Slashdot Mirror


Google Files Patent For Injecting A Device Directly Into Your Eyeball (gizmodo.com)

An anonymous reader writes: It's no secret Google and their parent company Alphabet are interested in developing smart contact lenses for monitoring diabetes. Well, Google-parent Alphabet has filed a patent which takes their development to another level. The patent specifically covers a method for "injecting a fluid into a lens capsule of an eye, wherein a natural lens of the eye has been removed from the lens capsule." It's powered by "radio frequency energy" received by a small antenna inside. The gadget even has its own data storage. Forbes reports, it is designed to help the focusing of light onto the retina, resulting in the correction of poor vision. Samsung is one of the most recent companies to receive a patent for smart contact lenses. Their lenses are for experimenting with new methods of delivering augmented reality interfaces and data.

51 comments

  1. this makes total sense... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    let's 'inject' contact lenses into people's eyes.. contacts are bad for eye health to begin with... who have a disease which among its many complications is blindness.

    while they're at it, are they going to fabricate a 'vaccine' for high blood pressure that is made entirely of beef lard and salt?

    1. Re:this makes total sense... by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 2

      It's only one step up from current lens replacement in cases of cataracts, which involves sucking out the old lens and inserting a folded lens.

      Of course, with this new device, here's hoping nobody hacks your software. And if it's going to be powered by radio waves, you're either going to have to wear some sort of glasses to hide the battery and antenna, or look like a Borg.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    2. Re: this makes total sense... by slazzy · · Score: 1

      It will all be worth it when they can inject advertising right into our eyeballs.

      --
      Website Just Down For Me? Find out
    3. Re: this makes total sense... by MobSwatter · · Score: 1

      Google: "We are Borg, you will be assimilated, resistance is futile"

  2. I can't wait by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The trademark battle over "eyePhone" should be fun to watch!

    1. Re:I can't wait by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1
  3. Brings a whole new meaning to the word blackout? by misnohmer · · Score: 0

    In case of any prolonged electrical blackout, google-eye batteries will get used up and then what, they can't see anything clearly until power is back on?

  4. Injecting A Device Directly Into Your Eyeball... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    *ahem* Not MY eyeball thank-you-very-much!!!

  5. i wonder if by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I wonder if it could correct my oculomotor nerve palsy,

    1. Re:i wonder if by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      Very doubtful - this is a lens replacement.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  6. just because you can doesn't mean you should by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yep. This is it. Whether you want it or not, ladies and gentlemen...resistance is futile.

  7. Should not be seen together by YrWrstNtmr · · Score: 1

    "Google"
    "patent"
    "radio frequency energy"
    "injecting a fluid into a lens capsule of an eye"
    "My eyeball"

    No thank you very much.

  8. Re:I'm not worried about this development, actuall by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It can't be that far off. Think about a smart fluid which could be made much more viscous by a radio signal. That would probably be the active component of the best erectile dysfunction and perhaps even whole penis prosthetic device ever created.

  9. Re:I'm not worried about this development, actuall by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    or VR porn...

  10. "The gadget even has its own data storage" by Hans+Lehmann · · Score: 1

    Will it also come with DRM? If you miss a monthly maintenance fee payment will it automatically disable your vision?

    --
    09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
    1. Re: "The gadget even has its own data storage" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe it will just start showing ads until you pay up.

  11. Prior Art from Futurama... by ffkom · · Score: 1
  12. Fantastic Voyage Here We Come! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But no way we ever wanted the boobs smaller. Not Raquel's. Perfect mother jugs... and speed.

  13. I don't care... by AchilleTalon · · Score: 1

    I don't care it's not even my head! https://science.slashdot.org/s...

    --
    Achille Talon
    Hop!
  14. Smart Contact Lens by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I am literally barfing over the idea of a "smart" contact lens.
    The only interest in these companies is to capture what you see and control what you do.
    Shove these smart gadgets up your ass, Samsung/Google.

    1. Re: Smart Contact Lens by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Shove them up the ass? Dude don't give them any more ideas!

    2. Re: Smart Contact Lens by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      That would be the Apple iButt.

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
  15. I'm excited and scared by JustNiz · · Score: 1

    It sounds like a potentially amazingly cool idea but I'm scared that being done by Google automatically means that it would also be scraping every bit of your life for data and feeding you ads all in a very non-opt-out kinda way.

    1. Re:I'm excited and scared by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We already have ad companies detecting if you're actually looking at ads (i.e. pause scrolling on your facebook feed when the ad is visible). Your interests will now be determined on what you look at off screen.

    2. Re:I'm excited and scared by shawn2772 · · Score: 1

      It sounds like a potentially amazingly cool idea but I'm scared that being done by Google automatically means that it would also be scraping every bit of your life for data and feeding you ads all in a very non-opt-out kinda way.

      You fundamentally misunderstand Google as a company. Google isn't an advertising company, it's a technology company that has many products which happen to be most effectively monetized by advertising. Not all of Google's products are monetized by advertising, and Google neither advertises on nor collects user data from those that aren't monetized that way. In fact, Google is increasingly focused on moving away from the advertising-supported model, by focusing product development on products which can be licensed/sold directly.

      You can look at it this way: if you're using a Google service which is free to you, it's very likely that from a revenue perspective you're the product, not the customer (though the teams developing the products don't really think of it that way), which means that Google is interested in delivering targeted ads to your eyeballs. On the other hand, if you're using a Google product/service that you pay money for, then you're the customer, and Google is interested in ensuring that you think highly enough of the stuff you bought to want to buy more and/or encourage your friends to buy.

  16. Google vs. MomCorp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The battle will be Google vs. MomCorp.

  17. Prior Art: Every Single ICL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Google's vision correction with digital processing and storage is a bad solution to the problem of vision correction.

  18. contact lens surgery is done by MDs, not geeks by swschrad · · Score: 1

    and I prefer to leave it that way. as a ham, I am likely to eff up my eyes when I key the rig. no, not ever, never, ain't coming near here.

    --
    if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
    1. Re:contact lens surgery is done by MDs, not geeks by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      as a ham, I am likely to eff up my eyes when I key the rig. no, not ever, never, ain't coming near here.

      Unlikely. You would have to be transmitting with more power than the lens can handle at exactly the right frequency. With QI chargers, this frequency is such that it cannot travel very far, in the case of a lens, who knows what frequency they would use.

      Do you worry about your computer exploding because you transmit on the wifi frequencies?

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
  19. new revenue stream .. by tibbar · · Score: 1

    ya that is ads delivered directly to the eye ball
        -- won't start that way
            hijacking your focal distance at active ad length --

      but eventually direct to the eye ..

  20. Patenting Sci-Fi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Because that's what this essentially is. Maybe I should patent 'brain implants' or 'warp drives'. Just because I haven't actually demonstrated a working device shouldn't be an obstacle, right?

  21. Re:I'm not worried about this development, actuall by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

    "Think about a smart fluid which could be made much more viscous by a radio signal. "

    But make sure that you get back all copies of the penile remote in your divorce settlement. In the middle of a hot date, you wouldn't want your ex pressing the 'deflate' button.

  22. It's not shocking, and I'll tell you what it does by steveha · · Score: 4, Insightful

    TFA expressed shock that someone might have their natural lens removed. This is a routine operation, usually done because of cataracts.

    My wife has had this done. She developed cataracts at a relatively young age, and they got bad enough that the insurance company signed off on the cataract surgery.

    Noteworthy in my wife's case: we paid the extra money to get a vision-correcting lens in each eye. The usual replacement lens is a neutral lens, but her eyes are now correcting her vision from the inside. Before she had this procedure, she needed glasses all the time for everything. (Or contact lenses of course.) After the procedure, she only needs glasses for reading; they had to pick a distance for the correction to work at, and the default is to leave you able to walk around and drive and such without glasses, but need glasses to read. (Makes sense to me!)

    She now has the best vision she has ever had in her life. She grumbles about needing reading glasses but I remind her she used to need glasses all the time for everything; this is a win.

    I am seriously considering having this done myself as an elective procedure. I have some presbyopia and I now need glasses to read fine print. There are artificial lenses available that are flexible and restore the ability to focus on near things; these are called accommodating intra-ocular lenses (IOLs). It would be nice to get my close-up vision back. In the USA the available accommodating IOL is called the Crystalens.

    I have been calling my wife a "cyborg" as she now has technological lenses rather than natural ones.

    Returning to the news story: TFA is absolutely terrible, just awful. It fails to answer the most basic question: what is the purpose of this invention? The link given in TFS shows what seems to be a one-page PDF, but if you use the crude-looking navigation controls on the left you can browse forward and backward through the patent.

    http://pdfaiw.uspto.gov/.aiw?docid=20160113760

    Pub. No.: US 2016/0113760 A1
    Pub. Date: Apr. 28, 2016
    Filed: Oct. 24, 2014

    Here's the abstract. The PDF appears to be all image, no selectable text, so I just typed all this in.

    An intra-ocular device includes an electronic lens that can be controlled to control the overall optical power of the device. The device can be installed within a flexible polymeric material shaped to conform to the inside surface of a lens capsule of an eye. Accommodation forces applied to the device and/or polymeric material via the lens capsule can cause a change in the optical power of the device and/or polymeric material. Further, such accommodation forces can be detected by an accommodation sensor of the device and the optical power of the electronic lens can be controlled based on the detected accommodation forces. Operated in this way, the device and polymeric material can restore a degree of accommodation to the eye that is related to existing mechanisms for controlling such accommodation, i.e., forces exerted by the eye via the lens capsule.

    If I'm understanding that correctly, this is a very complicated way to get a lens that adjusts its focus in response to the normal movements of muscles in the eye to adjust focus.

    I don't know why someone would want this rather than a purely passive device like a CrystalLens. I guess this would be more fine-tunable, so might provide the ultimate in vision focus; but it's tremendously more complex and would seem to require an external power supply, rather than being a simple piece of flexible clear material (of just the right shape and implanted in just the right place).

    Speculation: this m

    --
    lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
  23. Hmmm by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    Googlework Orange

  24. This appears to be a RF-powered accommodative IOL by OphthoMag · · Score: 1

    So what Google has here (and the summaries aren't great on Gizmodo or Forbes) is an IOL - an intraocular lens - like you get when you have cataract surgery. Unlike your natural, old lens, it can't change shape to "accommodate" -- as it's a piece of silicone or PMMA. Very new lens designs can approximate this, but they rely on the bits of the anatomy left over to do this. A powered might help; RF power is one way of achieving that. Just like regular ol' IOLs, Google's patent one, if it ever reached the market, would have to be "injected" into the eye.

  25. Prior Art? by darthsilun · · Score: 1

    if the USPTO grants this, that's gotta be the end of the US patent system.

    The Six Million Dollar Man TV show had a bionic eye – in 1973 for fsck sake.

  26. *My* eyeball? by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

    Google Files Patent For Injecting A Device Directly Into Your Eyeball

    What, named me personally, did they?

    Please stop letting through headlines with "you" and "your" in them without a second glance. It's a clickbait tactic, regardless of the merit of the story.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  27. Better have damn good LTS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... I wouldn't trust any Google product to be in my body, with their record of project support. Remember Nest?

    Future headline: "Alphabet drops smart lens support, millions left with bricked eyeballs"

  28. What it really should read by kheldan · · Score: 1

    Google and Samsung file for patents for injecting targeted ads directly into your eyeballs, so you can't ignore them even if you close your eyes

    And you thought pop-up ads in your web browser were bad.

    --
    Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
    1. Re:What it really should read by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When they pass the anti-obscenity laws in Utah this device will make you see all the porn with dressed up people only :)

    2. Re:What it really should read by kheldan · · Score: 1

      anti-obscenity laws in Utah

      That's hilarious. Mormons are some of the biggest hypocrites I've ever seen, and Utah tried to secede from the United States some years ago.

      --
      Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
  29. Too late. Already happened by Sla$hPot · · Score: 0
  30. One small step closer... by CCarrot · · Score: 1

    ...to LASER EYES!!

    --
    "I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
  31. Dear Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    90% of your revenue comes from advertising and you want to inject what into my eyeball?

  32. Why does the implant require it's own storage? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What kinda information is intended to be stored?

  33. Futurama Did It by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The Google eyePhone. It's coming.

  34. Great idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Leave it to Google to find a way to track someone with technology they can't possibly remove themselves. I'm sure their eye implant has GPS technology to give you relevant information and track every single move you make.

    Don't get me wrong. I love technology. I just hate to see evil people twist that technology to use it for power and control.

  35. Eye Phone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wait... why do they call this thing an "Eye Phone"?

    *thunk*

    Yeeeeeeeaaaaaaaoooooooowwwwww!

    Oh, now I get it.

  36. Re:It's not shocking, and I'll tell you what it do by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just remember to order any UV filtering option if you don't wish to shift your color perception towards the insect world. :) Adaptable lens is useful in the case of vision changes caused by increasingly inactive eye muscles, for example.

  37. Horror Movie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wasn't this a scene in a horror movie? Or a Scorpions album cover? Why then does Google think this is a patent-worthy idea?