I’ve been wearing contact lenses since the seventh grade, but aside from it seeming like they’re a little easier to put in and take out than they once were — which may be attributable to my years of experience doing so — I haven’t noticed any major revolutions in the technology. It would seem, however, that there are several just around the corner, and they’re pretty amazing.

Contact lenses that can cure blindness in less than a month
No, we’re not kidding. Australian scientists have pioneered a technique in which test subjects who are blind in one eye are given contact lenses cultured with stem cells from their healthy eye, and in about three weeks, all of the subjects (admittedly a small group — three of them) had regained some or all of their vision. What’s more, they’re still seeing well out of their formerly bad eyes eighteen months later.

Of the three patients, two were legally blind but can now read the big letters on an eye chart, while the third, who could previously read the top few rows of the chart, is now able to pass the vision test for a driver’s license. The research team isn’t getting over excited, still remaining unsure as to whether the correction will remain stable, but the fact that the three test patients have been enjoying restored sight for the last 18 months is definitely encouraging. The simplicity and low cost of the technique also means that it could be carried out in poorer countries.

Here’s a video:

“Bionic” contacts give you your own personal heads-up display
Remember the scene in the first Terminator movie, from Arnold’s point of view, where he scans the surrounding environment with his eye and all sorts of relevant information pops up? Now, with a specialized contact lens from researchers at the University of Washington, you too might one day be able to enjoy “augmented reality” (though not quite yet — patience!)

The minute circuitry could aid the vision-impaired or could be used to create tiny but discernible readouts offering data such as driving directions or on-the-go Web surfing. Researchers at the University of Washington created the flexible, biologically safe lens—the first of its kind—using nano-scale manufacturing techniques.

Until recently, display circuitry couldn’t be made small and light enough to be placed on a contact lens without a noticeable increase in the lens’s weight. “The nice thing about nanotechnology is that we can make all these parts really tiny,” said project leader Babak Parviz, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at the University of Washington.

(Of course, as you know, there’s a darker side to nanotechnology too.) Read more about this emerging technology here.

Contact lenses you only wear at night
You heard right: wear these babies while you’re sleeping, and you won’t need corrective vision devices at all during the day. You may have already heard about this: the technique, called Ortho-Keratology, has been around since ancient China, when people discovered that putting small sandbags on your eyes while sleeping helped people see better when they woke up. It works to gently re-shape the cornea non-surgically, flattening the cornea in order to reduce refractive errors and myopia. In 2005, Bauch & Lomb introduced the “Vision Shaping Treatment” method, a technology which built upon previous lens innovations to predictably treat refractive errors. Why did my eye doctor never tell me about this?!

Hey! I’m on Twitter.