AR Contacts, Now if I could just get a smartlink... Options

[kjones]

The article doesn't say which enhancements come built-in, and which you have to pay extra for.

[last_of_the_grea...]

Neat!

[nemafow]

Pretty cool, look pretty ugly from the outside tho, although 'transparent' I wonder if you notice the leds while wearing them.

[kjones]

The slashdot thread from which I got this link had some interesting comments - I'm going to assume that not all Dumpshock readers are /. readers as well, and repost one.

There are several difficulties with this type of system that have prevented it from becoming a reality. Here are a few:

1. This is too close to the eye to be able to resolve focus in most situations. The light isn't collimated or directional (it appears to be focused with some sort of "microlens" system), so one LED turned on can spread out to stimulate a wide patch of retinal cells. With any regular LED system you'd just see a big blur. For information requiring a single light this isn't a problem (flash an LED on/off under certain conditions, or change the color) but anything more will require something which can project cleanly onto the retina. This is not a trivial problem.
2. The detail-oriented part of your retina is near the center, in a part called the fovea [wikipedia.org]. While you think your vision is equally clear across a wide range, this is actually a trick of your brain. Your eyes are quite sensitive to rapid movement (low latency) on the edges, and more sensitive to detail in the center. When observing fine detail such as text, your eye actually "scans" an area and forms a larger, detailed image from the composite. Even if you could project the light cleanly 1:1 onto the retina, for any textual/HUD information you'd have to track eye motion very precisely and provide the information that the brain "expects" to see at each point. And again, the light has to be projected onto a very small part of the retina.
3. Retinal cells can get easily overstimulated, much like the burn-in on old CRTs. Even when looking at one object of normal intensity for any period of time longer than a few seconds, your eye will "jitter" back and forth. This involuntary movement is called nystagmus [wikipedia.org], and your brain compensates for it. (The rhythm changes when alcohol or drugs are ingested, which is why nystagmus tests are part of a DUI test.) Lab tests have shown that when the eye is physically restrained from moving in this way, objects effectively become invisible to the subject. So any 1:1 projection would also have to track nystagmus and then "jitter" in the same way as the eye, or the conveyed information would also become invisible.

So, don't get too excited.

[SpellBinder]

All we need now is a cross between the iPad and a cell phone with the bluetooth interface to these contacts, and we're all the much closer to Shadowrun AR.

[Draco18s]

I think these contacts came up a few months ago.

[Xahn Borealis]

And they still can't figure out how to fit more than one pixel onto it. Morse code hacking anyone?

[Neowulf]

Bah, screw contacts, gimme a transparent oLED display applied to my glasses.

[Fatum]

And they still can't figure out how to fit more than one pixel onto it. Morse code hacking anyone?

Uh, you can clearly notice in the pics that it has at least 64 pixels, 8*8. See that net-like ctructure?

Bah, screw contacts, gimme a transparent oLED display applied to my glasses.

Focusing is still a problem. I mean, when something gets on the surface of yours, try making out exactly what it is and the shape of it.

[hobgoblin]

it dawned on me that what it needs is not many pixels, but the ability to sense the eyes movement, and calculate changes in the pixel pattern based on that.

that way it can draw a coherent image for the brain, pretty much like how a TV screen paints a moving image by updating fast enough that we do not notice.

[Xahn Borealis]

Uh, you can clearly notice in the pics that it has at least 64 pixels, 8*8. See that net-like ctructure?

That's just an artist's impression of what it WOULD look like. Read the text and it makes references to how the "technology would embed hundreds of semitransparent LEDs onto a thin lens". I've heard of these lenses before and seen the pictures too, it was on the shadowrun delicious page.