DoCoMo Glasses Concept Turns Any Surface Into A Touchscreen

Following DoCoMo's detailing of its 5G network ambitions, the company has displayed its smart glasses concept here at CEATEC 2013, something that is presently four different glasses concepts that will be unified into a single product offering when it heads into production. The smart glasses offer a variety of functionality, the most interesting of which is the ability to turn nearly any flat surface into a touchscreen, something you can check out in our video after the jump.

Using, for example, an A4 sheet of paper, the glasses can turn the surface into a touchscreen, putting a cursor over the displayed content and allowing one to do anything they'd typically do with a touchscreen — swipe, tap, etc. There are a few basics requirements, namely the surface needs to be white or solid black or solid blue, such as the blue notebook used in the demonstration. A wall can also be turned into a touchscreen.

At the moment, there are four functions, with the "Mirudake" function working as a sort of personal data hub, identifying the face of individuals and pulling up information on them. This function also works with foreign languages, translating from French, Korean, Chinese, and English into any of those languages, aiding in, for example, international travel.

The "Tebura de Movie" interface allows one to watch movies hands-free, followed by the "Nandemo Interface", which offers the almost-anything-is-a-touchscreen functionality we detailed above. This extends the ability of the glasses to function in the way a tablet would, but removes the need to physically carry a tablet, instead allowing one to utilize whatever happens to be available — a wall, perhaps. The only stipulation for this is the need to wear a special ring on one's finger, allowing the cursor to follow it.

Rounding it all out is the "Kuukan" function, which is the most fun of the three, but also the least functional in terms of reality augmentation. With this interface, a small "imaginary" character appears on the glasses, allowing the user to play with it in a way that will perhaps make them seem a little bit crazy to those around them, but that is fun nonetheless.