Kopin Golden-i Wearable Computer Concept [Lightweight Bluetooth Headset, Virtual 15-in Display, Hands-Free Natural Speech Recognition, Microsoft's Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R2 OS]

You probably haven’t heard of a company called Kopin Corporation. This could be because they spend most of their time crafting micro-displays for the likes of the military and other highly-secretive, if-you-know-too-much-I’ll-have-to-kill-you type organizations. Either that or you really need to get out from under your rock more often. Anyway, Kopin have announced today that they plan to unveil their new Golden-i™ Wearable Computer at Microsoft’s booth # 400 at the Embedded Systems Conference in Boston on September 22 & 23, 2009. Wearable computers a thing of science fiction you say? I beg of you to read on.

Geeky headgear aside, the Golden-i is a pretty stacked piece of technological cranium fashion. The crux of the unit is a combination three-ounce Bluetooth headset and 15-in virtual PC display. It also features a hands-free natural speech recognition interface capable of controlling just about every feature of your mobile device while it’s tucked away safely in your pocket. Kopin is promising that the Golden-i will serve us with hands-free spontaneous access to digital information, broadcast programming and Internet services all using the industry standard Bluetooth 2.0.

Interested to learn more about the behind-the-scenes action of the Golden-i? Thought so. The Golden-i is powered by Microsoft’s Windows® Embedded CE 6.0 R2 operating system along with a Texas Instruments OMAP3530 processor featuring an ARM Cortex-A8, high performance DSP and a graphics accelerator. Now that was a screenful. As for the communications portion of our tour, the Golden-i sports Nuance Communications VoCon3200 speech recognition and Vocalizer text-to-speech software platforms. Still need more? How about Micron Semiconductor’s ultra-fast, low-power, multi-bit node DDR2 RAM / NAND FLASH Package-on-Package (POP) OMAP mobile memories and MicroSD cards. I thought that’d do it for you.

You might be thinking that you need to carry an unlicensed proton accelerator pack on your back to power the thing, right? Well, according to Kopin, current testing suggests Golden-i’s OMAP dual processor platform can achieve over eight hours of typical use with a single 1200 mA/hr Li-ion battery. Boo-yah.

While the Golden-i may not quite be ready for prime time, Kopin plans to begin shipping Gen 3 Golden-i Eval SDK units for customer field trials in December 2009. Once they’ve worked out all the kinks, you might be able to purchase one of the production units sometime in 2010. There was such an overwhelming amount of info provided in the full press release that I didn’t want you to miss anything. You can click here for the rest of the story.