Since 2005, Brother have been working to perfect wearable retinal imaging displays. They work by projecting an image directly onto your retina so it appears to hang in space in front of your eye. The retinal imaging device is small enough to hang off a pair of glasses and can display images at 800 x 600 resolution with a 60Hz refresh rate. The image will appear to be a 4″ x 4″ display being viewed from a distance of 1 metre.

Brother claim the image will be good enough to allow you to read documents hands-free. The display is generated using 3 very low powered laser diodes (RGB) which are rastered across your retina using MEMS-based scanning mirrors. The latest version looks to be right on the money now that they’ve shrunk both the power source and the bit that projects into your eye, and they’re aiming to have a product ready to commercialise in 2010. And you thought Bluetooth looked dorky.

Brother Industries, Ltd. (president: Toshikazu Koike) has been actively developing technologies for retinal imaging display (RID) to commercialize it in fiscal year 2010. Brother has announced that it succeeded in downsizing power source box used for the RID, and developed the prototype of a mobile RID.

Tags: gadget, retinal+imaging+device, brother, retina+display+technology