Scientists invent micrometers-thin battery charged by saline solution that could power smart contact lenses::Scientists from NTU Singapore have developed a flexible battery as thin as a human cornea, which stores electricity when it is immersed in saline solution, and which could one day power smart contact lenses.

    • dangblingus@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      How? Bionic ocular implants already exist. A contact lens is not going to be able to restore sight to the blind.

      • GreenBottles@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        perhaps not to the totally blind but to those that have degenerative diseases contact lenses absolutely can help

      • Zron@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Now you can see your friends dying in the next room, instead of just hearing it!

        Or if it’s only a map, now you can see how surrounded your unit is!

        This is valuable tactical data, surely it won’t cause any morale issues.

        • Kungolicious@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          It’s true. All new inventions have a morality issue to them. And those moralities need to be weighed heavily before implementing them.

          But it can also be used to guide a secluded operative back to his troop. It can be used to detect road mines that otherwise would have exploded.

          New technology is just a tool. It’s the people choosing how to use it that makes it moral/immoral.

          • Zron@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Listen, all I’m saying is if I was surrounded by enemy combatants on all sides, I wouldn’t want to have to see that while getting shot at.

            Also wouldn’t want to see a fellow soldier get gunned down in a little twitch.tv window in my eye while I’m trying to clear a room.

            I’d call that a major distraction. And distractions in combat get people killed when otherwise they might have lived.

            Maybe smart contacts would have some use for NCOs, even then, a tablet or something with the same info would be just as useful and less likely to block vision. Giving it to everybody would just cause panic and confusion on a battlefield.

      • JJROKCZ@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Some “blind” people do have data coming in, it’s just so blurry/skewed that it’s worthless. It might be possible to fix this but it would be a case by case basis and likely very expensive. Not all blindness is a world of black

        • Lazerbeams2@ttrpg.network
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          1 year ago

          Even totally blind people can usually detect light as painful, slightly less dark darkness. That’s actually why so many wear dark sunglasses