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"In my mind I have gone all over the universe, which may make it less important for me to make piddling little trips... I did enjoy seeing Stonehenge. It looked exactly the way I thought it would look."
- Isaac Asimov
 |
| Smart Contact Lenses | ||
| Contact lenses that have a built-in computer display. |
In the tomorrow explored in this novella, wearable computers display data right before your eyes.
| "What really makes it possible?"
Juan squinted at him. "My contact lenses? Smart clothes?" Certainly the lens displays would be useless without a wearable computer to do the graphics. "That's just the final output device." |
| Technovelgy from Fast Times At Fairmont High,
by Vernor Vinge. Published by Not known in 2001 Additional resources -
|
Vinge expands on the idea in his 2006 novel Rainbows End, set in the same milieu:
Miri... leaned her head forward, and stuck a finger close to her right eye. "You already know about contacts, right? Wanna see one?" Her hand came away from her eye. A tiny disk sat on the tip of her middle finger. It was the size and shape of the contact lenses he had known. He hadn't expected more, but... he bent closed and looked. After a moment, he realized that it was not quite a clear lens. Speckles of colored brightness swirled and gathered in it. "I'm driving it at safety max, or you wouldn't see the lights." The tiny lens became hazy, then frosty white. "Uk. It powered down. But you get the idea.."
If you think that this form of display is a bit intrusive, you're right. As one character remarks in Rainbows End:
You'd need to go back a ways to find the earliest use of this kind of idea. Try the retinal vid-screen from Philip K. Dick's 1954 story Sales Pitch.
Compare to DreamTime Scleral Contact Lenses from The California Voodoo Game (1992) by Larry Niven (w/S. Barnes).
"...Robert, you should be wearing. You look silly walking around with that view-page clutched in your hand..."
"Without some control it's like old-time television, but much more intrusive. We wouldn't want you to be hijacked..."
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Fast Times At Fairmont High
More Ideas
and Technology by Vernor Vinge
Tech news articles related to Fast Times At Fairmont High
Tech news articles related to works by Vernor Vinge
Smart Contact Lenses-related
news articles:
- Smart Contact Lenses Charges With 3D Printed Antenna
- Vernor Vinge Smart Contact Lens On Wired
- Augmented Reality Humanoid Robot U-Tsu-Shi-O-Mi
- Circuit Smart Contact Lens, Presaged By Niven, Barnes and Vinge
- Samsung Patent For Smart Contact Lens Camera Granted
- The Mojo Smart Contact Lens Experience
- Harvest Power From Tears And Blinking With Smart Contact Lens
| Transparent MicroLED Screen From Samsung |
| Augmented Reality Book Covers Reveal The Inner Book |
| TCL CSOT 17-Inch Printed OLED Scrolling Display |
| Looking Glass Display Good Enough For Science Fiction, Fantasy |
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'And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.'
'What is your population', I asked. 'About eighty millions.'
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold...'
'The car had no steering wheel, and no one drove!'
Now that's power walking that Hugo Gernsback would have approved.
'It was disturbing to think of the Flatline as a construct...'
'...he rewired the delivery robot so that it would serve him midnight snacks.'
'On went the electric-yacht faster and still faster.'
'...the huge vessel had spun, with a sickening lurch, through a complete half-circle, the instant the power was reversed.'
'...he realized that it was not quite a clear lens. Speckles of colored brightness swirled and gathered in it.'
