University of Washington Associate Professor of Biotechnology Babak A. Parviz describes the current state of the art, and it's pretty intense. They're trialing mockups of the lenses—which are sorta like older gas permeable lenses except with independently fabricated microcomponents like, biosensors and circuits—in bunnies' eyeballs right now, using lens with integrated metal circuits, with no problems for up to 20 minutes of wear. They're up to one LED for display now that's powered wirelessly by RF, but eventually, what's embedded in the lenses will include hundreds of LEDs to form images, and semi-transparent optoelectronics like antennas.

They've still got some challenges before they're embedded in everybody's eyeball, like the fact red LEDs contain toxic substances you don't want to shove in your eyeball. And figuring out whether to use an active display, like an array of LED pixels—which is the current main road forward—or a passive display using ambient light that would require less power. What's crazy is that for a truly vivid LED display, because of the way your eye focuses, they need to build another tiny array of lenses into the main lens so the virtual image would look visible a foot or so away. Or they use an array of microlasers. Power will come from RF or solar energy.

Bottom line says Parviz:

All the basic technologies needed to build functional contact lenses are in place. We've tested our first few prototypes on animals, proving that the platform can be safe. What we need to do now is show all the subsystems working together, shrink some of the components even more, and extend the RF power harvesting to higher efficiencies and to distances greater than the few centimeters we have now.

[IEEE Spectrum]

All three patients were blind in one eye. The researchers extracted stem cells from their working eyes, cultured them in contact lenses for 10 days, and gave them to the patients. Within 10 to 14 days of use, the stem cells began recolonizing and repairing the cornea.

Of the three patients, two were legally blind but can now read the big letters on an eye chart, while the third, who could previously read the top few rows of the chart, is now able to pass the vision test for a driver's license. The research team isn't getting over excited, still remaining unsure as to whether the correction will remain stable, but the fact that the three test patients have been enjoying restored sight for the last 18 months is definitely encouraging. The simplicity and low cost of the technique also means that it could be carried out in poorer countries.

This is incredible and potentially game changing. It's stuff like this that makes you realize that we live in the future, and it's awesome. [UNSW via The Australian via GizMag]

Glaucoma, a disease that causes a loss of cells in the optic nerve, is the second leading cause of blindness worldwide. Unlike the first leading cause, cataracts, it's irreversible, making the ability to keep tabs on warning signs even more crucial. UC Davis will start clinical trials of the smart contact lenses in humans soon. [UC Davis via io9]

Looks like Eric's been developing his idea since we first showed you... it's still weird, but this time you get to see it in action. [Style Dash via Random Good Stuff]

Previous methods often employed visual solutions such as cameras, which can get mucked up by rapid motions, light, or glasses. They hope to use the technology to better track the attention of combat personnel such as pilots, whose eyes help them interact with their heads-up displays. [New Scientist]

Nike Lenses [Shiny Shiny]