iOptik AR Contacts on the Way from Innovega
February 3, 2014
Never mind the glasses, augmented reality contacts are (almost) here! Can implants be far behind? The Daily Mail’s site Mail Online reports on “The Contact Lenses that Could Do Away with TV Screens: System that Projects Images onto the Eyeball to Be Unveiled Next Week.” Actually, there are glasses involved in the iOptik system, but they’re just the projection screens for the contacts (and look much more normal than Google Glass.) The article includes a two-and-a-half-minute video that shows us what it’s all about. I officially want one (though I know such HUD devices are not for everyone). Unfortunately the folks at Innovega, makers of iOptik, have yet to disclose how much their system will cost.
Reporter Ellie Zolfagharifard explains how the system works:
“The system can work with smartphones and portable game devices to deliver video – or switch to a translucent ‘augmented reality’ view, where computer information is layered over the world we know it.
‘Whatever runs on your smartphone would run on your eyewear,’ Innovega chief Stephen Willey said in an interview with CNET. ‘At full HD. Whether it’s a window or immersive.’ Crucially, the device can be worn while moving around in a similar way to Google Glass.
Innovega customised the standard contact lens manufacturing process with a unique filter to make the contact lenses. ‘All the usual optics in the eyewear are taken away and there is a sub-millimeter lens right in the centre,’ Mr Willey told CNET. ‘The outside of the lens is shaped to your prescription if you need one and the very centre of the lens is a bump that allows you to see incredibly well half an inch from your eye.’ An optical filter also directs the light. ‘Light coming from outside the world is shunted to your normal prescription. Light from that very near display goes through the center of the lens, the optical filter,’ Mr Willey said.”
For a visual explanation, check out the diagram at Innovega’s site. The company may choose to license the tech to other vendors, who could add features like audio and motion control, or it might market the device itself. Founded in 2008, Innovega is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington.
Zolfagharifard also notes that related developments are afoot elsewhere. For example, scientists in South Korea have created soft contacts fitted with LEDs that could be programmed to take pictures. Meanwhile, Microsoft and the University of Washington have been collaborating on a similar project; in 2012, they revealed a contact lens that can receive radio signals and transmit them to the brain through the optical nerves. I know, I know—there could be a lot of downsides with these developments. Right now, though, I’m just excited about the (positive) possibilities.
Cynthia Murrell, February 03, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Google Glass and Augmented Reality, Striving for a Place in Effective Marketing
November 11, 2013
The article on ClickZ titled Alice Through the Looking Glass: Augmented Reality in the Real World introduces a new discipline that involves capturing vision behavior. The author cites both Google Glass and Qualcomm Vuforia as technologies capable of Augmented Reality (AR). They are capable of capturing the user’s vision and as a result, of improving his or her engagement. The article explains,
“Like Alice Through The Looking Glass, we become visitors navigating through the real AR world, which is not unlike charting visitor conversion paths in a website from the home page to the checkout confirmation page. The basic idea of augmented reality is to superimpose graphics, audio and other sensory enhancements over a real-world environment in real-time.”
How is this useful in business? The author explains his testing and research with a thorough example, following a user of AR through a store, seeing what they spend time looking at, (the longer they look, the higher their engagement levels) and then perhaps offering discount at checkout for sharing the image of the product they are purchasing. The research has been effective in real-world usage of AR, citing sporting goods purchases, movie tickets sold, and games purchased. It is easy to see how this technology might be a very powerful resource for marketing through the customer, but what has yet to be explained it how one might search the data being compiled.
Chelsea Kerwin, November 11, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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