It's no secret that I've always wanted Terminator eyes — you know, the kind where a head-up display pops into your field of vision, updating you about your surroundings via head-up display and instructing you how to say things like a normal human, and not a killing machine.
My dream is one step closer to reality, now that engineers at the University of Washington have built flexible, biologically safe contact lenses that incorporate lights and circuits. These prototypes contain electrical circuits as well as red-light emitting diodes for the display; when tested on rabbits for 20 minutes, the animals showed no adverse effects, except a sudden desire to search for and eliminate John Connor.
A full-fledged display isn't available yet, but basic displays with a few pixels of info could be readied for applications in the very near future.
In future versions, the researchers hope to add wireless communication between the lenses and other devices, and they'll power the system with a combo of radio frequency power and solar cells directly on the lens. So you can stare into the sun to charge up? Seems risky, but I'll do it.
"People may find all sorts of applications for it that we have not thought about. Our goal is to demonstrate the basic technology and make sure it works and that it's safe," said Parviz, who heads a multi-disciplinary UW group that is developing electronics for contact lenses. "There is a large area outside of the transparent part of the eye that we can use for placing instrumentation."
Possible applications include displaying in-eye stats like speed or altitude for drivers and pilots, more video game immersion, and the ability to surf the Internet anywhere through a display only the user can see. Additionally these lenses will completely negate the need for NSFW warnings on the net.
Boss: "Sanderson, are you looking at porn again on company computers, on company time?"
Sanderson: "No, sir. I am not looking at porn on the company computers." [stares off blankly into space]
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