Pixels stuck to your eyeball -- literally

[RepoMan]

Contact lenses with embedded micro-LEDs!

One of the limitations of current head-up displays is their limited field of view. A contact lens display can have a much wider field of view. "Our hope is to create images that effectively float in front of the user perhaps 50 cm to 1 m away," says Parviz.
His research involves embedding nanoscale and microscale electronic devices in substrates like paper or plastic. He also wears contact lenses. "It was a matter of putting the two together," he says.
Fitting a contact lens with circuitry is challenging. The polymer cannot withstand the temperatures or chemicals used in large-scale microfabrication, Parviz explains. So, some components – the power-harvesting circuitry and the micro light-emitting diode – had to be made separately, encased in a biocompatible material and then placed into crevices carved into the lens.
One obvious problem is powering such a device. The circuitry requires 330 microwatts but doesn't need a battery. Instead, a loop antenna picks up power beamed from a nearby radio source. The team has tested the lens by fitting it to a rabbit.

YAYYYY 21ST CENTURY!!!!! (yeah it'll be another decade before this really works, but still....)

Also, that must be one freaked-out rabbit.

[Pogo]

If it malfunctions, do I have to ram a power drill into my eyeball?

[RepoMan]

No, see, that's why I really like this thing -- it's noninvasive. Just take out the lens and you're fine, same as with any other contact lens. I wear contacts so I'm at ease with the idea of a hydrophilic plastic sliver glommed to my optical mucosa.

Unlike LASIK, which I will never have until I am retired and my family isn't depending on my earning power anymore. (Even a .01% chance of some bad surgical outcome is more than I want to take, given that one-day contacts are perfectly fine for the relatively rare times glasses are inconvenient, and given the disastrous disability impacts of partial blindness on a programmer....)

I mean, I've been hearing about the laser retina displays for years, and of course there's work on direct optic nerve stimulation, but lasers beamed into your eye and probes jammed into your optic nerve both exceed my invasiveness/risk tolerance. LED-equipped contacts, onna other hand, seem downright safe by comparison. This accelerates my potential ubergeek apotheosis by as much as a decade or so!

[krayzkrok]

I also wear contacts, and one thing they do is "float" on your cornea (a little or a lot, depending how dry your eyes are). They also rotate, although they can be weighted for those with astigmatisms to minimise this. I still notice it at night sometimes, though.

So for this, I'd imagine there would be a slight lag / drift if anything was embedded onto the lens' surface. There are health reasons and obviously physical reasons why this is the case, but as long as you didn't flick your eyes about while "accessing" the data it could work well.

[Marcus]

Hell yeah sign me up! I'll take a pair. Being able to browse QT3 while driving would be the win.

[cheapfilms]

How is this not a DARPA project?

[kerzain]

Hell yeah sign me up! I'll take a pair. Being able to browse QT3 while driving would be the win.

Yea until the cell-phone/texting/computering-while-driving cops catch you
Warning: Police Brutality.

[John Many Jars]

So for this, I'd imagine there would be a slight lag / drift if anything was embedded onto the lens' surface. There are health reasons and obviously physical reasons why this is the case, but as long as you didn't flick your eyes about while "accessing" the data it could work well.

Some people would probably pay for that sensation as a psychedelic substitute.

[RepoMan]

Jesus Christ, kerzain, what's the backstory on that charming little bit of antisociality? Seems like the guy is good and fucked already -- what did he do to deserve getting repeatedly punched and kicked in the head after already having been ejected from the rollover car?

If only I had my pixelated contacts, I could see the answer right now. I just know it.

Edit: yeah, not too cool of them.

[Pogo]

Awesome .gif

[Moore]

SAT scores will skyrocket!

[FoRmaT]

Sickening .gif

Fixed.

[MatthewF]

It's all fun and games until Teddy Rex tries to drill holes in his eyes, with his gnarled mutant paws.

[Kunikos]

I can see the QT3 thread now, "Hello, I would like to drill two holes into my new eyeball LCDs"