As far as we can tell, there’s no timeline for real-world trials of either variety of contact lens - but we can tell you that the technology to create such devices is very nearly here. Earlier this year, Google announced that it was working on a smart contact lens for diabetics that provides a real-time glucose level reading from your tears. This invention, from the Google X skunkworks lab, comes in the form of a patent that was filed in 2012 and was recently published by the US PTO. Oh, and the most exciting/deadly application of them all: Soldiers with smart contact lenses that alert them to incoming fire, provide infrared vision that can see through smoke, real-time range finding for more accurate sniping…Ī contact lens display in a rabbit’s eye (way back in 2011) (Read: What is transhumanism, or, what does it mean to be human?)īeyond the medical- and consumer-oriented applications, you can also imagine the possibilities if police were equipped with contact lenses that could spot criminal faces in a crowd, or a bulge under a jacket that could be a concealed weapon. For me, the more exciting possibilities include facial recognition (a la Terminator), and abilities that verge on the super or transhuman, such as being able to digitally zoom in and infrared thermal night vision.

Google suggests that the cameras might warn you if there’s oncoming traffic at a crosswalk - useful for a normal-sighted person, but utterly invaluable for a blind or partially sighted person. Google Glass), where a more powerful computer could perform all sorts of real-time magic. You can’t do much in the way of image processing on the contact lens itself, but you could stream it to a nearby smartphone or head-mounted display (i.e. Because an imaging sensor, by definition, has to absorb light, it wouldn’t be transparent - but it could probably be color matched to your iris, so that your eyes don’t look too freaky.Ī diagram of Google’s smart contact lens with integrated camera As you can probably imagine, there are some rather amazing applications if you have two cameras embedded in your contact lenses. This new smart contact lens would have a tiny CMOS camera sensor just below your pupil, control circuit, and some method of receiving power wirelessly (more on that later). In related news, Google Glass is publicly available today in the US for one day only (still priced at $1500). By virtue of being part of the contact lens, the camera would naturally follow your gaze, allowing for a huge range of awesome applications, from the basis of a bionic eye system for blind and visually impaired people, through to early warning systems (the camera spots a hazard before your brain does), facial recognition, and superhuman powers (telescopic and infrared/night vision). The camera would be very small and sit near the edge of the contact lens so that it doesn’t obscure your vision. Google has invented a new smart contact lens with an integrated camera.

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