A future without binoculars
I’m willing to accept that the future from Back to the Future II, a mere 7 years away incidentally, is a long shot. I had hoped that maybe the promised hoverboards were closer to completion. Maybe the scientists in labs across the country were just hoarding prototypes in their science closets and refusing to release them to the general public for whatever reason. I’m unwilling to accept that such apparently useful technology isn’t on the front burner. For the good of society. Turns out they’ve been working on something else.
I mean, when you think about it, this was inevitable. That technology would eventually make finely crafted German optics a thing of the past. That we wouldn’t have to remember to bring our binoculars places, we’d just have them on us, invisible, at all times. Contact lenses with circuitry in them that, according to the researchers working on the project:
Drivers could see vehicle information or wearers could access their own private video display and surf the Web or watch movies.
That’s just the start, it goes on…
Engineers are also working on integrating LEDs into the bionic lenses to enhance the lenses’ display capabilities.
Mostly these seem to involve computer screens in front of your eyes. But with this technology in the bag, can binocular capabilities be far behind?
I’m still waiting on my hoverboard, but I’ll take the binocular contacts too. Thanks, the future!
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But, but, but without binoculars, how will we tell the Birders from the mere birder-wannabes? I’m not sure this is a step forward at all!
An entire birding population with bionic vision . . . amazing.
Perhaps we can wear Zeiss or Leica patches on our shirts just to keep things straight.
If contact lenses become the new binoculars, maybe binoculars will replace scopes for long-distance viewing.
@john – Oh man, you just blew my mind. At least there would always be a place for binoculars.
Bionic contact lenses are utterly useless for birding when compared to the advantages of birding from a hoverboard. Imagine silently hovering through the Everglades off the trails, imagine how much easier it would be to actually float through the Pearl, or White River or Choc bassins searching for – say – some woodpecker. Or that White-tailed Ptarmigan on some high and snow covered mountain pass in Colorado that would otherwise require to walk a few miles uphill through 6 feet of snow.
Nah, optics are valuable tools, but a hoverboard would truly revolutionize birding, and raise some conservation discussions as well, I suppose…
And N8: anyone can have a T-shirt printed with Zeiss or Leica or Svaro on it, what we’d need then are tattoos on our foreheads that can only be done by licensed artists if you can provide proof of owning the top-notch bionic lenses.
You’ve sold me, Jochen.
I’ll certainly purchase the hoverboard before I spring for the bionic contact lenses.