Is that a movie screen on your head?
If you start spotting fellow commuters donning extra-funky eyewear, this could be why: Scalar's Teleglass, which lets users privately watch movies or TV, read text or view pictures via a tiny screen attached to their glasses, just started selling on the Japanese company's Web site and is expected to hit stores soon. Might not be a bad way to pass a subway ride or endure a line at the Department of Motor Vehicles.
Connected to a mobile phone, portable DVD player or digital camera, the Teleglass projects high-resolution video on eyeglasses, with the wearer seeing images as if watching a 14-inch television screen from 3 feet away, according to Scalar. A switcher lets wearers use their dominant eye to watch video, and the eyewear projects images to either the left or right eye, leaving the other unobstructed.
While wearable head displays are being touted as a tech of the future, the Teleglass, at less than a quarter of an inch in size, is among the least cumbersome. The Times of London gave the wireless gizmo a favorable review, saying "for their small size, the pictures projected into the Teleglass are surprisingly clear and eyes do not have to strain to watch them over an extended period."
But for now, antsy commuters may end up sticking with paperbacks or MP3 players. Hauling around your own private movie screen, at least when it comes to the $470 Teleglass, doesn't come cheap.
In other Teleglass news, Kopin Corporation, a U.S. manufacturer of microdisplays for mobile consumer electronics, announced on Tuesday that it will integrate its CyberDisplay 180K into the Teleglass.
Built with nanotechnology, the CyberDisplay 180K is a .24-inch diagonal color-filter active matrix liquid crystal display, or AMLCD, with a resolution of 800 by 225 (180,000) color dots. In addition to displaying standard text and graphics, the display operates at traditional video speeds and consumes less than 15 milliwatts of power.
Leslie Katz, senior editor of CNET's Crave, covers gadgets, games, and most other digital distractions. As a co-host of the CNET News Daily Podcast, she sometimes tries to channel Terry Gross. E-mail Leslie. 
