If you recall, smart contact lenses is not a new concept. According to the patent, these smart contact lenses also feature a camera and motion detection sensors, along with an antenna and small display. The lens projects images directly into the wearer’s eye.
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So far, we only know of Samsung and Google working on the idea of smart contact lenses.
According to the report by SamMobile, the company’s primary reason for the development of smart contact lenses was the limited image quality that could be achieved with smart glasses.
However, as SamMobile notes, if and when Samsung’s lenses to come to market there will be questions around what the hidden cameras mean for privacy. That’s the same year that Google announced plans to develop two types of smart contact lenses in partnership with Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis.
News of Samsung’s patent comes less than five months after the company unveiled Gear VR, a mobile virtual reality headset in collaboration with Oculus, which is owned by Facebook. However, one example explained how blinking your eye would instruct the camera in the lens to take pictures.
Interestingly enough, Samsung was found to have also filed a patent for smart lenses in 2014, only it did so in in South Korea.
Like an episode of Black Mirror where everyone gains access to a memory implant that records everything they do, see, and hear, the future of wearing smart lenses may be closer than we think, and Samsung’s got the patent for it. Lenses can provide a more natural way to provide augmented reality than smart glasses.
It is not clear whether patent sought in the application, which was written in Korean and made in September 2014, has been granted, or whether Samsung has begun incorporating the technology into a product.
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While the technology is intended for use in different fields, being granted a patent doesn’t necessarily mean that it would surely convert into a consumer-ready product.
