Samsung Applies for “Smart Contact Lens” Patent

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Here’s another one for the “brave new world” files.

The Guardian reports:

Samsung is exploring the development of a contact lens that can project images directly into the users’ eye, take photographs and connect wirelessly to a smartphone, a patent application has revealed.

The South Korean copyright authority has published a 29-page application made by the consumer electronics firm two years ago, reported the technology blog Sammobile, offering a rare insight into a science fiction vision of a future technology that could be closer than we think. 

The lens could overlay internet-connected services directly into the user’s line of sight, in an example of what is known as augmented reality. It could also discreetly – even covertly – take photographs. The device would be controlled by eye movements or blinking, according to the patent, and it would connect with a smartphone.

Of course, Liberty Blitzkrieg readers will recall that Samsung came under serious heat last year when it was revealed that its “smart tv” might be spying on you.

From the post, A Very Slippery Slope – Yes, Your Samsung Smart TV Can Listen to Your Private Conversations:

Samsung’s privacy policy notes that in addition to voice commands being transmitted, information about your device, “including device identifiers,” may also be beamed over the Internet to the third-party service, “or to the extent necessary to provide Voice Recognition features to you.”

Judging by the privacy policy, it seems Samsung is collecting voice commands mostly to improve the TV’s performance. “It looks like they are using a third-party service to convert speech to text, so that’s most of what is being disclosed here,” said Corynne McSherry, the intellectual property director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

But, said McSherry, “If I were the customer, I might like to know who that third party was, and I’d definitely like to know whether my words were being transmitted in a secure form.” If the transmission is not encrypted, a SmartHacker could conceivably turn your TV into an eavesdropping device.

In Liberty,
Michael Krieger

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