Lens-based Display Breakthrough

"Chew, if only you could see what I've seen with your eyes!" Contact lenses with circuits, lights a possible platform for superhuman vision is a report out of the University of Washington about a breakthrough in creating "flexible, biologically safe" contact lenses with integrated electronic circuitry (thanks Mike Martinez) and Kotaku). This is all preliminary at this point; they've created a prototype lens with a circuit and a non-lighting LED (which has only been tested for 20 minute stretches on rabbits), but they describe a wide range of practical applications for a working lens-based display, and quote the devices creator as saying that while a full-fledged display is a ways off, a basic display with a few pixels could be created "fairly quickly." The article addresses concerns about the circuitry blocking the users vision, and describes the technique used to integrate the toxic materials involved in electronics manufacture with the fragile biocompatible lens material as "self-assembly," a microfabrication technique that uses capillary action. In other cool display news, Hitachi Does Microsoft Surface Without the Table (thanks Mike Martinez and Slashdot) offers a video of a touch screen table display facilitated by a projector.