Contact Lenses With Infrared Vision? 99
Orlando (12257) writes "A story on Singularity Hub reports that "Researchers at the University of Michigan, led by electrical engineer Zhaohui Zhong, have devised a way to capture the infrared spectrum without requiring the cooling that makes infrared goggles so cumbersome." The method uses graphene and could one day lead to ultra light weight infrared vision technology."
Utterly misleading post. (Score:5, Informative)
A) Thermal imagers have not required cooling since approximately 1980.
(for other than extremely specialised applications.
B) Having a sensor does not magically mean it can be used in a contact lens.
You need electronics, LEDs, and focussing optics in order to get it into the eye in a coherent image.
Re:Utterly misleading post. (Score:4, Informative)
The eye IS the focusing optics, you don't need a whole bunch of extra stuff, you just need to shift IR a few mm into visible and let the eye and brain do what they do.
All slashdot summaries are misleading at this stage, why do you think Taco left?
Re:What will it look like? (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U... [wikipedia.org]
relevant part: "Humans cannot perceive UV light directly since the lens of the eye blocks most light in the wavelength range of 300-400 nm; shorter wavelengths are blocked by the cornea.[18] Nevertheless, the photoreceptors of the retina are sensitive to near UV light and people lacking a lens (a condition known as aphakia) perceive near UV light as whitish blue or whitish-violet, probably because all three types of cones are roughly equally sensitive to UV light, but blue cones a bit more.[19]"
A new colour, and all you have to do to be able to see it is have no lens.
Re:IR mods for early digital cameras ... (Score:5, Informative)
Take off the tinfoil hat. Sony once sold a camcorder with an IR mode that there was some brief controversy about, but that's about it. Lots of hobbyists modify cameras to see IR. Lots of cheaper cameras have crappy filters and pick up quite a bit without modification. Canon specifically sells (or sold, it's quite old now) a version of one of their SLRs without an IR filter. You can buy one for $25 to hook up to your Raspberry Pi. [adafruit.com]