Augmented Reality In a Contact Lens 196
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."
Small steps. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Another inevitable function of this... (Score:3, Insightful)
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 solution might be 'capture and relay', but that invariably would cause your vision to lag reality. Not something I see even the most ardent transhumanists voting for.
Re:Another inevitable function of this... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:A better suggestion for power: (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
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.
Re:Science Reporting At Its Best (Score:1, Insightful)
Since that single LED is so close to your eyeball, I think it would be hard to see the difference between the blur of single LED and the blur of a high resolution grid of LEDs.
Re:Why aug? (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf mutes!
Ghost in the Shell (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cool (Score:3, Insightful)
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.