How cool would it be to use your favorite Augmented Reality Apps in a heads up display directly in the field of your vision without having to look through a clumsy gadget?
Augmented reality applications may one day move from your iPhone to your eyeballs!
In September of 2010 a Swiss company called Sensimed launched the first commercially available smart contact lens.
The purpose of these lenses is to help monitor people with Glaucoma by detecting small changes in the curvature of their corneas.
We are already familiar with the countless Augmented Reality Apps for our smartphones but why not take it one step further by displaying real-time information in our field of vision.
A researcher named Babak Parviz at the University of Washington in Seattle has bigger plans for the technology. In 2008 he created a prototype contact lens with a single red LED implanted inside of it.
Recently blue LED’s have been developed for the lenses, leaving only green left to make full RGB images. There are still numerous technological challenges to overcome but we are one step closer to having HUD’s in our eyes.
With Parviz’s design, information would be transmitted wirelessly to a portable device worn by the user. Parviz is working to increase the range of the signal so that users can wear an external device on their breast pocket or belt.
This technology could end up being used heavily in the future. Although the technology needs a lot of improvement, we are really excited to see the opportunities for future use. Making AR work on a contact lens wont be easy but the technology is quickly gaining ground.
With Sensimed already launching the first commercial smart contact lens, it won’t be long before this technology is used with other applications.
What do you think?
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