Hasta La Gadget!

Of the contact lens display prototypes that we’ve seen so far, few if any are focused on comfort — a slight problem when they’re meant to sit on our eyeballs. A collaboration between Samsung and multiple universities may solve this with display tech that’s meant to be cozy from the start. By putting silver nanowires between graphene layers, researchers have created transparent conductors that can drive LEDs while remaining flexible enough to sit on a contact lens. Current test lenses only have one pixel, but they’re so soft that rabbits can wear them for five hours without strain. Scientists also see the seemingly inevitable, Glass-like wearable display as just one development path — they’re working on biosensors and active vision correction. While there’s still a long way to go before we reach a cyberpunk future of near-invisible displays, we may finally have some of the groundwork in place.

Filed under: Displays, Wearables, Science, Samsung

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Via: MIT Technology Review

Source: ACS Publications

While you’d be forgiven for not knowing who John Rogers is, he’s certainly graced these pages more than once. He’s the research chief at the University of Illinois that’s previously broken new ground in the world of invisibility cloaks and wearable technology. This time, his team has cooked up a silicon, magnesium, magnesium oxide and silk circuit that’s designed to dissolve in the body in the same way that absorbable sutures are used in minor surgeries. It’s thought that the tech could eventually be used to implant monitors that never need removal, reducing invasive medical procedures, or even build devices that eventually turn into compost rather than E-waste — although we’re not sure we’d appreciate our smartphone doing the same thing when we’re making calls in the rain.

[Image Credit: Fiorenzo Omenetto / Science]

Filed under: Wearables, Science, Alt

John Rogers returns with a silicon-silk circuit that dissolves inside your body originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 28 Sep 2012 08:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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