Sony applies for patent on contact lens camera that shoots photos in a blink

This is just cool, but also brings a few concerns due to serious potential for abuse.

The company's patent application is for a "contact lens camera" that would allow the wearer to snap photos with a deliberate blink of the eye and store them on a wireless device like a smartphone or tablet.

The contact lens camera would also have enhanced features like zoom and image stabilization, with the ability to differentiate between regular blinking and deliberate blinking for capturing images.

Link

The article is not very long, and doesn't have a lot of information, but this is pretty neat, nevertheless. While, apparently Google has applied for a similar patent in 2014, the Sony patent includes these additional camera features: zoom, IS, aperture, etc.

The image capture and storage technology would all be embedded in the lens around the iris, and piezoelectric sensors would convert the movements of the eye into energy to power the lens.

Link

Of course, this is creepy, as well. Still photography is one thing, but I don't think it would be too hard to implement video capability as well. There would be, essentially, no way of knowing when one is being recorded simply by looking at that person. At least with Google glasses or a phone, you can "see" a person filming, but with a contact lens camera there would be virtually no way to know. Locked in a conversation with someone just feet away, and everything you do and say is recorded. This opens a very interesting problem, and might pave the way for changed surveillance laws, but it might prove entertaining for street interviews, since it will appear to be just an ordinary conversation w/o the conscientiousness of knowing a camera is pointed at you.

Footnote: Beware the cursed auto-playing video on the first link.

a reply to: Liquesence

Smile, you're on candid camera. Even if not, better behave as though your were at all times. Lest they isolate you, analyze you, detect a 'problem', then detain you for behaving 'oddly' , sentence you to pharma copia, to be sucked into THX 1138…

for real

Are spies stil 20 years ahead of the game? That means diplomats have been running around for ages with 'blinkers on'. I wonder how many meetings they had with world power players at a strip clubs...

a reply to: boncho
It should be noted that a patent does not mean that an invention exists.

a reply to: intrptr

Exactly.

I'm suddenly reminded of the film "The Final Cut," which brings a very interesting idea to light: with technology like this, once developed, one could record a large part of one's life in first person perspective.

This still brings serious privacy concerns and ethical questions both while one is living and after one dies...

So we are all worried about this, when people have been wearing button cameras for years, undetected? It's just another step in technology.

a reply to: KnightFire

Not worried, one thing that does concern me though, the OP mentions Google Glasses and Phone's ...... where did the camera go? like a real camera?

On topic, those babes on the beach and the pub would definitely have noticed my 200mm lens pointing at them ...... therefore no photo's were taken,

Tech, pah

Is this going to work for Big Brother when almost everybody keeps looking in mirrors or taking 'selfies' ?

a reply to: Liquesence

The beginnings of the "Borg"... anyone?

damn .. i still get amazed by tech!

originally posted by: Liquesence
a reply to: intrptr

Exactly.

I'm suddenly reminded of the film "The Final Cut," which brings a very interesting idea to light: with technology like this, once developed, one could record a large part of one's life in first person perspective.

This still brings serious privacy concerns and ethical questions both while one is living and after one dies…

Ewww, thanks for the movie suggestion. Haven't seen that one yet. Licks lips.

I have this notion our own minds record everything we think and do… to be downloaded and used against us, on that day.

a reply to: corblimeyguvnor

I'm just saying we have all been under surveillance without knowledge at one point or even everyday of our lives especially, in this day and age.

Street camera are every where, company camera's every where, etc... and some cameras that shouldn't even be mentioned on an open air wave called the internet. Now, I'm not saying the creepy guy on the beach isn't going to be even creeper because he will be, but even if he is sitting with his iphone or a camera, the pictures will unfortunately be taken and there really isn't a crime against it other than the guy being a douche. I saw it multiple times last year when I was at Huntington Beach, Calif.

Well I guess at this point, there really is no right to privacy.