Now as we all know, last year (Happy New Year, everyone!) was a fabulous, if slightly terrifying, year for new technological developments. It appears 2014 will be continuing that trend towards jaw-dropping technology that once filled the pages and screens of science fiction, with things like the iOptik system: a pair of contact lenses that allow wearers to view virtual screens filled with valuable information, much in the same way as Google Glasses. The iOptik creators, tech startup Innovega, are planning to show off the system sometime next week at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
That's my “awesome and yet terrifying” face…as portrayed by Scarlett Johansson.
The contacts reportedly let users view projected information like driving directions, text messages or emails, and even videos—making like eight different technologies nearly obsolete. It’s a two-part system that relies heavily on the contact lenses themselves, which work as a filter to allow the normal human eye to simultaneously focus on visuals both near and far away.
You could even use these to check your Facebook, if you wanted
The lenses use rings to route light in different ways onto your retinas, which, when combined with part two of the system—a pair of glasses outfitted with small projectors to transmit data forward onto the contacts—allows the wearer to view that projected information.
“Whatever runs on your smartphone would run on your eyewear,” Innovega CEO Stephen Willey said during their CNET interview. “At full HD. Whether it's a window or immersive.”
The iOptix prototype was revealed last year during the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show, and the creators should unveil a working version at this year’s event, apparently by having company staff actually wear and operate the lenses on the show floor.
I want to see that.
Innovega’s system still requires FDA approval, and might make changes to the accompanying glasses with the help of other vendors, but the project is nearly ready to hit market shelves. There’s no planned launch date for it, but we should see it soon unless the FDA objects—we’ll have to see what happens next week.
Pretty cool though, right? Someday soon, we’re just going to be able to blink and get any information we want. Without even moving. All we need now is a device that teleports food right to us, and in a couple of years we’ll have to invent those floaty chairs from WALL-E.
…That’s more tempting than it should be, isn’t it?
Source Discovery News
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