It’s pretty cool all right, especially with the ubiquitous gesture recognition.

A lot of people on Wired have opined it would be better with a HUD – I’d have to agree. One option however might be to project in infra-red and wear some simple glasses that just filter the light.

The thing is, the projector here is almost completely unnecessary and wonky- it presents problems in different lighting, different weather, different atmosphere, etc. The HUD required for this would be remarkably simple- just a small screen to be worn over the eyes (maybe in goggle form, or maybe just one screen to cover one eye) which can communicate what the projector would normally be sending out.

I’m equally of the opinion that it’s basically necessary to use a QR code-reading camera with this technology. A lot of the heftier programming could be streamlined by using this- for instance, items/people wouldn’t have to be identified by image. Their QR code could easily give a link to the manufacturer’s/personal website and more options could branch out from a drop down menu. So many of these features (i.e. the projector, the ‘word cloud’, etc) are just easily worked out of the issue- they seem like the “ooh, THAT would be cool” things that engineers think of without thinking about how practical it would be.

Using QR codes with this could revolutionize supermarkets and the like; if the phone is wireless-capable, you can join the local market’s LAN. Once online, you can scan an item’s code with the phone/camera and a drop down menu could pop up with options like “Info”, “Help”, and (most importantly) “Buy”. Using an account with the store, you could electronically buy that item and walk out with it without ever having to get in line or talk to a cashier to calculate the cost! It’s all so simple, and this device is pretty much the proof-of-concept that I’ve been looking for. I just have to wonder why more people haven’t done this yet.