Electronic Contact Lens promises bionic capabilities for everyone

Unlike Virtual Reality, where the user's field of view is completely replaced with an artificial visual environment, Augmented Reality uses head tracking in conjunction with augmented vision to overlay complimentary information on the user's view.

The system can tell which direction the user is looking and adjusts the displayed image accordingly, displaying new and appropriate information for the scene being viewed. For example, when viewing a map, it may be beneficial to orient the map to the user's field of view so that the user can identify landmarks in the real world by their proximity to landmarks on the map.

Augmented Reality is already in use in a wide range of industrial applications due to the work of companies such as Arkiva which is used by technicians doing extremely complex work, enabling them to overlay instructions, circuit diagrams, mechanical drawings and the like over real-world tangles to ensure they get it right.

If the tools were readily available and in mass usage, a plethora of new applications for augmented reality would almost certainly come to light.

In tourism, for example, Augmented Reality would offer the ability to see the ancient ruins in Rome, overlayed with what the buildings originally looked like and for buildings to be labeled in a real/virtual mixed tour.

At a sporting event, players might be labeled, the ball/puck tracked, distances marked, and for certain professions, such as a surgeon, vital organs, veins and arteries could be delineated. Obviously, such capabilities would require additional technologies to come into play, but with wireless networking becoming ubiquitous, it's a possibility for the mid-term future.

Another aspect of AR is displaying vital information to someone who is actively involved in doing something where the need to refocus on a dashboard or set of instruments would impair that person’s ability to perform their task. The heads up display was pioneered and significantly evolved in jet fighters, and has been trailed in Formula One and there are now commercially available systems on the market for racing drivers, motorcyclists and bicycle riders.

The Parviz team’s contact lens would enable pervasive heads up displays in automobiles, which would significantly reduce accidents, even if it only helped people tune their radio or find the album they wanted on their iPod whilst driving.

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