Contact lens televisions possible within ten years
By Dave Parrack
Contact lenses are, at the moment, purely for the visually impaired among us. Oh, and those idiots who want to change their eye color in order to look different. But contact lenses could soon take on a whole new life as a form of entertainment, with televisions built into them. No, I don’t believe it either.
The vast majority of us watch television, a lot of it. There are a few strange folk who choose to exclude the goggle box from their lives, and good for them I suppose, but the rest of us like vegging out and watching soaps or dramas in an effort to be whisked away from our humdrum existences.
The trend of late has been for televisions getting larger and larger, at least in terms of screen size. Where once most of us chose between a 14-inch and a 21-inch CRT TV, these days 40-plus is the norm. But while screens have been getting progressively larger, the components allowing us to watch TV have been getting smaller.
According to The Daily Mail, the end result of this trend to tiny is for televisions so small they can fit over your eye like a contact lens would. At least according to a report by Ian Pearson, a futurologist who advises on new technologies.
Pearson also claims that we’ll be able to connect emotionally with what we see on our television screens by way of ‘digital tattoos’. And apparently this isn’t all pie in the sky as you may be thinking. The technology already exists and could become reality within the next ten years.
The television tiny enough to fit over your eye seems a legitimate proposal, especially with the development of flexible screens. But those ‘digital tattoos’ sound a little more far fetched to me.
And there’s one issue that this futurologist seems to have forgotten to address: whether people actually want any of this. I really don’t think I’d want to walk around with a TV attached to my eye all day, and I know for a fact I wouldn’t want to feel the emotions the characters on screen are feeling. That would make the average episode of a daytime soap feel like absolute hell. Even more than it does already.
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Read more entries by Dave Parrack.
Stumble It!
February 11th, 2009
The Porn industry should like it. Remember when blue tooth head sets made everyone seem like insane schizos talking to no one? How about this for creepy potential. “shudders”
February 11th, 2009
But think about the 3D games…
February 11th, 2009
Putting a television so close to your eyes doesn’t strike me as a very good idea… An incredibly awesome idea, but not very healthy.
Actually, instead of TV, I was thinking about computer screens. There’s already technology where you can interact with a computer based upon the position of your eyes and blinking gestures. Imagine if you could interface with your iPhone via a contact lens. Google something, twitter your friends, wiki more information about something, check your email, or whatever right on the spot without even picking up a device. That would be cool! :D
February 23rd, 2009
dont think of it as just tv think of it as augmented reality. there is a catch 22 with making something small enough to be portable and big enough to be functional. contact lens displays coupled with some kind of gesture based interface would be the ideal solution to this problem. This tech would enable some truly mind boggling applications that stretch far beyond simply watching tv.