The researchers at KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) announced that they developed a head-mounted display--30 times faster processing speed compared to that of Google Glass.

'K-Glass', developed by Yoo Hoi-Jun, Professor of Electrical Engineering at KAIST, and his team, is a high-performance, extremely low-powered head-mounted display (HMD) embedding an augmented reality (AR) chip--30x faster and with 3 to 12x longer operating time than Google Glass.

K-Glass developed by a team of researchers at KAIST

Despite the sensation that Google created with its Project Glass in May 2012, Google Glass had many problems, but received special criticisms for its terrible battery life and screen that's hard to see in bright light . Well, K-Glass solved that part of the problem. Embedding a 32㎟ AR processor that runs 1.22 TOPS (1012-operations per second), it features high energy efficiency rate of  in 1.57 TOPS/W during the real-time operation 30fps/720p video environment. As for generic operation, it lasts up to 24 hours.

"By ruling out the unnecessary computation, the processor significantly increases the computation speed of complex AR algorithms" said one of the researchers.

In order to reduce power consumption, the AR processor's network architecture imitates the neurons in the brain. The research team also resolved the bottlenecks caused by the processor's internal data transfer as well as by the network tipping effect. In order to reduce power consumption, the AR processor's network architecture imitates the neurons in the brain. The research team also resolved the bottlenecks caused by the processor's internal data transfer as well as by the network tipping effect.

Professor Yoo said, "There has been a growing interest in HMDs as the next-generation mobile device. As the optical see-through HMD implements AR, many aspects of our lives including education and entertainment will undergo substantial changes."

Written by Heeseung Lee (2014)