The buzz around head mounted displays has been building ever since the first rumors about Google Glass surfaced. A number of great products have come out or have been announced, and the future of head mounted displays is looking very bright. A new head mounted display operating system has just been announced, and it looks to be a very interesting and promising product! It’s called Viking OS.
Viking OS was developed by a software development company based in Japan called BrilliantService, and the idea behind it was to use a different input method to Google Glass, which uses voice to be controlled. Instead of voice controls, Viking OS uses hand gestures to be controlled.
The display, which uses augmented reality, places a number of transparent icons and images over what the user is seeing and the user than controls the display by interacting with these images. The display can even put a keyboard overlay so that the user can type.
While people who have used the system have reported that it can be a little awkward to get used to, Viking OS is still in its early days and it should improve with future releases. In fact, a final product that’s using the OS is not due to be released for another 3 years, by which time it is expected that there will be a lot more competition for head mounted displays. The headset that is set to ship with Viking OS is the Vuzix Star 1200XL.
The developers kit for the OS is available, and it comes with a head mounted display along with the current version of Viking OS. This one project to keep an eye on, as it should be very interesting when it is finally released to the general public!
