TV screen glasses the latest in going google-eyed

SITTING on a bus wearing a pair of goggles that doubles up as a television screen may be a fashion no-no for some, but it spells techno-heaven for gadget geeks.

Expect queues of sci-fi fans just back from the latest convention to congregate outside O2 shops in the near future, jostling for elbowpatch-room with Minority Report aficionados and The Matrix addicts when the latest “video eyewear” goes on sale.

The Myvu Corporation, which sounds like it actually could have featured in Minority Report, is promising to bring a “video eyewear revolution” to Ireland.

Forget about sharing distant TV screens with other people when on the plane, or having to look at fellow passengers on the train while listening to your earphones, now you can also cover your eyes, watch videos up close and personal and truly block out the real world.

As author Malcolm Gladwell has suggested of internet search engines, it may sound like a solution to a problem that never existed. But there’s still sure to be a rush of customers who are afraid that they are being left behind, technology-wise, lumbered as they are with “just” the latest mobile phone, mp3 player, portable DVD machine, sat nav, and pedometer in their satchels.

According to the Myvu Corporation, its Myvu Crystal premium range of video eyewear is the first to “fully integrate plug-and-play functionality with all iPod with video models and iPhone”.

So now we know.

Retailing from a mere €199, the Myvu Crystal offers “a lightweight portable media viewer that lets users watch their favourite videos anywhere on a vivid virtual and full-sized screen,” managing director of Irish distributors CTC Graham Doyle said yesterday.

Nothing about predicting the future, however.

Now, the next challenge is for bored schoolkids: how to get away with wearing it in class?