Engineers at Google have developed a way to display information to people in the lenses of their eyeglasses.
The work, outlined in a patent application, is the latest in a line of research by the company that points to future head-mounted displays that don't require the clunky display arm that's present on the first generation Google Glass.
The design detailed in U.S. patent application 20130207887 calls for a small display to be mounted onto the surface of the lens of a pair of glasses. The display and a companion light source are located on the periphery of the lens and the image is funneled to the area in front of the user's eye with a couple of optical beam splitters—passive optical devices that bend and route light.
In their patent application, the engineers have also included an eye-tracking camera and a couple of small lamps that illuminate the eye. One illuminates the entire eye and the other provides a focused beam that creates a glint in the eye to aid tracking, both likely operating at wavelengths invisible to humans.
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