Nikon UP300/UP300x Head-Mounted Media Player

This head-mounted audio/video setup is something that you might expect to see on Land Warrior soldiers, but this is Nikon’s vision of consumers audio/video gadgetry for the near future. It “can be safely used even in urban areas, unlike immersive displays,” (Kazuyuki Kazami, General Manager of Development Headquarters, Nikon). According to Nikon, this is equivalent to watching a 51″ display placed three yards away.

Powered by Windows CE 5.0 Pro, the UP300 and UP300x are capable of storing and playing media files. A web browser (IE 6.0 level) is also embedded. According to Tatsurou Hokugou (Nikkei) who tried it, “images looked floating in the real landscape”.

This is an interesting product that could lead to personal augmented reality one day, or it may simply solve the problem of small displays for mobile phones and portable computers, however, it is probably too bulky and doesn’t have enough applications to catch on today. Make that screen and these earphones as discrete as possible, connect it to a bunch of devices and you’ve got a fan! (This costs between $600 and $700)