What if instead of having
your television cluttered with interface elements while playing an FPS, you
could have the HUD displayed directly on your eye?
Bionic
contact lenses are being developed to provide a virtual display that could have a
variety of uses from assisting the visually impaired to the video game industry.
The device will have the form of a conventional contact lens with added bionic technology. The lens will eventually have
functional electronic circuits and infra-red lights to create a virtual display.
Engineers have, for the first time,
combined a flexible, biologically safe contact lens with an imprinted
electronic circuit and lights. The lens could give wearers a new look at the
world by superimposing computerised
images onto their natural view.
Such virtual displays could be useful
to drivers and pilots, who could obtain route, weather, or vehicle status
information overlaid onto their vision. Video-game players could immerse
themselves in a virtual world without
restricting their range of motion.
The lens could even be paired with
sensors that monitor a person's biological conditions -- cholesterol level or
the presence of viruses and bacteria, and transmit the data wirelessly to a
computer.
For example, miniature cameras with
adaptive lenses could be incorporated, able to zoom in on something far away or
to look at something very close.
Providing, essentially, bionic vision. Developed
using micro-fabrication and self-assembly techniques similar to those used to
make semiconductor chips.
