Thursday, November 24, 2011

3-2-1 Contact .. lenses

Dailytech is reporting on a Contact Lens being developed with text and image display.. Now, this is a great sign. I'm thrilled that progress is being made in this field. Augmented reality could really use something like this. Imagine wearing a contact lens and being able to see text floating in front of you telling you theres an incoming call from your mom. Or that the road you're traveling is undergoing construction up ahead. Or while you're driving the speed limit of 60 is constantly posted in the top right corner of your peripheral vision.. perhaps updated not by a data connection but by installing RFID type chips on every street sign. Anyways, there are a lot of applications for this technology even in its most primitive form. And even more entertaining ones should it reach a more usable state.

However, I'd prefer to wear a pair of glasses instead. Easier to slip on and off, and imagine wearing one of those expensive contact lenses and losing it. Plus while they have the text and image display set up, I doubt you can install any sort of practical wireless receiver or memory or processor into something as small as a contact lens.

Of course, the technology has been around forever, its just that people haven't been able to figure out how to keep it from exploding when it encounters people with power levels over 9000. I mean, with a contact lens, you could lose an eye! So yeah, glasses only for me.

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