Bionic Contact Lens May Lead to Overlay Displays

pfman writes "A University of Washington researcher has developed a contact lens including circuitry and a matrix of LEDs. Although not yet a working prototype, this may be a foundation for terminator/robocop style overlay displays in which computer graphics could be superimposed on your normal vision. 'Building the lenses was a challenge because materials that are safe for use in the body, such as the flexible organic materials used in contact lenses, are delicate. Manufacturing electrical circuits, however, involves inorganic materials, scorching temperatures and toxic chemicals. Researchers built the circuits from layers of metal only a few nanometers thick, about one thousandth the width of a human hair, and constructed light-emitting diodes one third of a millimeter across.'" Kotaku notes that this has some obvious gaming implications.

Um, what?

[tgd (2822)]

Someone needs to read a book on how the eye works.

You only have receptor density for reading dead center in your eye. You can't put Terminator-style displays of to the side of your FOV, because you can only see motion and coarse detail off dead center.

Re:Um, what?

[webheaded (997188)]

I highly doubt they planned putting the overlays anywhere but the center of the eye. If they're intelligent enough to make the thing, I'd have to assume they have someone there smart enough to tell them where it's going to work. ;)

Re:Um, what?

[GroeFaZ (850443)]

Damn it man, you closely dogded a 7-digit UID, and you DARE to try to talk some sense into a 4-digit UID? He knows almost 3 orders of magnitude more than you! I bet those scientists in question don't even HAVE an account on slashdot!

Re:Um, what?

[DarkHelmet (120004)]

Sir, that would imply that CmdrTaco is a deity among men. I will not stand for such heresy!

Re:Um, what?

[debianlinux (548082)]

I believe TFA was referring to placing peripheral components such as wireless reception on the part of the lens that is not used by the eye for viewing.

Re:

[Jack9 (11421)]

You're assuming we can't make better eyes to match the technology (by the time the technology is implemented).

Re:Um, what?

[mOdQuArK! (87332)]

Even adult brains have quite a bit of flexibility when exposed to additional or replaced sensory information. It might take some training, but there's no fundamental biological reason why adding artificial sensors to our own biological senses couldn't be handled by the brain.

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[Tango42 (662363)]

Actually, you can't see anything dead centre, because that's where the optic nerve joins the retina. That's why astronomers are often given the tip of looking slightly to the side of dim objects so that they're easier to see. The best detail is visible just off-centre.

Where it's best to put the data depends on what kind of data it is. If it's something you only need to be peripherally aware of (graphics, rather than text, presumably), it could be quite good off to the side. Having overlays in the middle of

Re:Um, what?

[JesseL (107722)]

You're confusing two different phenomena. The blind spot from the optic nerve is not in the center of the eye. The reason for the astronomers trick is due to the distribution of rods (brightness receptors) and cones (color rectors) in the eye. There are more cones at the center of the retina, but the more sensitive rods are distributed more peripherally.

Re:

[Tango42 (662363)]

I stand corrected. Thank you.

Re:Um, what?

[Jott42 (702470)]

The optic nerve does not exit at the dead center of the eye; the blind spot, where it connects, is to the side of the center. But the center of the eye has the highest concentration of cones, which gives us colour vision. To the sides the rods are more common, these have better sensitivity, but are only registering the amount of illumination, not the colour. Thus an astronomer who is searching for faint objects in the sky is better of looking to the side of the object, using the rods of the retina, than trying to see the objects in colour with the cones, as they are less sensitive to light.

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[graft (556969)]

There are two orientations to consider: one is the orientation of your eyes, and the other the orientation of your face. You're right about the former, but for the latter you could easily place displays off to the side; you'd just have to look over to the left or right (eye-wise) to see 'em.

Focus

[zymano (581466)]

Can anyone see dust or debris on their eye ? Yes , but impossible to focus on.

Do the Math

[crrkrieger (160555)]

Let's see, LEDs 1/3 mm across. My pupil is about 5mm, so that gives me a resolution of about 15 pixels across. Not so good, especially considering that to get that 15 pixels I would have to block everything else!

Re:

[CaptainPatent (1087643)]

Additionally, the human eye was not meant to focus on something just a couple of mm in front of it.

Go ahead, try it! You simply cannot focus that close to your eye.

Re:Do the Math

[ByteSlicer (735276)]

Go ahead, try it! You simply cannot focus that close to your eye.

Warning: do not look at fork with remaining eye!

Re:Do the Math

[imgod2u (812837)]

It wouldn't need to. The reason that focus is necessary is because the direction of incoming light rays are not aimed at the focal point for our light receptors. A display that is curved (and with LED's that emit light in the direction towards the natural center of the eye) would be a naturally focused image. In fact, one simply can't help *but* to focus on it.

Holography is required

[Blancmange (195140)]

The lens system of the eye (cornea, crystalline lens and the overall air/liquid interface) is a kind of parallel optical computer that applies a function to both the angle of incidence and the location of incidence in order that light coming from points on a roughly planar region in the scene map neatly to points on the retina. Interestingly, if you look through a pinhole, you force the angles of incidence and the location of incidence to be correlated and the lens system of your eye becomes a spatial modul

You can't focus on something that close

[MrSteveSD (801820)]

So how is it useful?

Re:

[Tango42 (662363)]

They would presumably do it in such a way that it's clear when focusing at a normal distance, the same way VR headsets work.

Re:

[MrSteveSD (801820)]

For that you have to have optics between the display and the eye. There wouldn't be any room to do that with a contact lens.

Re:You can't focus on something that close

[Tango42 (662363)]

Are you familiar with the standard purpose of a contact lens?

Re:

[MrSteveSD (801820)]

You would have to have a contact lens so powerful it would enable someone to focus on something a fraction of a millimetre in front of their eyes. If that was at all possible, it would also mess up their normal vision.

Re:You can't focus on something that close

[currivan (654314)]

My first app would be AdBlock for real life.

Re:You can't focus on something that close

[corsec67 (627446)]

The second app would be projecting a nude body onto everyone, or onto selected genders, with options for body type and when to do it.....

Two Questions:

[JesseL (107722)]

First: How are they envisioning powering a device like this?

Second: It's my understanding that human vision requires continuous eye motion to maintain visual perception. Try holding your eyeball still by (gently) applying finger pressure to it through your eyelid. You'll notice after a few seconds that your field vision slowly shrinks into nothing. If an image moves in perfect sync with your eyeball, isn't your brain likely to stop seeing it after a short time?

Re:

[denis-The-menace (471988)]

RE: First: How are they envisioning powering a device like this?

by the picture of the lens I would say wires.
There's little pads big enough to glue/solder wire to.

Doesn't sound too comfortable but the rabbit didn't complain...

Re:

[Alwin Henseler (640539)]

RE: First: How are they envisioning powering a device like this?

by the picture of the lens I would say wires.

Yes, and judging from the picture: multiple wires. But why, really? Wouldn't a single wire be enough? Place a contact pad elsewhere on the body, or use a conductive housing for the device connected to that single wire, and have it touch the body directly. That way you'd have the wire, and use the body/eyeball as return path for an electric current. Then superimpose a high frequency signal for data transmission.

Other options:

• Short-wave electromagnetic waves (a la RFID)
• Some sort of tranparent (non

Can't it be just on sunglasses?

[grumpyman (849537)]

Isn't that safer? I don't want implanted chips or digital display in my body.

Re:

[JesseL (107722)]

My Acuvue contacts don't seem particularly unsafe. If they can make display contacts comparable to what I'm wearing now I'd give them a shot. If there are attached wires or too much wattage involved, I'll pass...

Re:

[SirLurksAlot (1169039)]

They may be fine most of the time, but you still have the risk of possible infection or abrasion. They can avoid those problems entirely by using glasses or another form of media which doesn't directly touch your eyes. Don't get me wrong, this is a cool idea, but I'm not particularly hot about the idea of contact lenses (I don't wear/need glasses btw.), much less contact lenses that will hold an electrical charge.

I think this will be moot in the semi-near future anyway. With the work they're doing with d

Re:

[wiggles (30088)]

I don't want implanted chips or digital display in my body.

Speak for yourself! I'm waiting for the day I can plug my ear into the USB port of my computer and download pr0n straight to my brain.

yuck!

[jollyreaper (513215)]

What about those of us who are squicked by the thought of anything getting near our eyes, let alone contact lenses?

While I have no expertise in the field, I've always assumed that we'd first see this with glasses. The classic HUD on aircraft is an image projected onto glass in the pilot's line of sight. I figured we'd see this when we either had a) some sort of transparent material with a tiny lcd grid so that wireframe graphics could be overlaid on the real world objects or b) VR goggles scaled down to the size of comfortable glasses with the world projected inside with the overlays on top.

The one other variant I could think of for a projector technology would be glasses with a tiny low-power laser tracking the retina and beaming photons into it.

Thinking about VR, though, it does make you wonder about the interrogation potential for completely controlling someone's environment. If you thought the Ministry was scary in 1984, just imagine the interrogator controlling your entire reality. There was actually a surprisingly good TNG episode where Riker was put through VR interrogation so that he would reveal something important. Each of those constructed realities seemed entirely convincing at first but as he started to find flaws, the reality would shatter and be replaced by something new. Scary.

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[snl2587 (1177409)]

What about those of us who are squicked by the thought of anything getting near our eyes, let alone contact lenses?

Well, I guess no super bionic capabilities for you!

Re:

[brkello (642429)]

Umm, you get over it like everyone else does when they have to wear contacts?

does it affect karma

[techpawn (969834)]

Since it's not a true implant to get the clock to display floating in the corner of my eye. The actual implant cost me a few points of karma so that's all my cyber samurai had and... Wait this isn't a thing about Shadow Run?

Re:

[XorNand (517466)]

I think you mean essence, not karma. That'll be a 10 yard penalty...

well....

[ArsonSmith (13997)]

I, for one, welcome our new bionic rabbit overlords.

Don't rabbits have good eyes anyway? They seem to be eating carrots all the time.

Re:

[Cochonou (576531)]

As long as you can squish them by the terminating their Swiss banks credentials, they won't be much our overlords.

Re:

[andphi (899406)]

It must be Bunniiiieeess!

"Rainbows End" FTW!

[halfelven (207781)]

Funny, I am reading "Rainbows End" by Vernor Vinge these days, and now this article comes out. It's like deja vu all over again.

Solar cells?

[CarAnalogy (1191053)]

The researchers hope to power the whole system using a combination of radio-frequency power and solar cells placed on the lens, Parviz said.

"Please stare into laser with remaining eye to recharge lens."

It's all fun and games...

[fahrbot-bot (874524)]

... until someone loses an eye.

circuits from layers of metal only a few nanometers thick

Hmm... A lens containing microscopic pieces of metal next to my cornea.
What could go wrong?

Blink?

[Bill Dimm (463823)]

Aside from all of the other problems people have pointed out, what happens when you blink? The display moves and then settles back into position? Movement of the lens isn't a big deal when the whole thing is clear, but I would imagine it would be really annoying when there is a display on it.

Out of focus

[Viadd (173388)]

An LED at the surface of the eye's cornea/lens will flood the entire retina with light. It will appear as a red glare filling your field of view, and not as a little pixel of light. That is because the surface of the lens is out of focus, and so the wide angle light from the LED just spreads out.

If it were an array of lasers with tight beams, then it could work, but you can't make small lasers produce tight beams(due to the diffraction limit) without additional optics that couldn't fit under the eyelid.

Assuming the researchers aren't total morons...

[TomRC (231027)]

It's possible that they've thought of the issue of focusing the image.

One possibility would be that the display would use tiny lasers, to project very narrow beams of light at just a small group of receptors on the retina.

Different eye shapes/sizes would seem to make that difficult, but there's probably some way to do it, even if it means having to have "prescription" displays that match your eyes.

I can see it now.... the Goatse virus

[Angelwrath (125723)]

The Goatse virus for bionic vision.

Issues

[PhotoGuy (189467)]

At first, I was thinking that focus would be the main issue, since the middle of your lens is where all the light rays from the external world cross at an almost-point. Being so close to that (on the cornea), this lens might have focus issues.

But maybe not. All it really has to do is put incredibly small pixels there to colour (or obscure) the light from a given point. As long as pixels don't overlap too much (when out of focus), it could work.

I will be interesting to see how this develops further.

Re:

[Speare (84249)]

This is just passive wavelength filtering. The amber filters are exactly like the "Blue Blocker" driving sunglasses in the 1970s. Yawn.

Re:

[ArsonSmith (13997)]

This isn't of a HUD, the led's will be replaced with lasers and we can shoot laser beams from our eyes!!!

I don't look forward to the amount of burned and scared cleavage this new technology will bring.