Engineers at the University of Washington have developed a bionic contact lens.
"Looking through a completed lens, you would see what the display is generating superimposed on the world outside," said Babak Parviz, a UW assistant professor of electrical engineering. "This is a very small step toward that goal, but I think it's extremely promising."
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There are many possible uses for virtual displays. Drivers or pilots could see a vehicle's speed projected onto the windshield. Video-game companies could use the contact lenses to completely immerse players in a virtual world without restricting their range of motion. And for communications, people on the go could surf the Internet on a midair virtual display screen that only they would be able to see.
"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.
I have 2 problems with this.
- They are testing them on rabbits. In this day and age, we can't simulate eyeballs to the point where we know it's at least safe enough for a human being to put it on their eyeball for short periods of time? We need to subject furry rodents to the tests?
- The article states "Movie characters from the Terminator to the Bionic Woman use bionic eyes to zoom in on far-off scenes". Besides the Bionic Woman being a tv show and not a movie (unless you count the made for television reunion movies), the Bionic Woman never had bionic eyes. That was the 6 Million Dollar Man. The Bionic Woman had a bionic ear with which she could hear everything. Unless, ofc, they're referring to the new Bionic Woman show where basically everything she has is bionic. Considering the show blows so much, i really feel it ought not be counted. Also, not a movie.
