Things from the realms of science fiction become reality increasingly often these days (although where’s our flying car, eh?). But the Rodenstock Informance sunglasses mark the first time we can recall something starting as a spoof making it into reality.

The Informance specs use a cunning arrangement of LEDs and a prism to project stopwatch and heart rate data into the left-hand side of your field of view in the style of the heads-up displays used in fighter jets, helicopter gunships and high-end German cars. This is exactly the same idea that appeared in the April issue of a popular UK mountain bike magazine about a decade ago, only obviously it was made up then, and it’s real now.

Well, real-ish. The prototype picks up time and heart rate information from a watch and HRM and displays it through the 320×240 pixel display. The projected image is claimed to occupy just 12% of the field of view and adds just 7g to the glasses’ weight. There’s plenty of scope for getting more numbers in there – speed and GPS-derived navigation data are two of the more obvious ones.

Informance glasses could be a real product that you can buy by 2009. The anticipated cost is around €1,000 – start saving…