Displays that appear right in front of your eyeballs is a popular trope in science fiction, and thanks to new developments in microsystems technology, those displays are one giant leap closer to becoming a reality. Researchers at Ghent University have developed a curved LCD display that can display text and images on the tiny surface of a contact lens.
Ghent University's Centre of Microsystems Technology announced that its researchers have developed the embeddable LCD display. In the past, contact lens displays have been limited to a few pixels to form an image, but this new display uses the entire curve of the contact lens.
Chief researcher Jelle De Smet told the Telegraph that practical applications might be just a few years off. Using the contacts as adaptable sunglasses is a possibility, but so are displays for driving directions and text messages. The display technology itself is impressive, but I imagine there are some design challenges ahead before these contact lenses are ready for human eyes. It's one thing to blast an image or text right on top of your pupil, but contact lens developers would have to trick our eyes into thinking the display is a bit further away.