Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Bionic Contact Lens May Lead to Overlay Displays

Posted by Zonk on from the i-can-has-that-now dept.

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.

3 of 213 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Um, what? by debianlinux · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  2. Re:Um, what? by JesseL · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    --
    "Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
  3. Re:Um, what? by Jott42 · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.