Sony has filed a patent for contact lenses that hold a camera . With a blink of an eye, wearers will be able to record the world around them, store the video, and play it back at a later date. Based on how the user moves their eye will determine what action the contact lens will do. Other functions include taking pictures, autofocus, correct blurry images, zoom, and controlling aperture.
Besides a camera, the contact lenses will also contain a wireless processing and storage unit. An excerpt from the patent application is found below.
“It is known that a time period of usual blinking is usually 0.2 seconds to 0.4 seconds, and therefore it can be said that, in the case where the time period of blinking exceeds 0.5 seconds, the blinking is conscious blinking.”
On Twitter, people reacted to the contact lens technology that Sony is attempting to produce.
Sony are working on contact lenses that can record and playback video, that’s insane
— Saghaf Molana (@NinjaNultrix) April 28, 2016
#Sony to release contact lenses able to record video. Very concerning IMHO – What about recording without consent? https://t.co/VvizhluhtN
— -Anya. (@libovskii) April 28, 2016
Sony might be developing video-recording contact lenses https://t.co/nDP8XIjlDF pic.twitter.com/QHlm6C5oz4
— HuffPost Tech (@HuffPostTech) April 28, 2016
Why the hell would you make contact lenses that can record video @Sony
Y’all trying to ruin people’s lives or what?!?!
— Michael Trump (@MichaelRLJ) April 28, 2016
Why the hell would you make contact lenses that can record video @Sony
Y’all trying to ruin people’s lives or what?!?!
— Michael Trump (@MichaelRLJ) April 28, 2016
Sony is making contact lenses that can record and play back videos…. what a freakin time to be alive
— able (@abroecker) April 27, 2016
Using the contact lenses will take some getting used to. Turning the lenses on or off will be accomplished by purposely closing your eyes for a certain period of time. While in record mode, the contact lenses will recognize a blink and create a black frame in the video that can be removed later. This would allow the video to be played without the noticeable blinking.
In order to play video stored on the contact lenses, another specified movement of the eyes or eyelids will need to be done to tell the lenses that video needs to play. The patent application goes on to explain about the eye and eyelid movements.
“For example, the operation input is such that the user presses an end of the eyelid two times in a state in which the eyelid is closed.”
Sony’s contact lenses patent was filed in February 2014. The patent is yet to be reviewed by patent officials.
Sony is not the only company trying to computerize contact lenses. Google also filed a patent in 2014 for contact lenses except their patent would require the contact lenses to be injected directly into the eye of the user. Google has also been conducting tests on contact lenses that would aid and improve the health of the wearer. Their main focus is contact lenses that would be able to determine if a person’s blood sugar is starting to get low.
The development of wearable technology is starting to increase. Google attempted to create the first type of wearable technology by creating glasses that could do everything that Sony’s contact lenses can do. The glasses did not become a hit with the public. One of the main reasons that product was not successful was due to how it looked. With contact lenses, people could wear them and not advertise to other people that they wearing the new technology.
How do you think Sony’s contact lenses will change the world? Will new laws need to be created in order to protect privacy?
[Image Via Shutterstock/abd]
