Samsung Patents Smart Contact Lenses With Built-In Camera

by Lina Bryce

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.

According to the Samsung-focused blog SamMobile, Samsung has been granted a patent in South Korea for contact lenses with displays that project images directly into wearers’ eyes. Equipped with a tiny display, a camera, an antenna, and several sensors that detect movement and the most basic form of input: blinking. While the display projects images directly into the eye of the person wearing the contacts, an external device like a smartphone is needed for processing.

With the new age of modern technology, the sky is the limit and with these cameras being virtually undetectable, it will certainly raise some privacy concerns for those of us of the libertarian variety.

Noted in the blog, Google was also working on smart contact lenses, but Samsung’s patent was filed in 2014. However, the patent reveals that Samsung has been working on the concepts and not necessarily the actual product which they trademarked as Gear Blink, which was filed in both South Korea and the U.S.

Perhaps we are still far from memory implant devices as sophisticated as those depicted in the sci-fi series, but one can only imagine what is just on the horizon.

Watch: A Preview of Black Mirror’s “Entire History of You” Episode