Sony has applied for a patent covering camera contact lens technology, putting itself in the race to produce commercial smart lenses alongside Google and Samsung.
The present disclosure was filed April 7th but appears to have been in the works since May 2013, when the foreign application data was first submitted. The application goes in to significant detail about the lenses compared to Samsung or Google‘s patents, giving the appearance that the technology is at a fairly advanced stage of development.
As described in the patent, the technology will allow users to take pictures through deliberate blinks, which will be differentiated from regular blinks through the length of time the eye is closed. By way of example, Sony says a blink over 0.5 seconds would activate the camera, as normal blinks are generally between 0.2 and 0.4 seconds.
The pictures can be taken one at a time or in bursts according to settings users can regulate from an external device. Once taken, they are sent to an external storage device via a built-in transmitter. Also in the patent is mention of a display unit that activates when eyes are closed and uses a head-tilt sensor to scroll through pictures.
The camera itself, the patent states, will have image stabilization, autofocus and zooming, as well as aperture and exposure adjustment.
Perhaps one of the more fascinating aspects of the patent is the section where Sony gives a passing reference to animals wearing the lenses. The mention is in a section regarding display elements placed in matrix on a curved surface corresponding to the curved surface of a human eye. It notes: “In the case where another animal wears the contact lens 1, an eye of the animal.”
Are we approaching the days of high-tech animal spies? One can only hope, but from the in-depth nature of Sony’s patent, it appears it may be available to us humans in the near future.
Related reading: Google granted patent for glucose-tracking smart contact lens
[source]USPTO[/source]
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