Samsung eyes smart contact lens for sharper augmented reality
Samsung Electronics has reportedly filed a patent application for a smart contact lens, designed to project images directly into the eye of the wearer.
Filed in South Korea and uncovered by fan blogs Sammobile and Galaxy Club, the innovation plans show a lens equipped with a small display, a camera, an antenna and sensors that detect a blinking movement. Users would need to use a smartphone – presumably one made by the tech brand – to process the images.
By developing a smart contact lens, rather than a pair of specs such as the ill-fated Google Glass, Samsung hopes to improve the image quality of line-of-vision augmented reality.
Samsung is not the first to experiment in this market: Novartis and Google famously set their sights on the development of a smart contact lens back in 2014. Their joint prototype has been created to monitor glucose levels in the tears of diabetes patients.