In the blink of an eye

In the coming years, it may become hard to tell if someone is winking at you or taking your photo, with plans by the Sony Corporation for a photo-capturing contact lens.

The Japan-based company filed a patent on its early-stage design with the United States Patent and Trademark Office this month.

The image-capture system will be activated by the conscious blink of an eyelid – but its sensors will be able to tell these apart from the unconscious natural blinks of the user.

Sony envisions its contact lens-embedded camera will have an aperture stop, zoom lens and focus lens.

The contact lens, to be worn in one eye, will be wirelessly connected to a main unit such as a smartphone or tablet that controls the system and stores the images, the patent explained. The contact lens will also have a display feature, that allows users to view the photos they have taken.

The patent noted that: “The system [will] simulate the appearance of a user wearing a colour contact lens.”

Like other blue-sky research and development projects for the eye – such as Google’s intraocular lens for presbyopes – Sony’s design is not yet at the prototype stage.