No need to turn to your smartphone to check the time, look
at your agenda or the weather forecast, read a text message or map a route in
an unfamiliar city. All this information, and much more, will soon be displayed
on the lenses of “augmented” glasses via a mini-projector placed on the frames
- and on the condition that you’re also wearing a specially designed pair of
contact lenses.
EPFL scientists in the Laboratory of Photonic Devices are
currently working on a prototype that’s similar to the project announced this
spring by Google. The applications envisioned for this eagerly awaited
invention run the gamut – games, GPS, teaching enhancement, support for the
deaf and hard of hearing, and myriad other kinds of augmented reality.