Mother. Flipping. Smart. Contact lenses. Every time I see a patent for these, I get slightly less freaked outby the idea of putting electronics in my eye, and slightly more excited for my soon-to-be laser vision. The latest company to join in the hypothetical race for a technology that barely exists is Sony, with the Japanese tech company applying for its own smart contacts patent.

The patent, which doesn't appear to have been approved yet, describes a "contact lens and storage medium" capable of controlling an "image pickup unit" (aka a camera). The patent describes a lens that can take images when it detects the "conscious" blink of an eye, storing them locally, or sending them to an external device. A "tilt sensor" is used to activate a display, which shows additional controls. The lens could even include autofocus, aperture control, and image stabilization to correct the "blur caused by motion of the eyeball." That's pretty ambitious for something you've got to wear in your eye.

Samsung's own smart contact lens patent is pretty similar to this, and researchers have been working on these ideas for a while. However, this sort of tech is still in the very early stage: the 'screens' that have been put in contact lenses are tiny, and the electronics are limited to simple circuits, like Google's glucose-detecting prototype.