Researchers from Paragon Vision Sciences, Innovega, Pacific Sciences and Engineering,  EPFL and the University of California, San Diego and Rockwell Collins have developed a novel method to electronically switch the wearer's view between normal vision and telescopic - a wink.

That kind of switching functionality is crucial for the lenses to be widely useful for non-AMD sufferers who would still like to be able to have magnification "on demand", like if they want to read something.

The obvious problem is that we 'wink' every second, but they are instead blinks.

Problem solved, in a new prototype system. The electronic glasses use a small light source and light detector to recognize winks and ignore blinks.

The wearer will wink their right eye for magnification, and then use the left eye to return to normal vision.  Cultural bonus: If your flirting attempt fails, you can blame your futuristic contact lenses.

The glasses work by electronically selecting a polarization of light to reach the contact lens. The contact lens allows one type of polarization in the 1x aperture and another in the 2.8x aperture. Thus, the user sees the view where the polarization of the glasses and contact lens aperture match.In a video of a lab demo shown during a scientific symposium at AAAS, you can see the optical view switch from magnified to unmagnified, and a second video shows the functionality of the wink-controlled glasses.

There are glasses already on the market for people with AMD that have mounted telescopes, but they tend to look bulky and interfere with social interaction. They also do not track eye movement, so you have to position your eyes and tilt your head to use them.

The combination of the telescopic contact lenses and optional blink-controlled eyewear represent a huge leap in functionality and usability in vision aid devices and a major feat for optics research, the presenters believe.