If you’re like me, watching 2002’s Minority Report in theaters was a memorable film experience: it was a good science-fiction movie and there were a lot of cool techie toys. One of my favorite things from the film was the “multitouch head-up display” that Tom Cruise’s character John Anderton used to view assignments from the Precrime unit. For those unfamiliar with the film, John Anderton applies special gloves and interacts with a fantastic PC-like interface that enables multitasking by allowing the user to grab windows and toss them around the screen. [The design was also used in 50 Cent, Justin Timberlake and Timbaland’s “Ayo Technology” music video, which you can see here around the 1:52 mark.]
But I digress.
The development of this technology wasn’t as far off as suspected: multitouch interfaces are nearly everywhere now, including in our homes through our desktop and tablet PCs, and in our pockets through our smartphones, heck, even universal remote controls utilize the feature. But Zeal Optics has taken the next step in making head-up displays both readily available and functional. In a collaborative effort with Recon Instruments, they’ve created the Transcend GPS snow goggle.
At first glance, they provide the benefits that all high-end snow goggles should, including two lens choices: SPX polarized and SPPX polarized + photochromatic, both of which offer superior protection from UV rays, and are designed to deter natural hindrances to visibility, such as fog and permafrost.
Indeed, they’re cool looking, but it’s what’s under the hood of these goggles that got my attention. Zeal has coined the term: the “world’s first direct-to-eye communications display” for their product and I can’t argue. I’ve never seen anything like these things. The Transcend goggles have a full-color LCD screen with GPS. Not only does it provide the wearer with real-time information about their runs, it does it in delicious and vibrant color. Although the screen is only a 1/4th of an inch wide, it’s practically invisible when the user looks forward. Should the user one look 
down at it, a lens magnifies the 320×240-pixel screen to create the illusion of the data suspended six feet in front of you. Fraser Hall, Recon’s director and co-founder, explains that this all makes the screen, in development for three and a half years, ‘no more distracting than a [car’s] dashboard.’
The goggles have a stopwatch feature and a vertical odometer built in. No detail is left unknown: movement on the slopes, speed, altitude, temperature and rate of descent. The GPS feature will inform users of the proximity of lifts and restaurants on the slope, and I could type all day about what the goggles could mean for the safety of skiers and boarders all over the world. Moments of heavy snowfall will provide a lot less of a threat, when someone is riding with Transcends on.
Recon Instruments calls it their “head mounted display,” and the screen’s functions are controlled by large buttons on either side of the goggles. Your gloved paws won’t have trouble navigating them at all.
The goggles are powered by a rechargeable battery, offering up to six hours of use out of a full charge. If this all is not amazing enough, the snow goggles will have USB compatibility, allowing users to transfer and share data, indefinitely helping wearers improve performance.
So perhaps, after all this techie banter, you’re still thinking: “Kris, I don’t ski!”
I get how this may be uninteresting to you, but technology is never-ending. One development can lead to the floodgates being opened, and I can’t help but see that here. Mainstream consumption of a product like this will be the tip of the iceberg for all “extreme” sports. Transcend goggles for paintball? Yes, please. Goggles for BMX, skateboarding and rollerblading? Yes, ma’am, may I have another? How about coaches using them for scouting? The goggles would have been welcome at the NFL Combine, for sure.
The Transcend snow goggles are currently available on Zeal Optics’ website.
The price is $350-450.
