The moment I took it out of its black fabric pouch, it reminded me of Geordi La Forge, a character from the science fiction TV serial Star Trek ? the next generation, that dominated the idiot box prime time, long before the Saas-Bahu soaps hijacked it.
Blind by birth, Geordi La Forge wore a special visor that not only gave him the near human vision but also allowed him to see infrared and ultraviolet light.
Incidentally, the Star Trek gizmo was an ordinary plastic headband, simply spray-painted in metallic golden colour. But Myvu (solo plus edition) from California based VU Technologies is a literal wearable, hands-free display device to view video from your iPod while on the move or otherwise.
It looks like a narrow ?welders black shades? with two earplugs dangling from each sides and a cable with an elliptical pendent at one end. The pendent houses the brightness and contrast control switch, on and off button, mini-USB socket for charging the inbuilt Li-ion rechargeable battery and a 3.5 mm jack socket to connect the iPod adaptor cable.
There is no charger provided along with this device as it can be charged with any USB charger or directly from your PC?s USB port. On being completely charged, it can play videos for almost four hours.
The idea of having a personal portable video screen is exciting enough, but wearing a video viewer like goggles was too exciting for me to delay any further but connect the device for charging to have an experience.
Once fully charged, I was ready to put the device to rigours. Donning the Myvu? is simple, just put it on like any other glasses, and plug-in the ear-buds to each ear for stereophonic audio. Connect the iPod through the provided cable to the 3.5 mm jack and turn the power on for both the devices.
All the media playing controls, like play-pause, skip or fast-forward, volume control etc of iPod remains active except for image brightness and contrast.
I selected a video clipping in my iPod and pressed the play button. Suddenly a video image appeared floating in front of my eyes, like a TV screen hanging in thin air, a virtual 3D image generating from nowhere, as if watching a TV placed outside the window while travelling in an underground train oblivious of the milieu.
It was the audio of the clipping, which was being pumped in my ears, brought me back to reality that I was watching a video clipping on Myvu. As the projected image is viewed separately by two eyes through their individual prisms, it renders a feeling of depth as if the screen is placed at a distance.
The display appeared as if watching a 21inch TV, contrary to the claimed ?virtual big screen? but nonetheless an exhilarating experience. Based on the patented SolidOptex technology and at a native resolution of 320×240 (QVGA), the display appears just good enough (little better at night). But the audio quality is superb and the in-ear headphones also doubles as passive noise cancellation buds filtering out all the ambient noise.
While I could walk around wearing this device, watching video with reasonable ease, without banging in to the scattered furniture in my living room but only just annoying my pet lab a bit! But driving the car is another issue, even if the traffic cops volunteer to look the other-way.
At an MRP of Rs 11,500, it definitely is a good companion while travelling in a train or a plane. It gives you the luxury of watching a video on a personal screen without having to hold the iPod in palm and straining your neck to peep in to that tiny screen.