If you thought that contact lenses are only to be used for aesthetic or vision correcting purposes, then you'd better think again. This is because the Japanese tech giant, Sony, has recently patented the concept for a smart contact lens that is able to record and replay video footage.
While it's certainly going to be incredibly challenging to engineer, making use of it should be extremely easy, since it'll be controlled by wearers entirely through blinking movements. The patent claims that, “it is known that a time period of usual blinking is usually 0.2 seconds to 0.4 seconds, and so it can be said that in the case where the time period of blinking exceeds 0.5 seconds, the blinking is conscious blinking.”
These lenses will come with tiny in-built piezoelectric sensors which will aid in the detection of particular eye movements through the conversion of temperature, force, and pressure into useable electrical energy. In addition to this, wearers will be able to program, select, and adjust particular eye movements to be associated with different actions, such as pausing or replaying a video.
The inner workings of this futuristic lens incorporates an impressive array of cutting-edge devices, including quite a number of very particular sensors. These include infrared sensors, piezoelectric sensors, an accelerometer, and a gyroscope. The lenses in themselves will acquire much of their power through the process of electromagnetic induction, meaning that most wearers will be able to use them all day long without ever having to take them off to recharge them.
If all goes well in Sony's trials, we might see them making an appearance on the commercial market within a number of years!
See how it works for yourself in this video:
One of the cruelest aspects of oral cancer is the chance that parts of the tongue may need to be removed, sometimes leaving patients practically unable to eat, drink or speak. However, scientists in Japan have now managed to engineer an artificial tongue, which will enable such patients to carry out these basic human functions once again.
Professor Shogo Minagi, from Japan's Okayama University, along with a team of dentistry researchers, created this prosthesis out of resin and managed to connect it to a patient's back teeth by use of a wire. They said that they purposely used such common dental materials so that other dental surgeons will be able to emulate their creation without too much trouble, thereby helping the maximum amount of people possible through their hard work.
Minagi explains that patients will be able to control the prosthetic tongue by manipulating it with the base of their tongue, since the tongue is very rarely excised in its entirety. In this way, patients will once again be able to move their tongue upwards and downwards to touch the palate, which is the part of the cavity connected to speech.
Unfortunately, results don't exactly come overnight, and patients will not only need to learn how to use their new tongue, but will also need to regularly take it in for adjustments. However, despite these inconveniences, it does indeed work. One patient, Prof. Kenichi Kozaki, says that "it's extremely stressful to be unable to convey your thoughts and feelings. Once you've experienced that frustration, being able to speak again is an immense pleasure."
The resounding success of Minagi's creation has enabled them to open up an outpatient clinic within Okayama University itself, to help provide easier access for those who really need it. If things carry on going so smoothly, then we might end up seeing this artificial tongue making its way further west in the near future.
People who are hard of hearing often have to put up with constantly putting in, taking out or adjusting annoying and fiddly external hearing aids. Some of the luckier ones may have semi-implantable hearing aids fitted, which are less troublesome to use, but still contain a number of external components which must always be removed before swimming, showering or bathing.
However, in the next step forward for the treatment of deafness, the UK's National Health Service (NHS) has just begun to make use of a bionic ear, known as Carina, which has absolutely no external parts. This means that not only will wearers be able to use it underwater, but that nobody will ever be aware that they're wearing one.
In order to get one fitted, the patient will have to undergo a rather complex surgical procedure, in which a motor, processor, and a battery-operated microphone will be placed within their skull, very close to the ear. It is then left untouched for between six to eight weeks, after which it will be turned on. If all goes well, the patient would then be able to hear as though they never had any hearing problems whatsoever.
Linda Oxley, one of the first patients in the UK to receive the Carina implant, said that "as soon as the implant was switched on, I could tell the difference. I could hear traffic, could hear people whistling, dogs barking, even hear the owl at night. I can go out and speak to people. I get choked up when I think about it – let’s just say cornflakes and crisps are a new experience."
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Sources: unbelievable-facts, nhk, getmyle, dailymail
Images: depositphotos
