With Google and
Samsung having already filed patents for contact lenses with tiny, built-in
cameras, these things seem inevitable, and they have the potential to change
everything about the way we interact with each other. That means in the future
we could all be playing back recordings of old conversations to our friends and
family to win an argument, or, you know, watching a 'greatest hits' compilation
while having sex with our significant other. Potential misuses aside, the
technology behind these new 'smart eyes' is actually incredibly cool. The
patent describes contact lenses that can 'sense' when you're making a
deliberate blink rather than a natural one, and respond by turning the
recording on or off. 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, the patent application asserts.
The contact
lenses have an internal storage mechanism. When you record videos using
Samsung's hypothetical contact lenses, the footage is sent directly to an
external storage device, such as your smartphone. But Sony's patent describes a
technology that allows you to store everything right there in the lenses for
fast and easy access to your videos. As Tech Story reports, the lenses would be
fitted with miniscule piezoelectric sensors, which can measure changes in
pressure, acceleration, temperature, or force by converting them to an
electrical charge. These sensors would read the eye movements of the user, and
turn the recording on. To get enough power to sustain the recording, the lenses
would use a simple process known as electromagnetic induction, where a
conductor is forced through a magnetic field to induce a modest electrical
current. Not only that, but it can also adjust for the tilt of the wearer's
eye, and apply autofocus when things get blurry.
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