Google just filed a patent for the most insanely futuristic invention
Just when we thought Google’s self-driving cars were all the rage when it comes to super high-tech and otherworldly gadgets, now, your vision can be improved with Google’s new electronic device — which is injected right into your eyeball. Or could be someday. Google filled out the patent application on April 28th.
An electronic device shot into your eye? NBD, right? At least you’ll be able to see better. But it sounds as scary as it sounds cool.
“An intra-ocular device includes an electronic lens that can be controlled to control the overall optical power of the device,” the patent application states. “The device can be installed within a flexible polymeric material shaped to conform to the inside surface of a lens capsule of an eye.”
The lens is injected within a fluid that then solidifies. Though it sounds like it’ll correct bad vision, the device also sounds like a computer of sorts, with sensors, a battery, and a radio transceiver.
And how will the eyeball get its power? Wirelessly, of course, from an “energy harvesting antenna.” Okay, it’s all starting to sound scary again…
Andrew Jason Conrad, Ph.D., invented it, and he also worked on the Google Contact Lens which made news in 2014. (ICYMI, that lens intends to help diabetics by measuring glucose levels in tears. Pretty rad. Science is so fascinating!) Conrad, a cell biologist, is the CEO of Verily, and the company continues to work on the Google Contact Lens.
As for whether or not we’ll “see” Google’s latest electronic eye device surface remains to be seen (no pun intended). But in any case, big ups for science and technology once again.