Science & Technology

I Spy Augmented Reality With My Little Eye

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For the biomod geeks, Wired has a nifty article on contact-lens based augmented reality (AR)—basically, a digital heads-up display that you wear on your eye:

Forget about 20/20. "Perfect" vision could be redefined by gadgets that give you the eyes of a cyborg.

The tech industry calls the digital enrichment of the physical world "augmented reality." Such technology is already appearing in smartphones and toys, and enthusiasts dream of a pair of glasses we could don to enhance our everyday perception. But why stop there?

Scientists, eye surgeons, professors and students at the University of Washington have been developing a contact lens containing one built-in LED, powered wirelessly with radio frequency waves.

The article says devices like this might be used to give individuals real-time readouts of their vital stats, but personally, I'm hoping for Predator-vision. In the meantime, though, I'll settle for an AR zombie game on my iPhone.

Read Ron Bailey on our transhumanist future here and here