Is bionic vision in your future? It might be if engineers can perfect a contact lens filed with electronics. As this ScienCentral News report explains, engineers have demonstrated how to put electronics inside a contact lens.
Super Contacts
You've seen the TV shows and movies, someone implanted with electronic devices that give them super human powers, including super vision. In reality, the best we can do is a set of binoculars, or strap-on night vision goggles. But that all could change as engineers work to supercharge contact lenses.
"If you look at the structure of a contact lens," says Babak Parviz, University of Washington assistant professor of eleectrical engineering, " more or less it's just a polymer that … does vision correction."
Since the group was already working on incorporating micron-scale devices onto unconventional substrates including plastics, he says, "we saw the opportunity to integrate these on a contact lens."
Parviz adds that much of the micro technology that would have to fit on a contact lens is already available and says, "To look at the semi-conductor industry and what we have in opto-electronics and micro machines, we already have a lot… (but) one thing we have not done is to put those things on a contact."
⌙Copyright 2008 Team Amalgamation⌙
*Updated 02/28/08*
