When B.C. entrepreneurs Dallas La Porta and Dino Mariutti were spitballing ideas for a device that would grip people, they couldn’t help but remark on the technology used by the titular character in the Iron Man films.
In addition to shooting missiles and flying, the superhero’s suit features a heads-up display (HUD) in his helmet to warn of incoming threats.
DD Technologies co-founder La Porta recalled business partner Mariutti telling him two years ago, “‘There’s going to be a day where absolutely everybody is going to have one of these things and you won’t be able to get away from them.’”
La Porta and Mariutti were at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) January 9, showcasing their Iris HUD to thousands of prospective buyers before launching a fundraising and pre-sales campaign January 12.
Unlike the Iron Man suit, the device developed in West Vancouver doesn’t give vehicles the power to fly — although it was developed based on the same equipment used by fighter jet pilots.
Instead, the visor-mounted HUD connects to a mobile phone and displays text messages, takes calls, tracks speed limits, provides school zone warnings and offers directions all within the driver’s line of sight.
While these sorts of devices have been used on aircrafts for years, they’re only now making their way into the consumer market.
La Porta said the response from CES was good, while its open-source platform that allows people to customize how it’s used proved to be a hot selling point.
And DD Technologies has been able to secure an overseas partner capable of manufacturing about 50,000 devices in the first year if the demand is there, according to La Porta.
Although concerns have been raised about how safe HUDs are to use while people are driving, he insisted it’s still much better than people using cell phones.
The device incorporates gesture control, so a finger-wave to the left will decline a phone call or send an auto-response to incoming text message.
Furthermore, La Porta said the Iris is even safer than the dashboard-mounted HUDs .
“If something is mounted on your dashboard, you need to be able to see licence plates, it’s going to be competing with headlights. If a kid runs out in front of your car, there’s all these sort practicality issues,” he said.
“(With a visor-mounted HUD) your visual backdrop is actually the sky, so in terms of keeping what we call the danger zone clear, it works out way better.”
