TL;DR
Every screen people use sits somewhere: a desk, a pocket, a headset. The next one could sit directly on the eye. A startup called XPANCEO has built a contact lens with a tiny display inside and has now partnered with an established lens-materials company to make it comfortable to wear and possible to manufacture. It is still a prototype, with no published figures for brightness, sharpness or battery life. But if it works, digital images laid over the real world would no longer need glasses at all, and the long march of computers moving closer to the body would reach the surface of the eye.
Below the line, for paid subscribers: The full story: where it stands, how we got here and what's dated next; our Odds board on 5 milestones, starting with "XPANCEO shows its new medical and industrial prototype by 2026"; our labeled speculation on what it adds up to; and every source.