Google announces its smart contact lens project

[buster]

Image: USPTO

If you are the kind of person who gets uncomfortable at the thought of somebody recording you on Google Glass, the search company's latest patent application will probably make you feel even more uneasy.
In January Google announced its smart contact lens project and now has filed a patent application for a micro camera module to go inside the smart lenses. The application describes how the lenses could use two or more cameras to help people with vision deficiencies cross a street safely by analyzing image data of oncoming obstacles. The data could also be used to send an audio alert to a smartphone to indicate when it's safe to cross.
While the potential medical applications of the patent are certainly very welcome, there is no doubt the ability to take pictures of an object or person simply by looking at them will raise privacy concerns if the concept ever turned into a consumer product. However, for now there is no way of knowing if or when this will happen. For more information you can look at the original patent application on the USPTO website.