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]

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]

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. ;)

You can't focus on something that close

[MrSteveSD]

So how is it useful?

Two Questions:

[JesseL]

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?

Can't it be just on sunglasses?

[grumpyman]

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

Environmental factors

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm.... eyeball mounted circuitry, and cops with Tasers... what could possibly go wrong?

Re:Um, what?

[graft]

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.

Out of focus

[Viadd]

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.

Re:yuck!

[brkello]

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

Re:It's all fun and games...

[jam244]

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

They said the same thing about regular contact lenses too.

Assuming the researchers aren't total morons...

[TomRC]

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.

Re:Do the Math

[imgod2u]

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.