The retinal imaging display created by Brother in Japan projects images directly onto the retina of the eye. Users of the Brother Airscouter believe that they are looking at 16-inch screen that’s about one meter away from their eyes (800×600 resolution, 600cd/m2 brightness).
The first time I read about this idea was in an sf novel many years ago. Frederik Pohl and Cyril Kornbluth wrote about this idea more than half a century ago in their satiric 1952 novel The Space Merchants.
...soon we'll be testing a system that projects directly on the retina of the eye...
(Read more about retinal projector)
Admirers of Philip K Dick will not be surprised to learn (or recall) that he went even further. In his 1954 story Sales Pitch, Dick writes about a retinal vid-screen:
"All the news while it's news," a metallic voice dinned at him. "Have a retinal vid-screen installed in your least-used eye. Keep in touch with the world; don't wait for out-of-date hourly summaries."
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!)
is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for
the Invention Category that interests
you, the Glossary, the Invention
Timeline, or see what's New.
Humanoid Robots Building Humanoid Robots
''Pardon me, Struthers,' he broke in suddenly... 'haven't you a section of the factory where only robot labor is employed?''
Stratospheric Solar Geoengineering From Harvard
'Pina2bo would have to operate full blast for many years to put as much SO2 into the stratosphere as its namesake had done in a few minutes.'