Vision, for the SciFi robot, is a much richer affair than it is for us ordinary mortals. Even the eyes of a trash compactor like Wall-E can home in on an object, zoom in or out as needed, apply light filters, and maintain a heads up display showing velocity or coordinates, as needed. It’s so common in TV and movies that when a movie starts with a view through cross hairs, a light filter, and a rapid zoom on something or someone, it’s an instant signifier that we, the audience, are seeing the world from a robot’s point of view. But not for long,perhaps. A couple of University of Washington researchers are ready to take the cool-vision mantle back from the robots.
In essence, what Dr. Babak Parviz has accomplished is to put an integrated circuit into a contact lens. Using a process called self-assembly, Parviz arranges nanometer-thick metal onto the organic polymer that makes up the contact lens, and then connects them to tiny light emitting diodes. The LEDs will be able to paint information on top of whatever scene you are looking at. They haven’t gotten to the point of lighting up the diodes, but they have begun testing them on animals. So far, rabbits can withstand wearing the lenses for 20 minutes with no ill effects.
But once the microchip is in place, Parviz thinks it will be a short hop, technologically speaking, to getting those robot features built into the lens. Perhaps most of us don’t need targeting computers, but the zoom feature could sure be handy when I have to watch baseball from the nosebleed section, and I have to figure that recording video straight from the contact lens, Finder style, can’t be far behind.
Most of the gadgetry on the lens will be arranged into a ring that surrounds the transparent part of the eye. As contact lens wearers know, the sclera has no nerves in it, which makes it a great spot for putting wireless communications or other features for this lens. Actually, they’re hoping to use that space for solar panels.
The one thing these contact lenses can’t do? Fix your eyesight. I imagine that wll be along soon.
November 11th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
Seems that the next step would be to put such technology into a permanent lens (corneal implant?). At that point, anything that can be seen on a video screen could be available for viewing. What would the world be like without viewing screens? No more television screens. No more movie theaters. No more flat screens.
To carry a step further, anything with writing could give out a signal and your lens could superimpose the text or picture . . . in your language . . . with the color background you prefer . . . with SPAM blocked out . . . I wonder what kind of problems would result?
November 12th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Couldn’t all the functionality (except for the convenience) of a permanent lens be had in a removable lens? Especially if (which is almost certain) the lens would be wireless. I might be wrong… and that a lot of circuitry (read: hardware) is needed on-board to aid in resolution, etc, but… I imagine that most all the predictions & aspirations you make for permanent lens may be mostly had in temporary lens as well… maybe not quite as quickly, but the size of telescopes keeps shortening.
http://thefutureofthings.com/articles/54/lumus-future-video-eyeglasses.html
The above link shows what all is capable in a thin external lens… not perceptibly thicker than a pair of reading glasses. A liked link.
November 13th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
[...] why stop at tiny cameras? Earlier in the week I wrote about circuitry built right into a contact lens that could eventually do image capture. But some scientists at University of Illinois at [...]
June 11th, 2009 at 10:33 am
[...] most of what we see on TV has been inspired by what is really happening in labs around the world. The latest buzz is coming out of Germany, where researchers claim they’ve [...]