Tactical Contact Lenses?

[cybrsage]

Soldiers might be able to ditch awkward goggles or helmets to access data while in the battlefield in favor of virtual reality contact lenses.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency wants to enhance soldiers' vision with virtual reality contact lenses, according to Federal Computer Week. The technology involves contact lenses with built-in systems that would allow soldiers to focus on distant targets and overlay their vision with tactical information.

A part of the agency's Soldier Centric Imaging Via Computational Cameras (SCENICC) program, the goal of the effort is to provide individual soldiers with data from reconnaissance drones and battlefield sensors - a capability gap that the DoD is trying to remedy, DARPA officials said.

Researchers at Innovega iOptics are working with DARPA to develop the contact lenses, which would work by projecting digital images onto tiny full-color displays next to the wearer's eyes. The lenses also will allow soldiers to focus on objects both near and at a great distance.

The goal of the SCENICC program is to develop new imaging and hardware capabilities that greatly enhance warfighters' awareness, security and survivability, DARPA officials said in a statement.

http://gov.aol.com/2012/02/03/conta...e-soldiers-terminator-capabi/?test=latestnews

Pretty sweet!

 

[Fern]

Interesting stuff.

Looks like the military is stepping up and providing us with tech advances now that NASA has been neutered.

Fern

 

[gevorg]

Meh, military grade head-up display goggles are better by protecting the whole area around the eyes and likely to have better resolution/quality of information. I'm sure there is a way to make HUDs with built in zoom/etc, if not done already. Something like "tactical contact lenses" are probably more useful for undercover/spy operations.