Augmented Reality In a Contact Lens

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."

Comments

yes!

[Mr.Fork]

Now, throw in a TrackIR-like system, and we can 100% totally immerse ourselves inside a virtual reality PC. No more monitors that have limited field of views etc. Also, imagine the military and civilian aspects - how a terminator can overlay regional information like that of the new iPhone app - but now it's in your eyes.

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.

Another inevitable function of this...

[d474]

Another inevitable function of this contact lens is recording video. Everything you see passes through this lens, so you will be able to record everything you see (except, of course, for dreams and hallucinations).

It would be like Tivo for your life.

A better suggestion for power:

[jeffb (2.718)]

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?)

Re:A better suggestion for power:

[Cedric Tsui]

Or you could use burn glucose.
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.

Science Reporting At Its Best

[clt829]

They've put a single LED in a contact lens, so now we have Augmented Reality.

I can't wait for the first hacker

[Mishotaki]

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!

Cybernetic Eyes

[Baron_Yam]

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.