Heads-up displays (HUD) offer the potential of providing all kinds of useful information to their users, but they all suffer from the same problem: their close proximity to the eyes makes it difficult to focus on what’s displayed, limiting their usefulness in many augmented reality applications.
Innovega, a company out of Bellevue, Washington, has developed a contact lens with dual focus capability that allows its wearer to see distant objects normally and at the same time receive a focused image from the proximate display. The technology, originally funded in part with money from the Pentagon, will soon be on its way to U.S. Dept. of Defense labs for evaluation. While initially destined to be applied for military uses, the iOptik lenses may soon be available to consumers for all sorts of applications like augmented reality displays and 3D video.