Everybody’s been talking about Google Glass, especially since they announced that people will be able to get their hands on the futuristic new product as Google opens up shop for one day only (sorry, you already missed it). But while people were getting themselves into a frenzy over that, Google revealed that they have a patent pending for a tiny micro-camera that could be integrated into a product already being tested by the tech giant – smart contact lenses.
When news of these contacts first broke months ago, they were being tested as an aid to people with diabetes as a device which could measure the glucose levels in your tears. They would then light up to indicate levels outside of a healthy range. With the new patent, it appears that an ultra-tiny camera could be embedded into the same kind of contact lenses which can sense certain objects and colors, as well as movement and human faces.
In even better news, these contacts could be used by the visually impaired to detect obstacles and dangerous situations, like approaching busy intersections. The lenses would then send a signal to a device like a smartphone that would make a warning sound, allowing the individual with the lenses to wait until it was safe to cross.
As this camera is only a patent and the lenses themselves are still in the testing phase, nobody knows for sure if any of this will come to pass or when. But since there has been all kinds of speculation about what Google Glass will mean for marketing, let’s go ahead and start the speculation about the future of Google Eyeball Camera (not an actual product name).
Forget Live-Tweeting. Live-Blinking is In.
Social media moguls and news outlets alike love to live-blog or live-tweet events, but it’s always been mostly with text. Now, we marketers can go to a conference or tech expo and live-blink the entire thing, sending pictures to our Twitter or Google+ feeds automatically every time we see something interesting.
Fit and Active Marketing Teams
Sitting in an office chair and tweeting the latest news is no longer going to cut it. The real marketing go-getters will be out and about, taking pictures of everything with their blink cameras. Text content is out! Only photos! Rapid-blinking to create photo reels that can be used to create weird choppy videos!
The Death of Blink Photo Marketing
You thought content overcrowding was bad? Every marketer will get the contact lens camera, and there will be floods of dull and repetitive photo blogs, causing marketers everywhere to take up the cry of “Blink Photo Marketing is dead!” Text content and infographics will make a comeback.
Google Invents Contact Lens Video Camera
We’re all constantly filming everything we do. Apps are made to allow us to tap into our friends’ lens feed. Any meaning to the word “privacy” is lost. Dystopian novelists don’t know what to write about anymore.
Of course, that’s just speculation.
It seems likely that contact lenses with cameras in them will become a reality in the future – but when and how businesses will use them and if they’ll even be at all practical is a mystery. All we know is that Google will soon rule the world. All Hail Google.