8 ms·

They have a functioning prototype. Who are you and why does your opinion matter? (I’m just sick of skepticism automatically being associated with intelligence).

Sebguer 4y ago
I have a pretty cut and dry rule of not putting anything that can catch fire directly on my eyeball.
- bergenty 4y ago
  People said the same thing about LASIK.
  - echelon 4y ago
    LASIK is a one and done operation performed under the careful supervision of a doctor, and it has been tried and tested hundreds of thousands of times. The probability of failure for this device is nonzero and and increases the longer you wear it. The failure modes are potentially disastrous, and there's likely no medical personnel nearby to intervene.
    - birdman3131 4y ago
      Anecdotal but lasik seriously messed with my dads eyesight for over a year. And he drove an OTR truck (at night quite a bit). Had he been aware how bad it was and that it only lasted 10 years or so he said he would have stuck to glasses.
      - LooseMarmoset 4y ago
        I had lasik in 1999. I was legally blind (uncorrected) in my left eye, and needed a pretty serious correction in my right eye. After lasik, my vision was 20/15 (left) and 20/10 (right). Now, in 2022, I still have no need of glasses, although I'd say my vision has degraded somewhat - still good enough to pass the driver exam uncorrected, however. Night vision is objectively worse after lasik. Poorer light sensitivity, and for the first year, I had halos and starbursts around night light sources, especially when my eyes were tired/dry. This improved over time, however. I'd do it all over again if I had to. I couldn't wear contacts anymore, they hurt my eyes, and I got used to navigating like a blind person when I didn't have my glasses, so lasik is a miraculous improvement.
        ckw 4y ago
        When I looked into it a couple years ago, around 1% of procedures resulted in markedly diminished quality of life, with the most extreme cases regularly leading to the suicide of the patient, so I decided against it. Periodically I look back on the decision, and feel a great sense of relief. I count it among the best I have made.
        kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
        Corneal flap also also mechanically weakens the eye.
        euroderf 4y ago
        What does it do to your near-in sight though ? Can you read ingredients labels ?
        LooseMarmoset 4y ago
        My near-in sight was absolutely fine. Nowadays, it's getting harder to read near-in, but I think that's just age - I'm in my 50's now. I need good lighting to read the tiniest stuff like the voltage output printing on the average USB wall wart, for example. Otherwise, it's still quite good with no issues, no glasses needed.
    - hinkley 4y ago
      And it really is one and done. As in, they won't do it a second time, and your eyes are likely to change again in 10-20 years. For sure you all are going to have a conversation about reading glasses when you turn 40.
      - lttlrck 4y ago
        my eye doctor told me not to bother because chances are as I get older my eyes will natural start to go long sighted, and that'll cancel out my shortsightedness. If I had LASIK I would definitely end up needing reading glasses...
        2143 4y ago
        Can confirm. Anecdotal. Both my parents' eyesight have actually improved significantly recently. They don't really need glasses anymore. But I can also confirm that my sister who had severe long-sightedness got her eyesight corrected with lasik. That was about 15 years ago, and there are no problems so far.
  - Sebguer 4y ago
    Yeah, and the risks of LASIK are widely under-reported!
echelon 4y ago
I'm extremely wary of putting high energy density chemicals into or near my eyes. Not unless there's a medical need or millions of hours of testing on other people first.
nwiswell 4y ago
I'm sympathetic to the skepticism overdose, but ultimately this is a fallacious appeal to authority. GP makes good points. Even the Google/Verily glucose contact lens didn't work out and this is an order of magnitude more complicated. Do we really believe that the deal breaker for Google Glass was just that it made you look like a dork? Because that is the only problem the contact lens seems to solve, and it introduces a whole host of new problems. I'm not sure I feel great about putting a battery straight into my eyeball after seeing what they can do to cars and laptops when they fail.
- bergenty 4y ago
  In my opinion, the contact lenses solve a whole lot of issues. Invisible to people around you, literally captures the entirety of your retina, no motion sickness, higher fidelity and did I mention completely invisible to everyone around you making uptake on this seamless.
  - nwiswell 4y ago
    > Invisible to people around you Not based on the PR photo. It would be very obvious to anyone who makes eye contact with you.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - RC_ITR 4y ago
    Ok, let's diligence this, so our skepticism isn't unfounded: >Invisible to people around you. Except for the not-built body-wearable computer that will eventually run the things [0] > literally captures the entirety of your retina This prototype covers <20% of your field of vision [1] >no motion sickness, higher fidelity I think you're comparing this to headsets, but I can tell you from [1] that this is not 'high-fidelity' by any means (for one, it's monochrome and each pixel is binary on or off) Another problem to think about: A sunny day is c. 30k nits. From the looks of the photo, this display is maybe 100 nits. IT will be nearly impossible to see the display outdoors. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzVAMRe3kmA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzVAMRe3kmA - [1] https://venturebeat.com/2019/05/30/mojo-vision-reveals-the-worlds-smallest-and-densest-micro-display/ https://venturebeat.com/2019/05/30/mojo-vision-reveals-the-w...
pdpi 4y ago
Whatever tech could make these AR contacts comfortable to wear all day would be worth a fortune for plain old prescription contacts. I’m willing, he’ll I’d be happy and excited, to be proven wrong here, but it seems to me that the balance of probability tips in favour of them having something half-baked and non-viable, and my eyes are definitely too precious to risk them on a bad v1 product
- hinkley 4y ago
  To be fair, AR contact lenses could more easily absorb a $10 premium on a material that is more comfortable for extended wear than regular contact lenses. Yes, it would be good if contacts were more comfortable, but maybe it's a cost problem rather than a lack of capability.
  - bornfreddy 4y ago
    The contacts are expensive, yes, but for a lot of people (myself included) they could still easily be sold at twice the price if material was more comfortable.
  - kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
    Monthlies are 95% water and dailies are 97% in modern hydrogel lenses. Anything you can build electronics into will be a downgrade from this.
_Adam 4y ago
They have flexible PCB on a contact lens, and an anecdote by the CEO. "Functioning" is too generous.
Closi 4y ago
> They have a functioning prototype. Who are you and why does your opinion matter? I'm allowed to share my opinion on here, it's an internet forum dude. Besides, I don't need a PhD to work out that I don't want to put that thing on my eyeball, or that some of the claims are pretty fantastical compared to the proof given. If they put their prototype on Marques Brownlee or Linus and they said it was good then I would be inclined to believe it. But the CEO being the only wearer and then saying "wowowoww my product is so good this is amazing" isn't too convincing to me. There are plenty of functional prototypes that never become a viable product. This, to me, has the smell of a company that won't be able to bring the product to fruition.
- ricardobeat 4y ago
  “I don’t like it”, which is what this comment can be summarized as, is a perfectly valid opinion. But it’s quite different from “the product is nowhere near ready for consumers, the technology doesn't appear to be there, and I can't imagine them being able to release anything other than a tech demo for many years” which is pure speculation and dismisses the entire news as.. a lie, I guess?
  - FooHentai 4y ago
    Reducing op's post to your own summary, then attacking that summary, is not making a point in good faith. Besides, it's not pure speculation, it's sitting on very solid foundations of reasoning that were outlined in the earlier post - Current cutting-edge tech for regular contact lenses has resulted in something (silicone hydro-gel) that lasts at best a month before it breaks down, but allows airflow through to the eye which is very important for long-term use and comfort. It's fair to be skeptical about overcoming this issue, which reasonably you would have to do if you're going to layer in some expensive tech and give a user a reasonable lifetime from the product.
  - Closi 4y ago
    > “the product is nowhere near ready for consumers, the technology doesn't appear to be there, and I can't imagine them being able to release anything other than a tech demo for many years” which is pure speculation and dismisses the entire news as.. a lie, I guess? We shouldn't take what we read in a PR piece for granted. See: https://swimswam.com/artificial-gills-breath-underwater-like-james-bond/ https://swimswam.com/artificial-gills-breath-underwater-like... https://wccftech.com/skarp-laser-razor/ https://wccftech.com/skarp-laser-razor/ https://greenerideal.com/news/vehicles/0627-solar-powered-roadways/ https://greenerideal.com/news/vehicles/0627-solar-powered-ro... And even some of the bigger failures like Theranos where the product was technologically infeasible from the start. But with at least the three links I have listed - you can probably work out that they were infeasible by just applying common sense. A laser hot enough to easily burn through hair will probably burn your face, tiny artificial gills probably won't be able to keep up with human lungs, and we probably make roads out of tarmac and not glass for a reason. IMO I think you can work out this is far away from a commercial product from similar logic - their prototype looks like something I wouldn't want to stick in my eye, their current battery can't last the day, and existing contact lens manufacturers can't make a comfortable lens that lasts over a month even without stuffing it with electronics.
iso1631 4y ago
> I’m just sick of skepticism automatically being associated with intelligence I remember being in the office on April 1st 2004 and seeing the front page of the first edition of the Evening Standard announcing how google were launching an email service to compete with hotmail which allowed upto 1GB of storage (hotmail was something like 2MB at the time). I laughed at how a major newspaper had fallen for what was obviously an april fools joke. A day or two later I reflected that maybe I didn't know everything.
- Closi 4y ago
  I don't think anyone had doubts about 1GB of storage being technically possible in 2004, the suprise was that they were offering 1GB of email storage for free. 1GB of storage was approx. $1 at the time Gmail was first offered. Whereas I'm sceptical of the technical/practical feasibility here - more like if someone came along and told me they were going to bring consumer-grade jetpacks to the market that people could use for their daily commute I would be sceptical that they could bring that to market successfully for a variety of reasons other than price/commercials (e.g. safety). This is before we even start talking about getting FDA approval for sticking all this stuff into a contact lens (so they will need to presumably prove it doesn't increase the chance of conjunctivitis, corneal abrasions, and eye irritation). IMO it's quite clear from looking at the existing version that it would cause eye irritation - there is a big block sticking out the front.
jansan 4y ago
Who are you and why does your opinion matter? What the hell?

Sebguer 4y ago

I have a pretty cut and dry rule of not putting anything that can catch fire directly on my eyeball.

bergenty 4y ago
People said the same thing about LASIK.
- echelon 4y ago
  LASIK is a one and done operation performed under the careful supervision of a doctor, and it has been tried and tested hundreds of thousands of times. The probability of failure for this device is nonzero and and increases the longer you wear it. The failure modes are potentially disastrous, and there's likely no medical personnel nearby to intervene.
  - birdman3131 4y ago
    Anecdotal but lasik seriously messed with my dads eyesight for over a year. And he drove an OTR truck (at night quite a bit). Had he been aware how bad it was and that it only lasted 10 years or so he said he would have stuck to glasses.
    - LooseMarmoset 4y ago
      I had lasik in 1999. I was legally blind (uncorrected) in my left eye, and needed a pretty serious correction in my right eye. After lasik, my vision was 20/15 (left) and 20/10 (right). Now, in 2022, I still have no need of glasses, although I'd say my vision has degraded somewhat - still good enough to pass the driver exam uncorrected, however. Night vision is objectively worse after lasik. Poorer light sensitivity, and for the first year, I had halos and starbursts around night light sources, especially when my eyes were tired/dry. This improved over time, however. I'd do it all over again if I had to. I couldn't wear contacts anymore, they hurt my eyes, and I got used to navigating like a blind person when I didn't have my glasses, so lasik is a miraculous improvement.
      - ckw 4y ago
        When I looked into it a couple years ago, around 1% of procedures resulted in markedly diminished quality of life, with the most extreme cases regularly leading to the suicide of the patient, so I decided against it. Periodically I look back on the decision, and feel a great sense of relief. I count it among the best I have made.
        kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
        Corneal flap also also mechanically weakens the eye.
      - euroderf 4y ago
        What does it do to your near-in sight though ? Can you read ingredients labels ?
        LooseMarmoset 4y ago
        My near-in sight was absolutely fine. Nowadays, it's getting harder to read near-in, but I think that's just age - I'm in my 50's now. I need good lighting to read the tiniest stuff like the voltage output printing on the average USB wall wart, for example. Otherwise, it's still quite good with no issues, no glasses needed.
  - hinkley 4y ago
    And it really is one and done. As in, they won't do it a second time, and your eyes are likely to change again in 10-20 years. For sure you all are going to have a conversation about reading glasses when you turn 40.
    - lttlrck 4y ago
      my eye doctor told me not to bother because chances are as I get older my eyes will natural start to go long sighted, and that'll cancel out my shortsightedness. If I had LASIK I would definitely end up needing reading glasses...
      - 2143 4y ago
        Can confirm. Anecdotal. Both my parents' eyesight have actually improved significantly recently. They don't really need glasses anymore. But I can also confirm that my sister who had severe long-sightedness got her eyesight corrected with lasik. That was about 15 years ago, and there are no problems so far.
- Sebguer 4y ago
  Yeah, and the risks of LASIK are widely under-reported!

echelon 4y ago

I'm extremely wary of putting high energy density chemicals into or near my eyes. Not unless there's a medical need or millions of hours of testing on other people first.

nwiswell 4y ago

I'm sympathetic to the skepticism overdose, but ultimately this is a fallacious appeal to authority. GP makes good points. Even the Google/Verily glucose contact lens didn't work out and this is an order of magnitude more complicated. Do we really believe that the deal breaker for Google Glass was just that it made you look like a dork? Because that is the only problem the contact lens seems to solve, and it introduces a whole host of new problems. I'm not sure I feel great about putting a battery straight into my eyeball after seeing what they can do to cars and laptops when they fail.

bergenty 4y ago
In my opinion, the contact lenses solve a whole lot of issues. Invisible to people around you, literally captures the entirety of your retina, no motion sickness, higher fidelity and did I mention completely invisible to everyone around you making uptake on this seamless.
- nwiswell 4y ago
  > Invisible to people around you Not based on the PR photo. It would be very obvious to anyone who makes eye contact with you.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- RC_ITR 4y ago
  Ok, let's diligence this, so our skepticism isn't unfounded: >Invisible to people around you. Except for the not-built body-wearable computer that will eventually run the things [0] > literally captures the entirety of your retina This prototype covers <20% of your field of vision [1] >no motion sickness, higher fidelity I think you're comparing this to headsets, but I can tell you from [1] that this is not 'high-fidelity' by any means (for one, it's monochrome and each pixel is binary on or off) Another problem to think about: A sunny day is c. 30k nits. From the looks of the photo, this display is maybe 100 nits. IT will be nearly impossible to see the display outdoors. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzVAMRe3kmA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzVAMRe3kmA - [1] https://venturebeat.com/2019/05/30/mojo-vision-reveals-the-worlds-smallest-and-densest-micro-display/ https://venturebeat.com/2019/05/30/mojo-vision-reveals-the-w...

pdpi 4y ago

Whatever tech could make these AR contacts comfortable to wear all day would be worth a fortune for plain old prescription contacts. I’m willing, he’ll I’d be happy and excited, to be proven wrong here, but it seems to me that the balance of probability tips in favour of them having something half-baked and non-viable, and my eyes are definitely too precious to risk them on a bad v1 product

hinkley 4y ago
To be fair, AR contact lenses could more easily absorb a $10 premium on a material that is more comfortable for extended wear than regular contact lenses. Yes, it would be good if contacts were more comfortable, but maybe it's a cost problem rather than a lack of capability.
- bornfreddy 4y ago
  The contacts are expensive, yes, but for a lot of people (myself included) they could still easily be sold at twice the price if material was more comfortable.
- kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
  Monthlies are 95% water and dailies are 97% in modern hydrogel lenses. Anything you can build electronics into will be a downgrade from this.

_Adam 4y ago

They have flexible PCB on a contact lens, and an anecdote by the CEO. "Functioning" is too generous.

Closi 4y ago

> They have a functioning prototype. Who are you and why does your opinion matter? I'm allowed to share my opinion on here, it's an internet forum dude. Besides, I don't need a PhD to work out that I don't want to put that thing on my eyeball, or that some of the claims are pretty fantastical compared to the proof given. If they put their prototype on Marques Brownlee or Linus and they said it was good then I would be inclined to believe it. But the CEO being the only wearer and then saying "wowowoww my product is so good this is amazing" isn't too convincing to me. There are plenty of functional prototypes that never become a viable product. This, to me, has the smell of a company that won't be able to bring the product to fruition.

ricardobeat 4y ago
“I don’t like it”, which is what this comment can be summarized as, is a perfectly valid opinion. But it’s quite different from “the product is nowhere near ready for consumers, the technology doesn't appear to be there, and I can't imagine them being able to release anything other than a tech demo for many years” which is pure speculation and dismisses the entire news as.. a lie, I guess?
- FooHentai 4y ago
  Reducing op's post to your own summary, then attacking that summary, is not making a point in good faith. Besides, it's not pure speculation, it's sitting on very solid foundations of reasoning that were outlined in the earlier post - Current cutting-edge tech for regular contact lenses has resulted in something (silicone hydro-gel) that lasts at best a month before it breaks down, but allows airflow through to the eye which is very important for long-term use and comfort. It's fair to be skeptical about overcoming this issue, which reasonably you would have to do if you're going to layer in some expensive tech and give a user a reasonable lifetime from the product.
- Closi 4y ago
  > “the product is nowhere near ready for consumers, the technology doesn't appear to be there, and I can't imagine them being able to release anything other than a tech demo for many years” which is pure speculation and dismisses the entire news as.. a lie, I guess? We shouldn't take what we read in a PR piece for granted. See: https://swimswam.com/artificial-gills-breath-underwater-like-james-bond/ https://swimswam.com/artificial-gills-breath-underwater-like... https://wccftech.com/skarp-laser-razor/ https://wccftech.com/skarp-laser-razor/ https://greenerideal.com/news/vehicles/0627-solar-powered-roadways/ https://greenerideal.com/news/vehicles/0627-solar-powered-ro... And even some of the bigger failures like Theranos where the product was technologically infeasible from the start. But with at least the three links I have listed - you can probably work out that they were infeasible by just applying common sense. A laser hot enough to easily burn through hair will probably burn your face, tiny artificial gills probably won't be able to keep up with human lungs, and we probably make roads out of tarmac and not glass for a reason. IMO I think you can work out this is far away from a commercial product from similar logic - their prototype looks like something I wouldn't want to stick in my eye, their current battery can't last the day, and existing contact lens manufacturers can't make a comfortable lens that lasts over a month even without stuffing it with electronics.

iso1631 4y ago

> I’m just sick of skepticism automatically being associated with intelligence I remember being in the office on April 1st 2004 and seeing the front page of the first edition of the Evening Standard announcing how google were launching an email service to compete with hotmail which allowed upto 1GB of storage (hotmail was something like 2MB at the time). I laughed at how a major newspaper had fallen for what was obviously an april fools joke. A day or two later I reflected that maybe I didn't know everything.

Closi 4y ago
I don't think anyone had doubts about 1GB of storage being technically possible in 2004, the suprise was that they were offering 1GB of email storage for free. 1GB of storage was approx. $1 at the time Gmail was first offered. Whereas I'm sceptical of the technical/practical feasibility here - more like if someone came along and told me they were going to bring consumer-grade jetpacks to the market that people could use for their daily commute I would be sceptical that they could bring that to market successfully for a variety of reasons other than price/commercials (e.g. safety). This is before we even start talking about getting FDA approval for sticking all this stuff into a contact lens (so they will need to presumably prove it doesn't increase the chance of conjunctivitis, corneal abrasions, and eye irritation). IMO it's quite clear from looking at the existing version that it would cause eye irritation - there is a big block sticking out the front.

jansan 4y ago

Who are you and why does your opinion matter? What the hell?