Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Sorry Spectacles?

I'm not quite ready for bifocals yet, but when I get there (what's today, Tuesday...), hopefully this idea will be a bit further along:
Now researchers have created liquid crystal lenses that can change between long-distance and reading modes with the flick of a switch.

Guoqiang Li of the University of Arizona and his colleagues sandwiched a thin layer of liquid crystal between two layers of glass and laced it with concentric rings of electrodes. When turned on, the electrodes reconfigure the focusing power of the lens for either near or far vision, allowing the entire lens to promote the desired effect in less than a second.
Given what researchers are starting to do with implantable brain chips (etc.) it would be great if they could invent autofocusing liquid crystal bifocals. Then I could really make a spectacle of myself.

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