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calmond writes:
"Researchers from the University of Michigan have created a super-thin light detector that can pick up the entire infrared spectrum in addition to visible and ultraviolet light. The heat vision technology is made of graphene, which is considered to be the world's strongest material, and is small enough to fit on a contact lens.
Its developers say the technology could one day give people super-human vision and is particularly relevant for use by the military. Other, non-military uses, such as checking power distribution cables or search-and-rescue tasks are also possible.
A news release from the University team is to be found here, while a technical abstract is here. Unfortunately, the full technical paper is only viewable by payment or membership.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by MrGuy on Thursday March 20 2014, @03:56PM
Right. How do you power a magical on-the-eye device that detects, processes, and outputs images and is STILL thin enough to be worn comfortably.
A less sci-fi proposal would be to integrate this with something like Google Glass to allow someone to overlay visible images with infrared/UV picked up by a small imaging sensor...
That we can build a working sensor small enough and thermally stable enough to be used in such a scenario is still a pretty big advance, as I understand it (at least for IR spectrum - don't know about UV).