Today, everything seems to be acting smart! Well, almost—it started with the smartphone and now even your rice cooker is smart. Well, from televisions to refrigerators and thermostats to air conditioners, everything around the house is getting smarter and has the brains to communicate with you and other devices around it.
In the beginning, smartphones could communicate with wearable such as the watch and the Google Glass. However, the Google Glass is now considered a little too chunky and power hungry. The Glass seeming a little too difficult for consumers to use and obtain (in practical life) since they are power hungry and have little usability for the common man. Hence Google shifted focus of the Glass to corporate and businesses rather than keeping it for the common man.
However, a new report mentions that Google is now shifting from the regular Glass wearable to a more personal, camouflaged and tiny smart wearable—the contact lens. Yes, Google has procured a patent in which will replace the conventional contact lens with a smarter lens. It will have its own power resource to last almost forever. The smart lens is as tiny as the good old contact lens and can fit as usually in the eyeball capsule.
As per the patent filing, the smart device/wearable is designed to replace the natural lens with an electronic lens. The smart lens will feature onboard storage, sensors, radio communication circuitry and even a battery. The lens will be able to communicate with a separate external device for all its computing power.
‘A method comprising: injecting a fluid into a lens capsule of an eye, wherein a natural lens of the eye has been removed from the lens capsule; positioning an intra-ocular device within the fluid in the lens capsule, wherein the intra-ocular device comprises an electronic lens, wherein the electronic lens can be controlled to provide an optical power within a range of optical powers, and wherein the optical power of the electronic lens is controlled in part by an electrical signal applied to the electronic lens; and solidifying the fluid in the lens capsule to form a coupling between the lens capsule and the intra-ocular device, such that accommodation forces can be applied to the intra-ocular device via the lens capsule and coupling,’ reads the patent filing.
The battery will apparently live inside the eyeball and will harvest its energy from another patented technology ‘energy harvesting antenna’. This could probably be a wireless charging method. Google has been focussing on these technologies since more than a year now and had then applied for a similar patent where a regular smart lens could monitor glucose levels.
According to Engadget, even Sony has jumped into the same game and patented a smart contact lens which has a camera built inside it. The camera, according to the patent, will also feature zoom and aperture control.
Are tech companies planning on turning us into cyborgs?
