Yagami Website

A contact lens with metal circuit elements has been tested in rabbits.

(Credit: University of Washington)

It'll be awhile, though. The contact lens just has one blinky light in it so far. But you can now get augmented reality apps for the most modern mobile phones. New smartphones have not just cameras and location sensors (global positioning satellite receivers) but also compasses and inclinometers, so they know what direction they're pointing and which way the device is being held. With these sensors, they can run cool sci-fi apps that show data projected on top of the video their cameras are picking up.

In other words, augmented reality apps show, as their baseline image, a video of what the camera is pointing at, which is a redundant display of what you can see already with your own eyes. Then, on top of that, they overlay data -- graphics or text -- telling you about what the camera is seeing. Until smartphones are smart enough to recognize people by their faces, the cocktail party application I want isn't quite possible. Although it should be noted that Google and other companies do have face recognition functions in some of their photo album services, and a Swedish company called The Astonishing Tribe has a compelling demo of such a product. There's a video here.