A patent milestone was reached on August 16th when U.S. Patent 8,000,000 was issued for a “Visual Prosthesis”. As fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation know, such a device, called a VISOR, was worn by the character of Geordi La Forge to enable him to see. The real inventors don’t claim 20/20 vision, but it “enhances visual perception for people who have gone blind due to outer retinal degeneration.” My father could have used one.
Many other inventions were foretold by other episodes of Star Trek, including the communicator (today’s mobile phone), the hypo-spray (called the “SonoPrep”), and the PADD (you can figure out what that is).