• The new contact lens, a more advanced model of a prototype introduced in 2013, is 1.55 millimeters thick and features a very thin, reflective telescope, which allows the user to zoom in and out in literally a wink.
  • The telescopic contacts are made with a rigid lens known as a scleral lens— larger in diameter than the more familiar soft contacts, but useful for special cases, such as for people with irregularly shaped corneas. Despite their size and stiffness, scleral lenses are safe and comfortable for special applications.
  • Besides its potential military applications (the project was originally funded by the US government research agency DARPA), this new technology holds enormous potential for the roughly 285 million people worldwide who are visually impaired due to age-related macular degeneration (AMD).

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