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Contact Lens Display Getting Closer to Reality

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Having contact lenses featuring built in displays is getting closer to reality. Babak Parviz, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at the University of Washington,has succeeded in creating a contact lens that incorporates an electronic circuit. His next step is to add micro LEDs, allowing information to be displayed.

The lenses are to be powered by either radio waves or miniature embedded solar cells.  Currently the lenses are not active circuits, but Parviz hopes to have a functioning version in a few months.

The use for such a display are far reaching, including computing, gaming, medical, communication, navigation, and practically any other way we use displays today.  Of course it would not be as detailed as a high resolution screen (at least at first), but properly designed interfaces could no doubt maximize the practicality of limited screen space.

One possible workable combination would be display lenses that connect via radio to a durable pocket computer/cell phone, allowing information and communication to take place on the fly, even while doing other activities.  But once they have the radio connection in place it would be simple enough to forgo the need for the local computer and get the information straight from the service. Interaction could be done via eye position or even blinking. Interesting.

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