Scientists invent micrometers-thin battery charged by saline solution that could power smart contact lenses::Scientists from NTU Singapore have developed a flexible battery as thin as a human cornea, which stores electricity when it is immersed in saline solution, and which could one day power smart contact lenses.

  • Solumbran@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Who doesn’t want everything you see to be recorded, all while getting an ad overlay directly over your eyes?

      • dangblingus@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        How? Bionic ocular implants already exist. A contact lens is not going to be able to restore sight to the blind.

        • GreenBottles@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          perhaps not to the totally blind but to those that have degenerative diseases contact lenses absolutely can help

        • Zron@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Now you can see your friends dying in the next room, instead of just hearing it!

          Or if it’s only a map, now you can see how surrounded your unit is!

          This is valuable tactical data, surely it won’t cause any morale issues.

          • Kungolicious@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            It’s true. All new inventions have a morality issue to them. And those moralities need to be weighed heavily before implementing them.

            But it can also be used to guide a secluded operative back to his troop. It can be used to detect road mines that otherwise would have exploded.

            New technology is just a tool. It’s the people choosing how to use it that makes it moral/immoral.

            • whoops69hehe@lemmynsfw.com
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              1 year ago

              You’re not wrong, but the prior comment references “morale issues” which is different from “moral issues” or morality in general. The former is about the troops feeling of well-being and optimism (morale) and the latter is about ethics and right vs wrong (morality).

            • Zron@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Listen, all I’m saying is if I was surrounded by enemy combatants on all sides, I wouldn’t want to have to see that while getting shot at.

              Also wouldn’t want to see a fellow soldier get gunned down in a little twitch.tv window in my eye while I’m trying to clear a room.

              I’d call that a major distraction. And distractions in combat get people killed when otherwise they might have lived.

              Maybe smart contacts would have some use for NCOs, even then, a tablet or something with the same info would be just as useful and less likely to block vision. Giving it to everybody would just cause panic and confusion on a battlefield.

        • JJROKCZ@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Some “blind” people do have data coming in, it’s just so blurry/skewed that it’s worthless. It might be possible to fix this but it would be a case by case basis and likely very expensive. Not all blindness is a world of black

      • BarrelAgedBoredom@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Saline is isotonic and, short of a large electrolyte imbalance, shouldn’t cause any/very little irritation to your eyes. And if you’re hyponatremic to the point of saline solution causing eye irritation, you have much more immediate and life threatening problems to attend to than risnsing your peepers out

  • FluffyToaster621@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Very cool technological achievement, but eye-batteries don’t necessarily sound all that safe, non-corrosive/toxic or not, it’s still a constant reaction to create and store electricity in a very vulnerable location.

    • cordlesslamp@lemmy.today
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      1 year ago

      Or a lot of new problems awaiting to happen.

      A literal chemical battery in my eyes? No thanks.

  • Dizzy Devil Ducky@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Great. Hopefully by the time smart contact lenses come out (if ever) I’ll be dead so I don’t have to worry about another tool that can be used to spy on you for not only the government but for the large tech companies looking for the most intrusive ways to steal your info on the daily.

  • jBlight@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Would you be able to close your eyes to not see anything/ads? I don’t know much about the tech, but I would assume a light is being emitted from the contact lenses and since that’s behind your eye lids…

    • Taringano@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Of course you can close your eyes and turn off ads for as low as $19.99/mo

    • BastingChemina@slrpnk.net
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      1 year ago

      I have no idea but I think anything that emit light would drain the battery to quickly.

      I would imagine it would more like a e-paper screen.

      • Troy Dowling@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I have no idea how these work, but one hack idea off the cuff:

        You get the light for free. At least when your lids are open; that’s how vision works. A cheap digital watch lasts ages on a tiny coin cell because the polarisation of the LCD, which passes or blocks polarised light, takes minimal energy. Stack up a passive polariser, and the active LCD-like layer, (and maybe a second passive layer?) and you can cast selective shadows on the retina.

        This gives you monochrome “smart vision” in the same sense as a monochrome Casio wristwatch. No idea how to tackle issues of focus at such a short focal length, or achieving any sort of active display let alone colour.

        Maybe the whole thing is a pipe dream crackpot idea.

      • nednobbins@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Light intensity is inversely proportional to the square of the distance. A light that’s only a few microns away from your cornea would look incredibly bright even with minimal power.