Smart contact lenses could serve as window to the future and offer Augmented Reality applications

If you thought that the pinnacle of contact lens technology has already been reached, think again. A group of researchers from South Korea has now shown — through a new paper published recently in the journal Science Advances– that it may be possible to bestow simple augmented reality (AR) functionality and other neat little tricks to contact lenses, thereby making them “smart” contact lenses.

Smart contact lenses, at first, might seem like an impossibility. After all, where could you possibly fit all of the technology that would be required to render anything onto a user’s peripheral vision, giving them information that they otherwise wouldn’t have access to? The researchers from the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology have come up with a method that uses light and transparent nanomaterial technology to make it possible. And they’ve hand-picked a number of extra features that users will be able to benefit from.