The Display of the Future Might Be in Your Contact Lens
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Display of the Future Might Be in Your Contact Lens
Mojo Vision's prototypes can enhance your vision or show
you your schedule—right from the surface of your eyes.
A glance to the left. A flick to the
right. As my eyes flitted around the room, I moved through a virtual interface
only visible to me—scrolling through a calendar, commute times home, and even
controlling music playback. It's all I theoretically need to do to use Mojo
Lens, a smart contact lens coming from a company called Mojo Vision.
The
California-based company, which has been quiet about what it's been working on
for five years, has finally shared its plan for the world's "first true
smart contact lens." But let's be clear: This is not a product you'll see
on store shelves next autumn. It's in the research and development phase—a few
years away from becoming a real product. In fact, the demos I tried did not
even involve me plopping on a contact lens—they used virtual reality headsets
and held up bulky prototypes to my eye, as though I was Sherlock Holmes with a
magnifying glass.
A Future with Less Screens
Mojo
Vision is all about "invisible computing." The company, whose
founders include industry veterans from the likes of Apple, Google, Amazon, and
Microsoft, wants to reduce our reliance on screens. Instead of pulling out your
phone to check why it buzzed in the middle of a conversation, look to the
corner of your eye to activate an interface that will tell you in a
split-second.
"We
want to create a technology that lets you be you, lets you look like you;
doesn't change your appearance; it doesn't make you act weird walking down the
street," said Mike Wiemer, cofounder and chief technology officer at Mojo
Vision. "It's very discreet and frankly, substantially, most of the time
it doesn't show you anything."
Making
smart contact lenses is no simple task, though—even Alphabet's Verily subsidiary
had to refocus its Smart Lens program after
hitting a few snags. You need to have the right sensors at the right sizes, the
power to make it all work, and a display and image sensor, too. These sensors
range from custom wireless radios to motion sensors for eye tracking and image
stabilization.
The folks at Mojo Vision showed me
prototype contact lenses with an embedded display—the screen was, amazingly,
about the size of a dot from an ink pen. They say it's the "smallest,
densest display ever made," but they didn't have a version with all the sensors
inside yet. I looked through this prototype, and as expected, I saw text
hovering over the real world. It's not dissimilar from my experience using
augmented reality eyewear like Google Glass or Focals, the smart eyeglasses from North—except
Focals projects its interface to the glasses, whereas Mojo Vision's contacts
have the display integrated into the contact lens.
At the
moment, the lens receives power via a wearable you wear on the wrist, which
also handles much of the computing. Eventually, Wiemer said he thinks the team
might drop the wearable in favor of a smartphone-based solution.
Using Apps on a Contact Lens
Nevertheless,
the possibilities are wide-reaching. I donned an HTC Vive Pro virtual reality headset outfitted
with eye-tracking technology to get an early experience of what wearing Mojo
Lens will be like.
If
you're looking straight ahead while wearing the lens, you won't see anything
visually disrupting. But peek to a corner in any direction and you'll see icons
pop up, ranging from a calendar, weather, notifications, music playback, and
more. Stare at the arrow next to these icons to expand them even further to see
more details, like a three-day forecast for example, or all your calendar
events for the day. It took me about a minute to figure out how to navigate the
interface; it could all change at any moment, but it's promising to see just
how simple it is to use.
One of
my favorite demo apps is Speech. Only using my eyes, I opened a pre-written
speech, scrolled through it, and read it aloud. This app alone opens up a
myriad of possibilities. Imagine sitting in a taped interview but instead of
looking at notes, you can pull up your next question with a flick of your eye
without having to look down. Or if you're filming a video, you may not need to
shoot multiple takes because the script is in the dead center of your eye. Who
needs teleprompters?
To those
around you, it can be obvious when you're using the contact lens. To pull up
the interface you need to look at the corner of your eye—something that's
noticeable when someone is staring at you straight on, but it's far more invisible than
taking out your phone, or checking your watch. Alerts and notifications will
also pop up sparingly, though I expect there'd be a way to control all of that
down the road.
The lens
will sit right on the cornea, and Dr. Ashley Tuan, vice president of medical
devices at Mojo Vision, tells me it will be just like wearing normal contacts.
The team calculated the lumens projection on the retina and found that
everything is "way under the regulation," in terms of safety
standards.
"It's
a new form factor, but you as the wearer of this product, you just see
content," Wiemer assured me. "Just as you would see content if you
held up a mobile phone or you put on a pair of glasses that made that content
appear in the world—from the perspective of your body and your retina—it's just
light on your retina, just like light on your retina right now. The safety
implications of this are something that we obviously paid a lot of attention
to, but it's a very safe product."
They'll Still Fix Your Vision
Mojo
Vision is positioning its contact lens for consumers and businesses, but first,
it's focusing on people who are visually impaired or have low vision—or vision
poor enough that glasses cannot fix it. That's because all contact lenses,
smart or dumb, need to clear the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US.
Mojo Vision has been granted the Breakthrough Device
Designation, which allows companies to fast-track development,
assessment, and review for products that could help people with
life-threatening or debilitating conditions—though the FDA maintains it
preserves "the statutory standards for premarket approval."
To show
off the capabilities of helping people with low vision, the team threw me into
a dark hotel room filled with stop signs and various other items. I was handed
a stick with a prototype Mojo Lens, and held it close to my eye. This one had
an image sensor connected to it. Despite standing in almost pitch darkness, I
could make out people in the room, the edges of the bed, and I could even read
the stop sign with ease. It was almost like using night vision. The image
sensor showed me the real world, but the lens increased the contrast,
highlighted edges, magnified objects, and performed a few other tricks to help
me see in the dark. Ideally, it will help visually impaired users navigate
their surroundings a lot easier. It was impressive.
Mojo
Vision is partnering with the Vista Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired
in Palo Alto to connect with the non-profit's clients and get input for the
lenses during development. The company will also work with FDA experts to meet
safety regulations.
If you
don't suffer from low vision, have a seat. If it takes a few years to get
clearance on a device that works for the visually impaired, it will take a few
more to make a smart contact lens for everyone else.
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