The retinal imaging display created by Brother in Japan projects images directly onto the retina of the eye. Users of the Brother Airscouter believe that they are looking at 16-inch screen that’s about one meter away from their eyes (800×600 resolution, 600cd/m2 brightness).
The first time I read about this idea was in an sf novel many years ago. Frederik Pohl and Cyril Kornbluth wrote about this idea more than half a century ago in their satiric 1952 novel The Space Merchants.
...soon we'll be testing a system that projects directly on the retina of the eye...
(Read more about retinal projector)
Admirers of Philip K Dick will not be surprised to learn (or recall) that he went even further. In his 1954 story Sales Pitch, Dick writes about a retinal vid-screen:
"All the news while it's news," a metallic voice dinned at him. "Have a retinal vid-screen installed in your least-used eye. Keep in touch with the world; don't wait for out-of-date hourly summaries."
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