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Comments: 196 +- Science: Augmented Reality In a Contact Lens on Tuesday September 01, @11:49AM
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Toe, The writes "Bionanotechnology researcher Babak A Parviz writes about his research toward producing a computer interface in a contact lens. At the moment, they have only embedded a single LED, but they foresee a much more complex interface such as detailed in Vernor Vinge's Rainbows End. Such lenses potentially could also read human bio-information from the eye, providing medical information on the order of what is now taken from blood tests, but on a continuous basis. An example would be monitoring glucose levels for diabetics. The author states that, 'All the basic technologies needed to build functional contact lenses are in place,' and details what refinements and advances will be necessary to bring this technology to reality."
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Cool (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Mine holds by itself [wikipedia.org].
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A 21st Century Contact Lens (Score:5, Informative)
Here's an illustration [ieee.org] that explains it all in a glance.
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I suppose that the micro-lenses focus the output of a LED directly on the retina but do not see how LCD type displays referred to in TFS can work. Anyone?
The problem for those who have not realized it is that LCDs in contact lenses are too close to the eye to work. They would subtract some light but be invisible much like a screen is when you put your face up to it & focus outside.
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I suppose they'd have to use some sort of holographic optics to form a virtual image at a distance. I think this is possible, but it's not my field. Besides, for good AR, you want to be able to layer dark as well as bright images. When you're flying through a daylit cloud, your overlays should be black.
Retinal projection displays are overrated in my experience. They throw your eye's imperfections into overwhelming, distracting relief.
A better suggestion for power: (Score:5, Interesting)
Blinks. Leech kinetic energy from the eyelid. Teeny-tiny stick-on magnets go on the outside of your eyelid; they'll be the next fashion statement. Every time you blink, it induces a current pulse in the lens pickup coils.
For that matter, it might be possible to collect energy from saccades and other natural eye movements. That's potentially a higher-res and lower-latency method for eye-tracking than cameras, which you'll need for AR, and if you can harvest energy to boot, so much the better!
I don't have the physics/EE chops to run the numbers, but I'll bet you'd get more power this way than from a "solar cell module". (Who wants to keep their eyes wide open and directed toward a bright light source?)
Parent
Re:A better suggestion for power: (Score:5, Interesting)
the cells in the cornea are fed not by blood vessels (which wouldn't be transparent) but get their oxygen from the air, and their nutrients and sugars from your tears. The lens could do the same thing.
Parent
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How about that, the more you know
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Why not just replace the whole eye, or at least the lens part of it?
Almost everyone over 50 has some vision issues, and many people much younger than that. Plus, you could add features like zoom or filters.
That's the future - replacing parts of the body with better synthetic ones.
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They are definitely working hard on artificial sight. However it will be quite a while before artificial sight will be near as good as natural sight. Certainly I'm not an expert, but I do find the field fascinating. Slashdot user BWJones is one of the field's prominent researchers, working for the University of Utah.
There's a number of things which prohibit us from being able to produce drop-in replacements for eyeballs. One of which, for example, is that the precise nature of the work that the retina d
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I've got all those! (Score:3, Funny)
Heinsenberg compensator = Registered ECC setup for RAM.
Zero-point module: processor with no floating point instructions.
yes! (Score:4, Interesting)
But they're gonna have to figure out a) how to power it and b) how to transmit the data to these devices. That is true tech challenge.
Re:yes! (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
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No no no no no
It'll be used to present a VR overlay ("skin") on your generic sex-bot, which will be printed with a pattern that the lenses can easily recognize so it can correctly orient the 3-D model. Get bored with the Angelina Jolie skin? Fick your eyes to the side to cycle forward to the Cindy Crawford skin in mid-stroke!
Holy shit, I think I need to patent that...
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Just imagine that chick watching your portfolio performance while she tags you.
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TFA did mention that they are powering the current version via RF. (RF being the same as the RF in RFID)
I have a request. (Score:4, Funny)
Can I just get a contact lens with cross-hairs in it?
Why yes. I do play Quake III Arena often. Why do you ask?
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You mean like this [racheshop.de]?
Small steps. (Score:2, Insightful)
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Agreed; something like the Myvu Crystal with decent resolution (640 lines is NOT enough for everyone; double it and I'll buy it tomorrow) should be possible and wouldn't require a prescription (or eyedrops). For extra fun, add a couple of accelerometers for head-tracking and you can use the old X-windows "slide the viewport around" trick. Add a small bluetooth keyboard, and you've got a mini-office anywhere you've got a chair.
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I'd be happy just to have the usable interface ;)
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I'd be happy just to have a usable interface in a pair of normal glasses (non-correcting).
Ditto. I have extreme eye contact phobia and the thought of contacts gives me the willies with a touch of the heebie-jeebies. But I can totally dig standard glasses.
Another inevitable function of this... (Score:5, Interesting)
It would be like Tivo for your life.
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With respect, I doubt that'll be in the 'near' future for these. The problem with recording video is that you actually have to capture the photons to do that. Capture the photons on the recording media, and they are no longer available for the eye to 'see'. The non-contact versions of 'eye mounted' HUDs that I've seen get around this by using a complex setup to split the image into two, but from what I understand of that, it'd be practically impossible to use the same method for a contact.
I suppose another
There are lots of photons to go around. (Score:3, Interesting)
Divert 10% of the incoming light to a recorder, and the wearer will never notice. Put the sensors on the outside face of some of the opaque lens components. Or put them around the periphery. There's no way you're going to do AR without a way to detect and analyze the "R" that you're "A"ing, anyhow.
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Re:Another inevitable function of this... (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
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Interesting objection, but easy to overcome. You do realize that the lens also will also have the ability to project light into the eye, right? So why not just project the capture back into the eye? In fact, this could be a feature. The user would hav
Re:Another inevitable function of this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Contact lenses cover more than the pupil. A recording device located over the iris would not interfere with vision.
Parent
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Actually, I was thinking more in the direction of "And here I am, banging my super-hot ex-girlfriend for the 1st time...when we were 18."
I know, this is Slashdot, so that scenario wouldn't really apply to anyone here. The driving one, how ever...
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Precisely why we need augmented reality. Imagine the hilarity when your co-workers as a joke hack your contacts so you see a herd of rabid monkeys running down the hall towards you while monkey sounds play on your ipod implants! That would really reduce the boredom of work!
Eye Fatigue, Ailments, Psychosis... (Score:2, Interesting)
now anyone can be (Score:3, Funny)
Hero (Score:2)
I just want an added twinkle to my eye... maybe something for my teeth as well.
Why aug? (Score:3, Funny)
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trust me, most of augmented reality will be demented.
Re:Why aug? (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf mutes!
Parent
Any day now (Score:2)
Science Reporting At Its Best (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Science Reporting At Its Best (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
IOL not contacts! (Score:2)
Let me know when I can get replacement lenses (IOL) with all this and more in it.
IOL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intraocular_lens [wikipedia.org]
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvmENasDFMw [youtube.com]
I can't wait for the first hacker (Score:4, Interesting)
I really can't wait for the first hacker who manages to hack someone else's lens to output an extremely bright light to the wearer...
so that he has to remove those lens, because the natural reflex of closing the eye is totally useless!
When you're arrested by the cops: "my lenses were hacked! i really didn't see that stop sign!"
Or: "cause of death: blinded by his lenses while driving"
Such an interesting future is coming towards us!
Ghost in the Shell (Score:3, Insightful)
Cybernetic Eyes (Score:4, Interesting)
Forget a contact on my eye - replace the whole eyeball. Give me low light, infrared, light reduction, bloom compensation, microscope and telescope functions, facial recognition, recording, playback, computer display link, etc.
Pretty much everyone needs glasses by 40 anyway, why not just get new eyes when you're 18?
I know we're a long way off from being able to plug a camera directly into the optic nerve, but when that day comes I'm up for it.
Further challenges (Score:4, Informative)
Vertical Stability and Durability (Score:3, Insightful)
One problem with this is that contact lenses float on your eye and are not stationary. This is a serious problem, because to keep a constant orientation, you'll either need to constantly rotate any light emitters to stay in the same place (probably not possible), or weight the contact lens as is currently done with astigmatic lenses (not a great solution).
Apart from this, contact lenses tear, break, get lost, etc... At the moment, my soft lenses cost $5 apiece. If one tears, gets lost, or something else equally destructive, it's not a problem. If the same lens cost $1000, that would be a much bigger problem. And I'm not sure there's a good solution to this. If you make the lenses soft, they'll degrade quickly (as current soft lenses do). If you make them hard, then they will fall, get scratched, and the like over the long term.
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They used this technology only a couple of months ago in Torchwood : Children of Earth [wikipedia.org]
Yup, and Babak Parviz was so inspired by that episode that he developed and has even started testing this device in less than 2 months. Yup. That's what happened.