Hamilton isn’t the only one home-brewing their own technology. “It was either that or Ono-Sendai Cyberspace VII, but that’s a bit of a mouthful…” A Yearned-for Future In William Gibson’s novel Neuromancer, the protagonist named his cyberdeck “Hosaka” - so Hamilton has done the same. Writing code in Linux, “my field of view is full of terminal windows and debug output,” Hamilton writes, adding that this “seems appropriately cyberpunk.” “You can just plug in a screen when you want one,” Hamilton said - for example, by connecting a projector for “a wall-sized display that other people can also see.”Īnd yes, he told me, it does feel like something out of a William Gibson story. In a world where biometric fingerprint scanners already control access to data on encrypted partitions, wouldn’t this be the next logical step? Hamilton wonders if governments and corporations will demand their staff start using these eyeglass-based interfaces (with no screens) for the extra privacy. (“You wouldn’t want to wear the glasses for more than about an hour at a time, but then you should probably be getting a screen/movement break at this point anyway.”) He’s calling his new ThinkPad-derived cyberdeck a “ThinkDeck,” telling the forum that he’s been “using the glasses as a big head mount display,” for everything from coding and sys-admin work to sending email, surfing the web, and watching videos. (“The era of virtual reality is coming,” says the subreddit’s description, “so it is also time for cyberdecks to come…”) Hamilton shared his adventure with other DIY-cyberpunk enthusiasts in Reddit’s Cyberdeck subreddit. Instead of wearing the sunglasses over his prescription eyeglasses, he was even able to purchase prescription lens inserts from Nreal’s official partner. After unscrewing the screen’s hinges to remove it - and detaching its cables - it’s a self-contained unit “without any unsightly gaps.” “ThinkPads are pretty good for this kind of thing because they’re designed to be repairable,” Hamilton wrote. “Right now this really feels like a hacker’s device,” he said in an email (which he composed using his home-brewed cyberdeck). To create his own home-brewed cyberdeck, Hamilton bought a pair of the Nreal Air glasses, then hooked them up to a five-year-old ThinkPad laptop with a broken screen. In particular, there’s no battery, as the glasses are powered by the same USB-C cable which feeds the video from your device.” These are different because the glasses weigh very little (79 grams, or around three ounces), due to all the clever stuff happening on your phone or computer. “If you’ve used a VR headset then you’re probably expecting something similar - like strapping a phone to your face. UK-based Martin Hamilton made a cyberdeck with Nreal Air sunglasses powered by an old ThinkPad Hamilton says in an email interview that Nreal’s micro-OLED screens can give cyberpunk makers a full HD display “with a decent field of view.” But the glasses can also function as a head-mounted display, according to their website, transforming a laptop or monitor into what’s essentially a “cinema-sized 201-inch screen.”Īnd UK-based futurist Martin Hamilton calls new products like these “the real breakthrough” for finally jerry-rigging your own cyberdeck. Marketed as “ AR glasses,” they display output from the company’s “spatial internet” app (currently available on “select” Android devices). A USB-C cable connects them to your computer or smartphone. And it also looks like it’s a lot of fun… Sunglasses at Nightįor a head-mounted solution, some cutting-edge makers are now experimenting with the newly released Nreal Air (renamed Xreal) sunglasses, which come equipped with a small built-in (micro-OLED) screen. And like any home project, they also always seem to be learning an awful lot about technology. It’s the ultimate project for cyberpunk fans: cobbling together their own gear using repurposed leftovers and cheap surplus parts, plus all the right components from suppliers catering to makers.īut instead of cracking corporate data silos with a tricked-up Ono-Sendai “Cyberspace VII” (as William Gibson imagined), these enthusiasts are just sharing their creations on social media for bragging rights, and to celebrate their own maker successes. But here in our own real-world future, enthusiastic hobbyists are now trying to make it all come true - or at least, jerry-rigging their own home-brewed “cyberdecks” for accessing the internet.
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