Call me old fashioned, but someone will have to do me some serious persuading in order to get me to wear a pair of contact lenses. I just don’t see the appeal. Why willfully make anything come into direct contact with my eyeball when I can easily slip on a pair of glasses effortlessly. But hey, that’s just me.
I bring up the subject because Google has acquired a company that has been developing smart contact lenses. Yes, electronic contact lenses. As if wearing Google Glass has been anything but controversial. Don’t believe me?
Digression: Just ask Cecilia Abadie who got pulled over while wearing a pair. Ok, the officer originally pulled her over for speeding, but she was stupid enough not to take them off in the full minute the officer took to mosey on over to her car. But hey, her ticket got dismissed. Now Californians have the precedent of Abadie, that Google Glass may not necessarily be lumped into the category of having a video screen mounted to the front of your vehicle. Good news?
Continuation of digression: Or ask ‘unnamed man’ of Columbus, Ohio who was yanked from a theater seat for wearing glass while watching a movie. That’s right, the effing feds came to Ohio and forced this dude to partake in a ‘voluntary interview’; they seized his property, searched it for illegal content, found none, and let him go on his merry way. Spooky, no?
Final digression, I promise: Or ask Sherif Maktabi, London developer who has brought sex to glass. This new app will allow users to switch places with their partner mid-coitus, record the act, and even set mood music/lighting. Considering the state of internet privacy today, I don’t think this is such a good idea. Do you really want some voyeuristic dweeb at the NSA watching you (stick it, getting it stuck)?
Ok, back to Google Lenses: Yeah, Google’s ‘main goal’ for these lenses is to monitor blood sugar level for those suffering diabetes. Yeah, this would be cool, but knowing Google, there’s more than meets the eye (ugh, even I cringed at that pun). Seriously, call me alarmist, but if the feds were able to wrangle up some poor sap in some arbitrary mid-west state (OHIO DAMMIT!), anything is possible.
Google’s foray into eye wear is pretty disconcerting, especially now that one must face the possibility of being monitored in even the most intimate of acts. And, if you ask me, it is most fitting that Google would have such an infatuation with eye wear, because it is the all seeing eye.