Kopin Corporation is a name that might not be known to many, but they are the leader in microdisplays for consumer and military applications, and are currently demonstrating their Golden-i Gen 2 concept units at the Embedded Systems Conference in Boston. This makes you look like some sort of futuristic space marine, where it will come with a 3-ounce Bluetooth headset for wireless communications, while boasting an accompanying 15″ virtual PC display as well as a hands-free natural speech recognition interface that allows you to control just about every phone feature and capability available, and do all of it without having to remove your handset from your pocket or briefcase.

Remember the 15″ virtual LCD display that we mentioned earlier? It is actually a convenient near-eye display, where it offers hands-free spontaneous access to digital information, broadcast programming and Internet services such as real-time, full-color high resolution streaming video at 720 x 480p resolution and 30 fps, all this over an industry standard Bluetooth 2.0 connectivity. It is powered by the Windows Embedded CE 6.0 operating system, and will be running on Texas Instruments’ OMAP3530 processor that features an ARM Cortex-A8 chipset, a high performance DSP and a graphics accelerator for a fully interactive and immersive experience.

According to Jeffrey Jacobsen, Senior Advisor to Kopin’s CEO and Golden-i Program Manager, “Remotely controlling multiple devices and systems, in much the same way PCs control multiple applications on their desktop, is one of the primary goals in developing Golden-i. Golden-i’s hands-free ability to remotely control and interface simultaneously with up to seven other devices provides users with increased performance, reduces enterprise headcount and improves enterprise ROI.” Sounds promising, but we don’t see this replacing the notebook or desktop anytime soon, as there is still the issue of working on long documents that absolutely require the presence of a keyboard and mouse, where using just voice commands would exhaust you in no time.

Press Release