Meet K-Glass A Wearable Display That Mimics The Human Brain

Researchers from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science have recently presented the K-Glass: a new pair of smart glasses, which are able to better manage their energy flow. The device is constructed based on the neurological pattern of the human brain and the developers of this product say that thanks to the new system, data processes are better distributed, meaning that the user gets a higher energy efficiency and even less congestion.

So, if it had to be Google the one to launch a real interest in the development of wearable computers, it doesn’t also mean that it should be the only company to explore this domain, so we are going to present you one of the alternatives of Google Glass, developed by a team of researchers in Korea.

Just as you expected, the K-Glass was designed as a tool for augmented reality and 3D images, capable of delivering a great experience in both AR and personal assistance. For instance, while wearing the K-Glass, you could be able to take a virtual tour through a restaurant or a store and see products and objects in 3D images, right in front of you.

Nothing new so far, you would say. Well, the awesome thing and what makes it so different from other head-mounted wearables is the method through which the K-Glass is rendering this AR experience. While other similar devices need facial recognition functions, algorithms, QR codes, motion tracking, barcodes and so on, in order to offer a neat virtual experience, K-Glass uses a revolutionary method which is recreating the surrounding environment in the same way our brains do.

In order to recreate this brain process artificially, the team designed a new augmented reality processor, which can imitate the human brain’s ability to group and regroup information in relevant or irrelevant. The pattern is also known as VAM – Visual Attention Model.

The detailed description of the process shows that the neuronal network doesn’t always work as a whole and neurons are sometimes able to make individual work, independent to the network. The process describes that one set of neurons are collecting the information and sends it further to a set of decider neurons which decide in the end which information is kept and which goes.

After finishing the work on their first artificial intelligence network, based on the brain’s nervous system, which implied data management and compartmentalization during the decisional process, they noticed that their new device had a better energy flow and didn’t show any more signs of congestion. Actually, after the first tests, the developers reported an improved power consumption efficiency of about 76 percent, if compared to other similar gadgets. While using only 1.2 V from the battery life, K-Glass can run at 250 MHz and is able to bring up to 1.22 tera-operations/sec (TOP).

One of KAIST’s professors, Hoi-Jun Yoo, specialized in Electrical Engineering said that users could use K-Glass for a whole day without worrying about battery consumption. Thanks to their unique processor, the device can be used for hours without any decrease in its performance rate, which makes it an ideal wearable computer.

K-Glass’s first appearance in public was during this month’s ISSCC conference, held in San Francisco.