Whatever you call them, be they video goggles, video eyewear, or a personal media viewer, video glasses may very well be the iPod of 2010. With technology that shrinks a 50" HD LCD home entertainment center to the size of your Ray Bans, what was once a dream of science fiction can now be bought from 23 different vendors, and counting. Most of these sets are as versatile as contemporary televisions, allowing the consumer to watch movies, play video games, or surf the web, and top-of-the-line models even include a 3D setting.
So why aren't commuter trains in New Jersey packed with people sporting their new, hi-tech visors? Why can't you see the children in the backseat of a sedan on the Interstate during rush-hour wearing a pair of video glasses above calm, noiseless mouths? In part, price is a small issue. The best-of-the-best video eyewear still costs as much as a fairly high quality TV, about 0, and that is a lot of money to spend on something you might ruin with a cup of coffee. But decent visors can be purchased for around 0, making them comparable to more expensive iPods, or even iPhones when they were new and exciting. And besides, when did price ever stop I-Bankers from running to the store for the next, new gadget?
So again, why aren't consumers biting?
Surely, we cannot fear a device we could slip ever so easily over our eyes. We already come awful close - texting while listening to headphones - so even while it may seem too fast at the moment, too large a step, very soon, after everyone has an iPhone equivalent, people will start to look for something new, and when that happens, the world will become just a tad more silent.
