Tech giant Google has patented a smart contact lens to buttress its Google Glass product. The lenses will contain micro cameras and come with sensors embedded on the surface, all controlled by blinking.
The smart lenses are a melding of both Google Glass and the company’s tear-monitoring contacts, which are aimed at helping diabetics survey their blood glucose levels.
The micro camera installed in a lens will offer users the ability to “superzoom,” allowing the sight-impaired to see more clearly and even notifying a blind user when a busy road may be safe to cross.
The lenses’ sensors will be able to “detect light, colors, pattern of colors, objects, faces, motion, or any other suitable information that can be derived from processing one or more images,” PatentBolt reported.
“As the wearer's gaze shifts, the contact lens will follow the shift in gaze, thereby allowing for generating image data corresponding to an image of the scene in the shifted gaze.”
The lens patent was secured in 2012, according to PatentBolt, but was only revealed this week.
The announcement coincides with Google’s first release of its Glass product on a commercial level. Starting on Tuesday, Google Glass will be available to all customers, though only for a limited time. Thus far, one has had to apply for the right to buy Google Glass for $1,500 as part of the company’s “Glass Explorer Program.”