Fancy seeing the way the terminator sees? scanning suspects for arms without any heavy mechanics without letting anyone know! Or high resolution images like that of the Robocop with calculations as to a bullet shot at which angle would yield how much results! That’s not just limited to movies anymore. You could actually help yourself have your vision modified to your convenience; so be the terminator, the Robocop or whichever sci-fi mechanical hero that you fancy being, thanks to engineers working on organic contact lenses. Scientists have taken the first step toward creating digital contact lenses that can zoom in on distant objects and display useful facts.

For the first time, engineers have installed an electronic circuit and lights on a regular contact lens. The prototype they created does not actually light up or display information. But it proves that it is possible to build an electronic lens that is safe to wear and doesn’t obstruct vision.

This has been made possible by grafting and integrating tiny electrical circuits into contact lenses (made of organic material that’s suits human body and is safe enough). The task was extremely difficult seeing that the circuits had to be built in accordance to the thickness of contact lenses, having to be built from only a few nanometers thick metal, and making sure that the circuits do not alter the nature of the contacts in being suitable for the human eye considering other sensitivities related to such human-related inventions. The invention was tested on rabbits and they showed no problems. The image here shows the “bionic lens” placed in the eye of a rabbit.

Eventually, the technique could yield a plethora of gadgets. Perhaps drivers and pilots could see their direction and speed projected across their view, or people could surf the Web without looking at an external device’s screen. Video gamers could immerse themselves in game landscapes directly in front of their eyes. Maybe the technique could even create sight aids for visually-impaired people.

Read the entire article at LiveScience

Such inventions and others like these can bring about a lifestyle revolution in the human race, a revolution depicted only in Hollywood till now. A lot more than how much we imagine is possible and someone might as well be working on it. Who would have imagined having a heart transplant back in the 15^th century, though the concept might have been present, or performing brain surgery on an awake patient! The future holds a lot in itself when it comes to the very fascinating field of medicine and biological engineering, potentially realizing dreams that many of us have not even seen.

(The project was led by Harvey Ho, a former graduate student of Parviz’s now working at Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, Calif., who presented the results at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ international conference on Micro Electro Mechanical Systems in Tucson, AZ.)

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