Intel launches x-ray-like glasses that allow wearers to 'see inside' objects

The Daqri Smart Helmet, demonstrated on stage at CES in Las Vegas by Intel during CEO Brian Krzanich’s keynote, is an industrial AR system capable of giving the wearer ‘Terminator vision’. Photograph: Ethan Miller/Getty Images

(The Guardian) Intel has launched a set of glasses built into a helmet that give x-ray-like vision using its RealSense 3D camera.

The glasses-cum-hardhat was unveiled at CES in Las Vegas and has been co-developed with augmented reality company Daqri using Intel’s latest processor and camera technology. It has taken concepts – like those of Microsoft’s Hololens – and produced a real product.

Unlike devices such as HoloLens or Google Glass, which have been marketed as consumer devices, the Daqri Smart Helmet is designed with industrial use in mind. It will allow the wearer to effectively peer into the workings of objects using real-time overlay of information, such as wiring diagrams, schematics and problem areas that need fixing.

Intel has spent years trying to move beyond just making and being known for the chips that run computers. It launched its RealSense system at CES in 2014 – a follow up to the company’s Perceptual Computing platform.

Now RealSense has been combined with a 360-degree sensor array, Intel’s latest Core m7 processor and Daqri’s computer vision and tracking system to produce what it claims to be the “most powerful AR wearable device” available.

Bridget Karlin, managing director of Intel’s internet of things strategy office said: “The Daqri Smart Helmet is a great example of integrating advanced human-machine interface into existing devices to make something smart and solve a potential problem.”

The Smart Helmet has been tested by a range of Fortune 100 companies across aerospace, construction, oil and gas industries, and will be available for purchase in the first quarter of this year.