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Tech

31st Jul 2019

A contact lens that lets you zoom in when you blink twice has been invented

Jade Hayden

contact lens

That be that Black Mirror shit.

Have you ever had that moment where you pick up a book or a photo or the child of another person and double tap to zoom in?

It’s an embarrassing time for all involved, as you realise that your life now exists solely through technology, and that real life and actual objects have been entirely compromised.

Lucky us.

As it turns out though, we may no longer need to rely on things like pinching and double tapping to zoom in, because a group of scientists have invented a contact lens that does just that.

How does it work, you might ask? Well, you blink twice. That’s it.

Yep.

According to New Scientist, the soft robotic contact lens can successfully be controlled by eye movements carrying signals from the eye to the lens itself.

This works so well that researchers from the University of California, San Diego, found a way to change the focal length of the lens, meaning users can zoom in on whatever they’re looking at by up to 32 percent.

Scientists said that the zoom lens could be used in the future for visual prosthetics, remotely operated robots, and even adjustable glasses.

Madness, altogether, isn’t it?