Screens on our eyeballs have been a long time coming, since we thrilled to the Predator's heads up display in the 1980s. But now visual specialist Innovega is set to create iOptik contact lens displays for US defence agency DARPA, with a general public release pencilled in for 2014.
The lenses work with heads up display glasses that project information – the contact lenses allows the wearer to focus on this info and the wider world, at the same time.
The lenses each feature two filters so that the wearer can clearly focus on both focal planes at the same time – something the eye can’t do naturally. The central part of each lens sends light from the HUD towards the middle of the pupil, while the outer part sends light from the surrounding environment to the pupil's rim. That means you can clearly see your surrounding world but with plenty of useful data over the top.
We can see Google’s Project Glass making use of these when they go on public release around 2014. Google's technology should be ready for dual projections by then, meaning instant 3D directly to your brain. Could this be the death of television as we know it?
