Scientifc advancement in Vision correction/enhancement (aka ping MikeVic)

[BishopMVP]

This was brought up, somewhat facetiously, in the cheating thread, but after re-reading the articles, it really is ridiculous how much technology has improved. As a secondary note - how many here have experience with LASIK/similar things?

Originally Posted by MikeVic

I am being serious. Can you get night-vision contacts?

The night-vision was probably a bit of an exaggeration. We're probably about 2 decades away - part 2 of this http://www.slate.com/id/2079371 article from 2003 talks about possibilities. For now, you'd have to rub neodymium-iron-boron gel in your eyes.

Contacts that can zoom in are real now though - http://www.sciencentral.com/articles...e_id=218393067 just not widely produced yet.

Of course, the new LASIK coming out can get you down to 20-10, which isn't bad at all.

[ThunderingHERD]

Originally Posted by BishopMVP

Contacts that can zoom in are real now though - http://www.sciencentral.com/articles...e_id=218393067 just not widely produced yet.

Originally Posted by That article

his group so far has only demonstrated that the electronic circuits can be assembled in a contact and that the contact so far appears safe when tested on a rabbit. At this point they have not yet even powered up the lens, so operational models are still some time away.

Also, it doesn't mention the function of the contact they're testing now, but manipulating what the wearer sees is going to be a heck of a lot more complicated than what they're actually doing at this point.

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by ThunderingHERD

Also, it doesn't mention the function of the contact they're testing now, but manipulating what the wearer sees is going to be a heck of a lot more complicated than what they're actually doing at this point.

The way I read things, there are multiple projects going on. One is the difficult, sci-fi, gene-therapy where they actually change what the circuits in the eye see/brain reads and processes. The other, much more feasible one IMO is merely creating a contact that can act as a conduit - the contact itself adjusts/processes the information, while the cones in the eye and circuits in the brain process information the same way as before. If I know what I'm talking about (a big assumption ) that's already what glasses/contacts do on a smaller scale - refract the light coming in so the individual benefits more than they would if they were seeing unaided.

[ThunderingHERD]

Originally Posted by BishopMVP

The way I read things, there are multiple projects going on. One is the difficult, sci-fi, gene-therapy where they actually change what the circuits in the eye see/brain reads and processes.

Right, I didn't mean to suggest that you were suggesting these devices are doing something with the optical information that's already in the eye.

Originally Posted by BishopMVP

The other, much more feasible one IMO is merely creating a contact that can act as a conduit - the contact itself adjusts/processes the information, while the cones in the eye and circuits in the brain process information the same way as before.

I agree that this is what they're aiming for but all they have demonstrated as of now (according to the article) is that it is possible to safely embed a circuit into a contact lens. I'm guessing it doesn't do much of anything at the moment.