peripheral Vision by Moving the Micro Display

• Why: Our peripheral vision is more important for situational awareness than our vertical visual arc. When we are driving (with navigational directions projected in our eye, of course), we are looking side to side more than up or down so we don't hit other cars or pedestrians. We wear baseball caps without an issue because most of the interesting world around us is on the horizontal plane. We're willing to forego a bit of the vertical plane. Having the bulky micro display sitting on the side of our eye probably blocks our peripheral vision, which is not ideal.

• How: Move the micro display above the eye instead of to its side. The micro display would then project downwards. The beam splitter would also need to be rotated to accommodate. Lastly, the camera would need to be mounted under the eye, pointing up.

IDEA #4: Cover the Left Eye Instead of the Right Eye

• Why: Most people are right handed and will therefore use their right eye for certain activities like archery, hunting with a scoped rifle, etc. Also, 2/3 of all people are right eye dominant and will use the right eye to look through a peep hole in their front door or use a microscope. Having a bulky beam splitter covering your dominant eye might interfere with these activities.

• Example: I'd like to use my eyetap to identify stars in the sky. I then want to look at those stars through my telescope. The eyetap overlays the names of stars when I look up at the sky (using that IMU we talked about earlier). I then bend over my telescope and place my right eye over the viewing eyepiece. I subsequently bump my telescope with my eyetap, scratch the beam splitter, and use some poorly chosen words to express my frustration. Had the beam splitter been over my left eye, I wouldn't have had an issue.

• Even Better: make 2 versions - one for right eye dominant people and the other for left eye dominant people.