This new contact lens may mark the arrival of "The 6 Million Dollar Man" to eye care. For years scientists and developers have attempted to combine digital information with normal vision. This can provide a useful combination, like the vision that "The Terminator" employs to navigate and process information from the environment. Imagine, for example, a GPS unit that causes you to see a big arrow right in the middle of the intersection that you are driving toward.
This is currently being done with spectacles. At NextFest I once tried on a pair of glasses connected to a video camera and a backpack. It allowed me to play a real-life version of "PacMan" where I walked around and the digital pellets floated in mid air. It was cool, but primitive.
If that technology could be placed in a contact lens, it would be much less bulky. Although the computerized lens is a long way from being commercially available, research is occurring very quickly, and some people are getting excited. One of them is Babak Parviz, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Washington in Seattle. "If we're successful initially, and it takes off, this can get really sophisticated in the next few years," he says.
Could be interesting!
You can read the article here from Discovery News.
Be Well!
Nathan Bonilla-Warford, OD
Bright Eyes Family Vision Care
Located in the Westchase area of Tampa.
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