Blink to generate power for smart contact lenses

https://spectrum.ieee.org/power-smart-contact-lenses

by mfiguiere • 2 years ago

55 34 2 years ago

spectrum.ieee.org

eagle2com• 2 years ago

Retailers could glean valuable insights from tracking how a shopper scans shelves and selects items.

What a dystopian prospect. This being the second possible application thought of (as a good thing!) by a team member is quite disturbing. Have people become so desensitized to the omnipresent ads and tracking that they only consider the monetary rewards anymore?

rjsw• 2 years ago

Already being done with glasses [1].

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/05/loose-fr...

smeej4• 2 years ago

This article was a big surprise to me for another reason: I've lived in a variety of regions in the U.S. and loose produce has been the norm my whole life, at least for items that aren't really small (berries usually come in packages). You can buy a sack of 10 oranges or something, but the norm is to select your own oranges one by one.

I'd very much have expected the U.S. to do whatever makes the most profit, so I wonder why there's such a cultural divide.

schwartzworld• 2 years ago

It's giving Ubik

smeej4• 2 years ago

It almost makes me glad that my tear ducts are defective and I can't wear contact lenses. I think I might genuinely be willing to live without whatever advantages people think these will provide if it means avoiding having all my visual attention monitored at all times.

camhart• 2 years ago

Smart lenses able to count blinks could help prevent meibomian gland dysfunction (MGD). Which would be pretty fantastic. Though we'd need to make sure the tech isnt doing more harm than good.

MGD is on the rise, and the current theory is its due to changes in lifestyle (predominantly from stareing at a screen for too long, which reduces blinking, which causes the glands to stop functioning and eventually die permanently).

Also worth noting. If you're having issues with your eyes and you stare at a screen a "normal" amount by todays standards, go to a dry eye dr. You probably have MGD.

Solvency• 2 years ago

It makes me happy I can wear analogue contact lenses so I can avoid wearing heavy hard objects around my face and nose 24/7, constantly dealing with smudges and spots on the glass, removing them to rub my eyes or itch around them, exercising, sweating, etc. Glasses are medieval torture devices set to slow burn.

amelius2• 2 years ago

Indeed. What I want is contact lenses that replace billboards by artwork.

beretguy• 2 years ago

Or contact lenses that just make billboards disappear. Contact lenses ad blocker. I bet even people with perfect vision would want these.

micromacrofoot• 2 years ago

yes, youtubers and the like have made selling out cool

pavel_lishin• 2 years ago

I almost won a hackathon based on something like this, although we were just using cameras to track where a person was standing.

Alas, my teammate managed to commit something like ten thousand jpegs to our git repo, which completely fucked up our ability to work on it. (Please resist the urge to give me advice on what to do to fix this situation, unless you can travel a decade back in time and give it to my younger self.)

fnordpiglet2• 2 years ago

I do have such a machine but I’m using it to collect shoppers future behavior to inform advertisers in the past how to best target them in their future purchasing. Turns out even better than tracking them in the present!

aprilthird2021• 2 years ago

Retailers already do this. I worked at a company piloting (many years ago) cameras that can do eye tracking and provide things like a heatmap of physical shelves.

These are expensive so they're usually installed in a few major stores and the insights are extrapolated to everywhere else.

kleiba2• 2 years ago

Would you think differently if the application does not model the individual user but rather treats them as completely anonymous? Like, the main interest is in stuff like: "a person that ended up buying product X was previous looking at the products on shelf Y for 23.4 seconds on average".

Just curious, I'm not in favor of such applications but I am interested in what privacy aspects are important to people.

I find that privacy is often held as a very high deed when considered on its own right out of any context. But in reality, people are happy to use cash reward cards or pay everything with credit card when they go shopping, or use gmail, or walk around all day with a smart phone in their pocket, etc. (Disclaimer: I do some of these things myself.)

kevinventullo• 2 years ago

The disturbing aspect in my mind isn’t even the privacy per se, it’s that we have this fundamentally novel technology and rather than thinking of ways to truly improve people’s lives, their thought is “Okay but how can this be used to sell more coca-cola and designer belts?”

hammock• 2 years ago

How could it possibly be anonymous? Would you be ok with your ring camera and external Tesla cameras being posted on a webcam streaming site (likely with no direct compensation to you) with filters for demographics, rough geolocation, etc as long as your name was not attached?

helsinkiandrew• 2 years ago

Then when the eye starts to blink, the tear electrolytes meet the magnesium anode, causing an oxidation reaction and the generation of electrons

Having my eye ball as part of the battery chemistry makes me feel a bit squeemish. I would have thought that MEMS vibration harvester would be able to produce more power.

fnordpiglet2• 2 years ago

It doesn’t seem like a MEMS given its mechanical nature would be a reasonable thing to build into a contact lens - a chemical battery can be built into the lens in a way that it’s totally unnoticeable especially if the electrolyte is supplied by the eye. I wouldn’t be the first one to try it on but by the time it reaches me I’m pretty sure it won’t corrode my eye out.

apienx• 2 years ago

Tears contain chloride ions (>100 mEq/L). I'd be worried about chlorine gas generation (a toxic gas that goes after the respiratory system, eyes, and skin). Electrolysis of water starts at potentials as low as 1.23V (the paper reports 2.2-3.3V).

thaumasiotes2• 2 years ago

For the same reason they contain chloride ions, they also contain sodium ions.

Are we worried about the sodium in the tears reacting with the water, and exploding?

If we managed to react the chlorine and get it out of the water, would we be worried about the sodium exploding then?

(I don't know anything relevant. So I know that salt water spontaneously exploding is a non-issue, but I don't know why that is, and I also don't know how plausible it is to worry about catalyzing the release of chlorine gas from salt water. But the questions seem vaguely related, in my totally uneducated view.)

automatic6131• 2 years ago

So I know that salt water spontaneously exploding is a non-issue

Because the sodium as dissolved in water is already at its lowest chemical energy state. Elemental sodium, very high energy, like a ball on a high shelf. Ionised sodium, like in salt water, is that same ball on the floor. Not going anywhere.

That's the why. And why we also don't worry about table salt spontaneously releasing chlorine ions - unless we introduce something unusual like bleach.

syndicatedjelly3• 2 years ago

Sodium (Na) in its pure state desperately wants to give away its electron. It will react with anything where it can dump electrons (e.g. H2O).

Upon meeting water, sodium (explosively) releases its electron to water, lowering its energy state to a more favorable state. The extra electron in the water serves to split H2O into H+ and -OH ions. After releasing it's electron, sodium becomes sodium ion (Na+).

Sodium ions (Na+) can only exist in solution. In the case of water and table salt, H2O + NaCl -> H2O + Na+ + Cl- . In other words, adding salt to water produce sodium ions and chlorine ions. Both of these forms are stable in solution, because they have their desired number of electrons (and are at in their most favorable energy states). At no time was sodium (Na) involved in the equation - rather, it's stable ion form (Na+) was involved.

As an aside: You can generate chlorine gas (Cl2) by running electricity through salt water. Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH) is also generated, but is immediately split into Na+ and -OH since the generation of NaOH occurred in solution. The -OH makes the water more basic as a result. It would be a good exercise to look into why that is. NaOH loves water - it will suck it right out of the air.

Haven't stretched that chemistry muscle in nearly 15 years...Hope I didn't pull it!

syndicatedjelly3• 2 years ago

    I'd be worried about chlorine gas generation

Is this worry based in knowledge of the problem space, or knowledge of what a chlorine ion is?

amne• 2 years ago

... and run to cool them

bparsons• 2 years ago

Low battery. Stare directly into the sun to recharge.

ByQuyzzy• 2 years ago

Imagine hacking these and blowing up the tiny capacitors and blinding somebody for life.

Blink to generate power for smart contact lenses

Related Stories