Night Vision Contact Lenses May Become The Standard For Night Operations

Seeing in the dark: Navy Seals wear conventional goggles during an operation. A website has said that those involved in the mission to kill Osama Bin Laden wore night vision contact lenses

U.S. Navy Seal Team Who Killed Bin Laden May Have Used Night Vision Contact Lenses -- The Daily Mail

They sound like something Q branch would issue to James Bond ahead of a difficult assignment.

But this gadget was used to fight a very real target - the world's most wanted terrorist.

A website has reported that the team of U.S. Navy Seals used pairs of night vision contact lenses during their mission to kill Osama Bin Laden.

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My Comment: Because this technology's can significantly impact night operations, I suspect that this technology (if it exists) will not be available to the public for a long time.

More Advances On How The U.S. Military Will Own The Night

SA Photonics Night Vision System SA Photonics

New Night Vision Goggles Offer High-Res And Double The Field Of View -- Popular Science

And they're ultra-stylish, to boot.

Night vision goggles are, according to SA Photonics (a manufacturer of night vision goggles, naturally), a "key enabling technology" that has allowed the U.S. military to "own the night". SA Photonics has cleared some of the existing technological hurdles with their new High Resolution Night Vision System (or HRNVS--looks like someone could use some acronym assistance), which doubles the field of view of existing goggles, a real boon to pilots and others who need to see in the dark.

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My Comment: Forget about style .... if these advances increases night time capabilities, the soldiers will not care one bit.

The Future For Night Vision Goggles

Night Vision Once the domain of military and police, a cheap thin-film approach to night vision could give cell phones, eyeglasses, and car windshields the ability to see in the dark.

A Cheap, Thin Film Gives Portable Night Vision to Cell Phones and Eyeglasses -- Popular Science

What we regularly refer to as “night vision goggles” are actually less like goggles and more like heavy, bulky (and outrageously expensive) pieces of machinery. But DARPA funded research at the U. of Florida has adapted technology regularly found in flat-screen OLED televisions to create a thin film that turns any infrared signal into visible light, which could integrate cheap night vision tech into car windshields, cell phone cameras and even regular eyeglasses.

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My Comment: This type of research from Darpa makes sense.

No Needle In A Haystack Too Small For DARPA's Dream Goggles

Future Goggles Will DARPA's magic 3D goggles improve on this night vision spec? U.S. Army

From Popular Science:

Defense agency demands that metaphors become reality, stat.

DARPA's dreamers and brainiacs have set their sights on a new technology for the U.S. military -- high-tech binoculars or goggles that would supposedly have the ability to find the not-so-proverbial needle in a haystack. The Register pointed out the U.S. Department of Defense proposal issued last week.

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My Comment: My girlfriend now knows what I want for my birthday.

Bug Eye Gives Troops Better Night Vision

From Defense Talk:

LONDON, UK: Frontline troops will be able to see better in the dark using revolutionary new optical technology that’s modeled on the eye of a tiny parasitic fly.

Engineers at BAE Systems have developed the new ‘bug eye’ technology following several months of research examining the eye mechanisms of the Xenos peckii – a parasitic fly that lives on a wasp. The tiny bug has 50 separate lenses in each eye. Each lens produces an individual image, which are meshed together to form a single large panoramic image in its brain.

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My Comment: This is a small but significant improvement over existing night vision technology. It was almost 10 years ago that I had the chance to look through night vision goggles .... and I was impressed then .... I can only imagine now.