Remember Google Glass ? The doofusy headset that enabled super - nerds to snap photos plainly by blinking their eyes ? It wasone of Google ’s many unmitigated failure , and not just because it look so stunned on anyone who dared jade it in public . Rather , Google Glasscaused a widespread freak - outbecause it was disturbingly easy for wearers to sneakily capture photos and video recording of citizenry around them , without their knowledge or permit . Facing an onslaught of criticism over privacy concern , Google halted production less than a yr after Glass hit the mart .
The liberal G said it was n’t giving up on Glass and forebode a complete redesign , and we have n’t heard much since . Now it looks like it ’s place its slew on a much smaller , invisible wearable : a contact lens . And while this tiny piece of visual technical school will certainly solve the embarrassingglassholeproblem , the creepiness broker looms larger than ever .
Google’s research began innocently enough…
Google ’s first patent app for a contact lens lense was okay way back in 2014 , when it was still in the oculus ( ! ) of a public relations shit - tempest over Google Glass . The headsets were being banned by eatery , bars , theater , and sports events , and Google was preparing to take them off the market altogether . Unveiling an even weird wearable at such a bit seemed like a monolithic Porto Rico miscalculation – until you realized what the lens was actually designed for .
On its blog , Google excitedly outline that the mystifying contact lens was not some newfangled eyeball camera , but rather adevice aspire at help people with diabetes , capable of constantly monitor blood clams levels via the glucose in tears . The announcement successfully shift tending away from the Glass disaster to a unexampled task , one that would put an end to painful finger - pricking for millions of people .
Since then Google has partner with thepharmaceutical behemoth Novartisto get things moving , and has also begun developing yet another type of lens to restore the eye ’s natural autofocus for affected role with historic period - relate long - eyesight . Neither gimmick has hit the mart yet , but the latter will reportedlyenter human - testing trials this year , and Google ’s even patent the packaging for it .
Shutterstock/Sergey Ryzhov
… But of course it didn’t stop there
It would ’ve been silly to usurp Google would pass up the chance to further uprise the engineering to call on our eyes into photographic camera . The company made headline again this month with anewpatent software for an " intra - ocular equipment"– a diminutive gizmo ( project above ) that would be surgically implanted into your eye . grant to the document , it would not only be adequate to of adjust poor sight over time as your eyes maturate , but would have some other especial functions baked in , too – the ability to connect to other wireless devices , charge via transmitted radio energy , and snap and store photos . Hmmm … fathom intimate ?
Will shrinking the camera down to the size of it of a physical contact lens work all the problem that plagued Google Glass ? Aesthetically , trusted – but as unsightly as the headsets were , you could at leasttellif someone was wearing one . There ’s nothing more unnerving than being on the other side of a alien ’s camera , but you could n’t hide a machine as obvious as Google Glass in , say , a footlocker elbow room or pic theater . But when that equipment is surgically implanted onto an orb , detecting whether someone is fag out one – or if it ’s actively recording images at any given moment – becomes importantly more problematic .
Now Google has competition in the contact-lens race
If you ’re relate , it gets unfit : Google is far from alone in this quest to get along opthalmic engineering . Both Samsung and Sony are develop their own link lens - based concept . fit in to a late revealedSamsung patent program from 2014 , the South Korean pudding stone may be hard at work on a lens system that would reserve you to take photo by blinking . It would connect to your smartphone and labor picture onto your eye via a pocket-sized display – put two and two together , and it ’s not softheaded to imagine a future where we ’ll be receiving textbook and notifications on our orb .
likewise , just last calendar month , detail ofSony ’s physical contact - lens of the eye project(pictured above ) were uncovered , and it seems to be the most ambitious and advanced of the gang . The twist allows you to view image and video with the blink of an eye , and to record TV of what you ’re seeing . Not only that , it will contain aperture control , zoom , stabilization , and focalize control . If this affair amount to come about , it ’ll make your iPhone photographic camera seem like a dinosaur .
Creepiness aside, the technology is incredibly exciting
Despite the privacy implications of all this , there ’s no deny that having a camera on your eyeball would be nerveless as hell . Capturing anything and everything you ’re seeing entail no more " picture or it did n’t happen " moments , or toting around a clunky camera on vacation . And as Jody Medich of Singularity University told us , tech - equip physical contact lenses are the future tense of practical reality . They ’ll not only permit us to follow what star quarterbacks and star musicians are witness in real time as they act and perform , but will also be decisive factor for augmented - reality organisation .
Just expect atMagic Leap . Never listen of it ? It ’s an under - the - radar , Google - backed " mixed reality " startup that ’s developing some trulymind - bending virtual- and augmented - realness tech . It just filed a whole bunch of fresh patent practical app , admit a VR headset that would incorporate a inter-group communication lens ( pictured above ) . The company is mamma on inside information , but Recode predicts it will help automatically calibrate your centre ’s direction in bicycle-built-for-two with a magnanimous headset so thatvirtual " object " look as literal to you as physical ones .
While Google may be ahead of the gang , there ’s no telling which company will really be the first to deliver a camera - packed contact genus Lens to the public . And the more authoritative question is this : which one will be the first to convince us that it wo n’t turn us into a civilization of super - creeps?Sign up herefor our daily Thrillist email , and get your fix of the good in food / drink / play .
US Patent & Trademark Office
US Patent & Trademark Office
US Patent & Trademark Office
