LiveMap wants to make your helmet an HUD

HUD - Heads Up Display. It's the projection of useful information on a surface in a transparent fashion so you don't have to look away.

It originated in fighter aircraft, where radar and other information was projected onto the cockpit so pilots didn't have to look down. In recent years, car companies such as Mercedes have started to add similar systems to car windshields.

And now a Russian company called LiveMap wants to do something similar using your helmet visor.

The primary reason is to aid navigation. Today, your GPS can speak and tell you "left in 200 yards". Imagine that same information was overlaid on the road as you looked at it. It's a cool idea, and from the images below it doesn't look too intrusive. It's certainly better than straining to hear the tinny voice saying "turn left" shortly after you actually needed to turn left.

Voice commands and motion sensitivity allow more detailed information to be shown. For example, when you're not moving, you can see the map or search for places to stop

Much of this stuff is in your pocket and on your cellphone already. What is cool is that this helmet will make you feel like an F-35 pilot when you use it and who doesn't want that?

The display is full-color and uses the Android platform. While it's not stated, the system will probably need a cellphone for connectivity. It's possible all the maps /etc can be stored locally in the helmet, but I'd guess not.

On the downside, the helmet is called "slightly larger" than normal.

To my eyes, it looks way bigger than a standard helmet but then it does need to carry batteries and a fair amount of processing power. It'll be interesting to see how many people are happy with that trade off. Weight will similarly be a factor I suspect. This will not be a light helmet.

[cid=18748,http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/wCfjX-KEWmA/hqdefault.jpg]

It's not in market yet, but if you are interested, you can signup to back these guys at indiegogo. $1500 will net you a helmet, estimated to arrive in August 2014. That's not bad as the price is anticipated to rise to $2000 upon launch.