I like living in the future

Amazing:

  • For the very first time, an augmented reality (AR) contact lens was worn on the eye of a human subject.
  • AR contact lenses pose wildly difficult engineering challenges, the biggest of which is finding a way to provide these tiny devices with power. A company called Mojo Vision has done that.
  • One day, we will look back at the years when people walked down the street, necks bent, staring down at little screens in their hands as an absurdly primitive way to interact with information.

According to the company, the Mojo Lens has a 14,000 pixel-per-inch MicroLED display with a pixel pitch (the distance between adjacent pixels) of 1.8 microns. For context, an iPhone 13 with a Super Retina XDR Display has 460 pixels per inch resolution. In other words, the Mojo Lens hardware has about 30 times the pixel density of a current iPhone. In addition, these lenses include an ARM processor with a 5GHz radio transmitter, along with an accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer to track eye movements. And all of this sits directly on the human eye.

I knew glasses were capable of similar functionality. I expected the next stage in the evolution would be brain implants. Contact lens? I would have never imagined it was possible.

I want a development kit. I’d combine the GPS and other capabilities of your cellphone to give you ranging and windage targeting adjustments corresponding your current rifle and ammo for anything you looked at.

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11 thoughts on “I like living in the future

  1. Interesting. However, one of the reasons I got Lasik so many years ago was that I can’t stand contact lenses.

    I wonder how much it interferes with vision, and whether it would be better as a replacement for the lens of the eye, if possible.

    Kurt

    • Ya, it would be really good if it could fix your vision properly.
      I don’t need all the ads and pop-ups as I walk thru town.
      You about to Bob’s grill! The lunch special is; As a big burger and a pile of fries float passed your eyes.
      Your just about to Shoe Max. It’s been six months since your last shoe purchase. Try on these new Nikes! You look down and see new tennies on your feet. You’ve got plenty of money on your card!
      I guess I’m a little jaded when it comes to the future.
      But it would be nice if they could fix your eyes proper.

      • Yep, and then some! I had my cataracts replaced with 20/20 far-vision lens. Far better than living with cataracts. Yet the detail is not there, and I have not found a really good solution for close work. Magnifier head sets are now my best friend when doing close up work. And I need a bright light to see detail regardless.

        • I’m with you, Chet. After cataract surgery, I still have some residual astigmatism, so need to wear glasses anyway. Toric contacts work fine for distance vision, but still wearing progressive lenses most of the time. The Optivision headset is seeing a lot more use.

          Although I correct to 20/20 in theory, it still isn’t the vision quality of my youth. I loved to hammer the 760 yard Boomer targets 15 years ago, not sure I could do that anymore, even with a good scope.

      • Amen, Brother. My freakin’ Android is intrusive enough with constant notificatons. All I need is a bunch of distracting crap while walking in the woods – or worse, driving a car.

  2. It is far more complicated than just fixing the lens of the eye using contact lens. I suspect that VR done right has to fix the brain and the optic nerves.

  3. I have a scene outlined for a sequel in the “The Stars Came Back” series. They are onboard an alien space ship (a very large one) in which the alien soldiers have implanted augmented reality. The good guys are able to hack into it and make the alien soldiers see (or not see) whatever the humans want them to. It rather reduces the effectiveness of them in a fight. The “primitive, organic-only lifeforms” were thought to be at a huge disadvantage prior to actual combat contact.

    I’ll take easily removable, voluntary, optional items only, please.

    • Nice.
      There are a lot of implant as well as external direct-to-brain transmission devices in SF. Neil Smith has the implants (in “Tom Paine Maru” for example); James Hogan the external thing (in “Genesis Machine”). One certainly wonders about all the mischief that opens up.
      For extra scary implants consider the ones in Dean Ing’s “Single Combat” — book 2 of a trilogy that’s excellent, as is everything else he’s written. If you don’t know his work, I’d suggest “The ransom of Black Stealth One”, “Flying to Pieces” and “Soft Targets”.

      • See also Vernor Vinge’s works – several of his novels employ this kind of technology, though they are not the centerpiece.

        Kurt

  4. How will this new wunderdevice be powered? How long will that power supply last? How much will they cost? What unknown and unforeseen medical complications will this device create? Remember, we didn’t evolve to have this much data poured into our brains nonstop. Lots of questions….few answers. And to be honest I’m not seeing a lot of benefits from this to counter the obvious risks.

  5. DARPA has been funding future soldieresque research with many top contractors for a couple decades now. They still haven’t found a reliable Heads Up Display they can hang in front of an infantryman’s helmet in order to augment his awareness and communication. I’ll wait a decade or more after the military / police / fire fighters widely adopt a helmet mounted HUD before I will consider something like Google glass for my personal use. You say you want to surgically attach something like that to my eyes?! F OFF!!!

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