TECH WATCH: Find Your Inner Geek
Kenneth X. Sills
Issue date: 3/24/09 Section: News
contact_lens_with_circuit.jpg contact_lens_with_circuit.jpg This is one of a number of new manufacturing possibilities being created by Nanotechonology. Engineers at the University of Washington have used these manufacturing techniques at microscopic scales to combine a flexible, biologically safe contact lens with an imprinted electronic circuit and lights for the first time.
There are many possible uses for such virtual displays. Drivers or pilots would be able to 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.
The prototype device contains an electric circuit as well as red light-emitting diodes for a display, though it does not yet light up. The lenses were tested on rabbits for up to 20 minutes and the animals showed no adverse effects.
However, even these circuits might soon become invisible to the naked eye as advances in nanotechnology allow the circuits to be at a molecular scale and the properties of a fully digital display screen integrated with plastic of the lens seamlessly. The device may even derive enough power from the chemistry of your tears to never need to be recharged or it might simply get its power wirelessly from the new generation of wireless chargers also currently under development.
I'm curious, have you already asked yourself; where's the remote to change the channel with?
Geek Test: http://www.innergeek.us/geek-test.html
Samsung Blue Earth Phone in original Live Science Article:
http://www.livescience.com/environment/090221-solar-cell-phone.html
LG Solar Phone: http://www.mobileburn.com/gallery.jsp?Id=6428 http://www.mobileburn.com/imagepop.jsp?Id=6428&file=media%2Flg%2Fsolar%2Fthumb_solar_power_both.jpg
Contact Lens View Screen
http://www.scienceprog.com/contact-lenses-with-circuits-for-superhuman-vision/
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2009/02/contact-lens-co.html
http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/121134
There are many possible uses for such virtual displays. Drivers or pilots would be able to 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.
The prototype device contains an electric circuit as well as red light-emitting diodes for a display, though it does not yet light up. The lenses were tested on rabbits for up to 20 minutes and the animals showed no adverse effects.
However, even these circuits might soon become invisible to the naked eye as advances in nanotechnology allow the circuits to be at a molecular scale and the properties of a fully digital display screen integrated with plastic of the lens seamlessly. The device may even derive enough power from the chemistry of your tears to never need to be recharged or it might simply get its power wirelessly from the new generation of wireless chargers also currently under development.
I'm curious, have you already asked yourself; where's the remote to change the channel with?
Geek Test: http://www.innergeek.us/geek-test.html
Samsung Blue Earth Phone in original Live Science Article:
http://www.livescience.com/environment/090221-solar-cell-phone.html
LG Solar Phone: http://www.mobileburn.com/gallery.jsp?Id=6428 http://www.mobileburn.com/imagepop.jsp?Id=6428&file=media%2Flg%2Fsolar%2Fthumb_solar_power_both.jpg
Contact Lens View Screen
http://www.scienceprog.com/contact-lenses-with-circuits-for-superhuman-vision/
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2009/02/contact-lens-co.html
http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/121134
Be the first to comment on this story