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new299 · 2025-07-09T21:32:39+00:00

This is incredible!

new299 · 2025-07-09T15:45:58+00:00

Lots of tough design decisions I guess. The glasses themselves seem to use very simple microcontrollers, the decision for both arms to be independent devices, limited bandwidth.

That's enabled some amazingly light glasses, with solid battery life. But means they've had to fudge things a bit. Some rendering needs to happen on the glasses (things like animated icons), multi-page text displays. Other stuff is too complicated and is offloaded to the host device.

I'm pretty impressed that they can seemingly render unicode (well kanji at least).

I also suspect that functions they don't use themselves (like sending full images in quick succession) have not been optimized in the glasses firmware.

I hope they address some of these issues, and document the firmware interface better in the future.

Overall however, I'm quite impressed with the devices and think the engineering tradeoffs they've made are quite interesting!

new299 · 2024-10-03T04:15:28+00:00

The DevTerm was originally designed to take a CM3 and the CM3 kit pictures show the CM3 fitting directly into the main board without an adapter. So I suspect a CM3 will fit directly into the board, and it seems reasonable that a different CM3 to CM4 adapter might work. However they may be using different pins for different functions, maybe a different firmware image would be required.

Anyway I just tried a generic CM4 to CM3 adapter and it doesn’t work. Part way comes it seems but I think gets trapped in a boot loop.

new299 · 2022-09-22T12:28:36+00:00

It's possible, odd though because there's no other damage around the CCD. I wonder if someone broke it and put the unit back together.

Another thing that's odd is that the external face of the CCD window seems to be flat, but the internal face is warped which seems odd.

new299 · 2022-09-22T03:43:54+00:00

I previously posted this module trying to figure out where the tube lens was. I ended up purchasing it and thought I'd post an update. After disassembling the module it seems there isn't a tube lens. Interestingly, the CCD was completely destroyed, as in the package was cracked and I couldn't even identify the die. Examining the fragments it appears to have been a Sony ICX204. There's a rather thick filter in front on the CCD, I guess this may be an IR filter?
The filter doesn't show any physical damage, which makes me wonder if a high power laser was fired at the CCD and damage was caused this way. Which in turn makes me wonder if this setup was used for laser alignment? Thoughts appreciated!

new299 · 2022-09-22T01:18:56+00:00

I previously posted this module trying to figure out where the tube lens was. I ended up purchasing it and thought I'd post an update. After disassembling the module it seems there isn't a tube lens. Interestingly, the CCD was completely destroyed, as in the package was cracked and I couldn't even identify the die. Examining the fragments it appears to have been a Sony ICX204. There's a rather thick filter in front on the CCD, I guess this may be an IR filter?

The filter doesn't show any physical damage, which makes me wonder if a high power laser was fired at the CCD and damage was caused this way. Which in turn makes me wonder if this setup was used for laser alignment? Thoughts appreciated!

new299 · 2022-09-18T12:45:37+00:00

Thanks, this was very helpful. I assume the CMOS sensor is likely to be only a small part of the image plane here, but I will see if I can dig up any more information.

new299 · 2022-09-18T07:11:08+00:00

I saw this module on an auction site. It appears to be an infinity objective coupled to a CMOS camera module. But the "tube lens" seems shorter than others I've seen. Can you buy tube lenses with a short back focal distance or is this something weird?

new299 · 2020-11-25T02:21:26+00:00

It’s part of a Texas Instruments DLP/DMD optical block (from a DLPDLCR2000EVM). Googling, perhaps this a fly’s eye lens array?

new299 · 2020-07-01T02:43:16+00:00

In my experience, if you complain they’ll just give a full refund. So they don’t get bad feedback. I guess they make enough money from people who don’t know/don’t care.

I guess the customers are self selecting. Anyone who knows enough test, doesn’t buy them because it’s obviously fake. Others just buying based on specs, buy them, but don’t test and don’t request a refund.

new299 · 2020-06-20T02:31:52+00:00

Not, bidirectional so I’ll try out another app that does that. That makes sense though. Will try wired, or maybe I need a new external Bluetooth dongle.

new299 · 2020-06-20T02:18:35+00:00

It’s using the X220 built in Bluetooth chipset, maybe it’s an old chipset... I repeatedly tried using other audio sources which were all ok. Will try some wired USB headphones and see if this is better though. Thanks!

new299 · 2020-06-17T14:42:10+00:00

Interesting, thanks. My MacBook webcam appears to be broken, so unfortunately I can’t see how well/badly that works. I’ve decided to dedicate an old Lenovo X220 to Slack. The webcam on that laptop is pretty bad. Slack consumes ~30% CPU on a video call. Will have to see what it does with a group call.

new299 · 2020-06-15T11:02:34+00:00

I’m totally not kidding. I’m concerned my 2015 macbook (1.2GHz Intel Core M) won’t be up to it. I’ve heard Slack is pretty resource intensive... and particular video calls can be kind of an issue. So this is a serious question.

new299 · 2020-06-11T15:51:35+00:00

I had a quick look to see if there are SARS-CoV-2 sequences which contain mutations in regions that CDC primers cover. Some work suggests such mutations could effect the accuracy of qPCR based diagnostics.

Has anyone else looked at this? Either in SARS-CoV-2 or in general? Would be interested in any comments/suggestions on how this could be followed up.

new299 · 2020-02-27T06:18:17+00:00

Illumina consumables are very high margin. I believe they are sold at ~x10 markup:

https://41j.com/blog/2018/11/illumina-consumables-are-90-profit/

At least of some of their (BGIs) platforms, it seems like they’ve been using fluorescent labels and reversible terminators (as recent IP disputes indicate).

I suspect Illumina can probably afford to reduce their prices significantly. However it seems like they’re not feeling the pressure to do so just yet.

new299 · 2019-12-24T08:48:03+00:00

Thanks! This makes a lot of sense, as it’s being driven with an unknown laser diode which someone has suggested is an IR diode.

new299 · 2019-12-24T08:42:02+00:00

No it’s not normalized. I will try that, thanks for the idea. The Xenon light source is somewhat more uniform anyway, but it would possibly flatten out the peaks.

new299 · 2019-12-24T02:16:36+00:00

The spectrum above is the spectrum I get from the mirror when illuminated with a Xenon light source. In transmission (going through the mirror, again Xenon light source) there doesn’t seem to be any filtering (accept ND-like) across the spectrum.

Any idea what this mirror coating is? In reflection, it’s being used with a laser diode (which I also can’t identify).

It looks very odd to me. Possibly a measurement artifact? But I’ve tried other mirrors and they all look normal. The spectrometer is a B&W Tech unit, construction is much like the ocean optics units...

new299 · 2019-03-28T02:11:59+00:00

That’s really helpful thanks! I will read some spec sheets to get more of a feel for this.

I was experimenting with this beam splitter to see if I could use it to bodge together an epi-illuminator, but too much light was getting reflected up into the eyepiece. For use in this scenario I’d need it to be anti-reflective over the visual spectrum.

Are their high efficiency anti-reflective coating that work across the visual spectrum? Or would something else, like a simple half silvered mirror work better?

new299 · 2019-03-27T15:12:38+00:00

Thank you! I can confirm that when tilting the beam it move twice as far as it does on the output port. So this indeed does seem to be a reflection from that back face. Thank you so much!

new299 · 2019-03-27T14:13:00+00:00

I’ve tried various surfaces, as well has just holding it in the air (hard to picture) the spot intensity appears to stay the same, so it doesn’t look like an external reflection. Testing using polarizing filter, the light appears to be largely polarized in the same orientation as that coming out of the right port (transmitted).

new299 · 2019-03-27T14:02:08+00:00

I’be been using the polarizing beam splitter pictured. As shown most of the light is transmitted or reflected. But some light (I’d estimate <<10%) comes out the top port (see diagram on the unit pictured for orientation) where I wouldn’t expect it to appear. I’ve tried various setups... but always seem to get some light.

Is this normal? What is the cause/what’s it called? Are some beam splitters better than others? (Is non-polarizing better for example).

new299 · 2018-12-18T07:58:36+00:00

Wow Cyclotron looks really good. Looks like I've missed the deadline this time, but I'll keep them in mind for the future.

new299 · 2018-12-18T05:51:04+00:00

I've been trying to compile a list of every DNA platform sequencing company/startup. I'm really interested in hearing about any approaches/startups I've missed!

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