Ocular Technological Progression

Technological advancements are all around us, they’ve become a common part of our day to day life. Think about what it meant to have follow cam footage 10 years ago, where were the GoPro’s? How about bluetooth enabled cell phones so you can listen to Pandora or Itunes while you shred? Then there’s the whole GPS thing that tech nerds seem to crave with knowing vertical feet dropped, miles per hour achieved, and probably where all the smoke shacks on the mountain are located.

Where would we be without technology? Probably living in caves running in fear from that bright thing in the sky and having a life expectancy of thirty years. We’d also not be snowboarding which is sad.

But seriously technology has its place within our society and that’s pretty relevant. What sucks about technology though is people will always try to create something that shouldn’t need to exist. Or worse an idea that should have been aborted behind a dumpster with a coat hanger and shop vac actually makes its way to the marketplace.

Over the last year many people have sent me emails with their concerns about Zeal Optics and Recon Instruments partnership for a goggle that has a GPS Heads Up Display or HUD. I can understand their concerns as goggles are a highly functional piece of snowboarding equipment that allow to be visually aware of your surroundings. Now they want to impair peoples vision by having a little visual GPS screen in the goggles?

Just what we need is more people unaware of what’s going around them being visually impaired. I can see it now as the guys filling out the accident report, “Well I was checking my vertical feet and the wind velocity when I rammed into that snow cat and it ran over my legs”. Yes snow cats do attack on the hill and are known to eat peoples legs. Snow cat maulings are serious business and this goggle won’t prevent that.

Is there honestly a need to have a display like this? What’s next having SportsCenter broadcast in so you can catch up on the daily scores? How about up to the minute news from CNN? Although we all know Fox News would do it to sensationalize on the fact that snow cat attacks are imminent. Possibly the only cool thing that I could see from this is a way to have the HUD be bluetooth so it would work with a helmet cam and you could watch your footage on the spot.

Speaking of helmet cams how about one built right into your goggle? Yes that too is now a possibility these days courtesy of Liquid Image. Isn’t technology grand?

Great concept but here’s a few things that suck. These damn things look like they were designed to sit on the head of Megatron. Sure aestetics are purely subjective but when you think about how goggle companies are going to lighter weight frames, bigger peripherals, and generally trying to create the highest optical quality this leaves more to be desired.

Now another concern that this goggle camera draws is that when it’s turned on there is a blinking light inside the lens. How many of you get annoyed when you get a little water streak on your lens? Imagine how much more compounded that frustration will be with a blinking light constantly going? Epileptics rejoice!

Photo taken from this video on Youtube.

This poses the question of would you use this or go for a better known goggle company, personal gps or helmet cam? Personally I’d think with all the distractions that already exist in our society having images or lights flashing in front of you while going through various types of terrain is the last thing you would want. Perhaps in the next few years these two companies will meld together and build one mega conglomerate goggle with gps, satelite tv, helmet cam, microwave oven, and death laser. Actually death lasers would just be cool then you could go snow cat hunting and that’s what it’s all about after all.

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