Are you among the directionally impaired who don’t take to the road without the aid of GPS device? A set of Personal Navigation System glasses may soon arrive to help you easily find your way while on foot.
Still in the prototype stage, a set of GPS glasses has been developed in Japan by a team in Nakajima Lab, University of Electro-Communication in Tokyo.
While not the most stylish set of specs out there, this set certainly has more function than helping you see clearly. A magnetic directional sensor is attached near the temple to determine how the wearer is positioned. To communicate whether or not the be-spectacled person is travelling toward their desired programmed destination, green and red LEDs are embedded in the frame above the lens and light up appropriately.
“With most current navigation systems you have to look at the display when you walk. Looking at the screen while walking can be dangerous. But with this system, all you need to do is be aware of the LED light while you walk so you can look where you’re going and walk safely at the same time,” said one of the product’s developers during a product demonstration.
While I think the Personal Navigation System glasses are a pretty cool idea, I don’t know how safe something like this might actually be. GPS devices are a great thing until users begin relying upon them too much. Some people have had serious accidents due to disengaging their own common sense in order to follow the path down which their GPS guides them. People ignoring train signals, and even driving on the tracks, has actually happened. Some users just seem to forget that their GPS is simply there to provide assistance and is not an all-knowing wonder device.
The glasses do have some great potential though, and I hope to see them becoming more sophisticated and useful in future versions.
Who knows, perhaps we will see 3D and GPS capabilities built into many different types of sunglasses and eye-glasses in the future.
