Are Soldiers Testing Night Vision Contact Lenses?

This is a cool thing to me. If you watch any movies with a military theme or any of the discovery type programming centering on military themes you have, seen night vision goggles before. The things clip on to the helmet of the solider and they flip them up or down to control when they need to see in the dark and when normal vision will do. The goggles look to be very bulky and uncomfortable and cut down on peripheral vision too.

The biggest military raid in recent memory was the one that resulted in the death of Bin Laden. A rumor has been circulating this month that the special ops soldiers in that raid may have had night vision that didn't use those bulky goggles. According to this rumor, the soldiers may have been using night vision contacts. The military has certainly not confirmed the existence of these contacts and there seems to be a few issues with the concept to me.

The big issue is if you have contacts in your eyes providing night vision and someone turns on the lights, what would soldiers do? With goggles, they can flip them up to get normal vision back; you can't exactly stop to take out contacts. The upside is that the contacts would allow the solider to have normal peripheral vision. The graphic here claims a magnetic gel applied above the eyelid using magnetic induction would power the lenses.

[via Kit Up]