Smart Contact Lenses and Fostering Trust and Safety
An insight to contributing to safety in smart cities through surveillance via smart wearable devices.
Key words: The 4th Industrial Revolution, smart city, wearable devices, smart contact lenses, safety, IoT.
Companies like Google, Microsoft, and Samsung have engaged in the creation of smart contact lenses (SCL) for almost a decade now. These projects have focused on two main axes: health and augmented reality. Although as of 2022 these projects seem to be evolving slowly, by closely following the attainment of other technological megatrends mentioned in the Global Agenda Council on the Future of Software & Society, we can presume that we will see more of this technology in use within a decade.
Smart Contact Lenses open the door to a number of new possibilities for users of smart wearable devices. Among them, the possibility of having concealed technology that can be used imperceptibly to require emergency assistance or pinpoint your location for rescue purposes in dire situations. This brings us to a new paradigm of fostering trust and safety in populations that are vulnerable to kidnaps, domestic violence, and hostage situations.
Q1: Link to tipping points of the proposal
One such example is found in people who live in high rate crime cities like Guadalajara, Mexico. Using this technology to stay in contact with the police literally with the blink of an eye and send footage of an event can make citizens both feeling and being safe if they ever find themselves in a situation that demands requesting help unnoticeably. The video recording camera feature proposal is connected to the Tipping Point or Shift 4 contemplated in the document Deep Shift Technology Tipping Points and Societal Impact: Wearable devices in the positive impact in decreasing missing children cases. With this feature a missing child can send images and videos of their captors and details of the place where they are kept.
Moreover, it is expected of the Smart Contact Lenses to have internet connection, GPS, and voice recognition software to tackle the Shift 8: The internet of Things — positive impact: safety. Enabling the lenses to receive voice commands empowers victims to quickly request help and activate their location to be tracked to allow law enforcement to find them upon a crime report is sent.
Additionally, keeping in mind the Shift 10: Positive impact — Decreasing crime, the fact that vulnerable persons possibly use this technology works both as a deterrent and a countermeasure to many types of crime. The burden of proof is ready to be transmitted any time with no tangible way of destroying evidence as it is immediately sent through the lenses to the internet. Even destroying the lenses would be futile as recording and GPS is activated via safe words and broadcasted live to clouds.
Q2. IDEO’s design kit for the INSPIRATION stage
For the inspiration stage, as a group we focus on different tools and strategies such as following the frame “your design challenge” worksheet, ecosystem mapping worksheet, post it notes, and expert interviews. Personally, I followed the ecosystem mapping worksheet and let myself be inspired by the previous knowledge I had regarding smart contact lenses.
Q3. IDEO’s design kit for the IDEATION stage
During this stage, my group took different approaches in terms of IDEO activities for ideation and then we met and discussed our ideas. My group mates used: Share inspiring stories, Find themes, Rapid prototyping, and Brainstorm. After my partners chose their own strategies, I immediately decided to proceed to sketch prototypes basing myself on the patents that Samsung published.
Here are our designs for the prototype.
Q4. IDEO’s design kit for the IMPLEMENTATION stage
In terms of the implementation stage, we took different angles to explore how this stage would be. The first idea was to sketch a Roadmap for success. This is a rough outline of the agenda expected before mass distribution.
The last step of the implementation is connected to mass distribution. However, we explored scalability by re-defining the target audience. It was concluded that our efforts of defining the end users are relative to costs and ethical/social positions of the individuals within the context of Jalisco. This technology may be controversial so we expect its implementation to receive drawbacks in the first years. Following the first pilots during stage 3 and 4, we will run some resource assessment/getting feedback from two main sources: our Key Performance Indicators and our users.
Q5. Describe your wearable device, including its functions and benefits according to Jalisco’s government demands.
The Smart Contact Lenses are a smart wearable device that you can use anytime and anywhere to record your vision, track your position, and contact first responders. It will be available to vulnerable persons in Jalisco considering privacy legislation abidance in Mexico. The 14.2mm diameter contact lenses are composed of 4 layers as seen in the illustration above. In one layer, we can find all the components that allow the SCL to be an IoT compatible wearable device. The functions previously described can be beneficial for deterring and prosecuting the crimes and social misconducts mentioned in the brief. In terms of deterring, SLC can potentially increase the surveillance capacity of a smart city. Hence, felonies can be easily reported and proceed to a capture. In terms of prosecution, having evidence to take to court will be basically automatic, stealthy, and effortless. This will create a sense of collective intelligence composed of vigilant citizens who are ready to record and report any crime.
Q6 6. What did you learn through this case study (personal and theoretical)?
In terms of theory, I learned about the efforts that big corporations such as Google, Samsung, and Meta have made to patent and create SCL. I understand the state-of-the-art of SCL technology. I now learned the different applications of this technology to different fields and, with my team, we came up with an angle that actually sounds innovative when compared to other examples of this technology.
Personally, I learned through IDEO’s design kit some activities and strategies to help myself narrow down big ideas that I have and split the steps into coherent stages that allow me to view the problem and the solution from all angles.
References
https://mashable.com/article/samsung-smart-contact-lenses-patent#zXG8SIabTaqQ
https://medium.com/omnidya-ai/wearables-for-the-eye-smart-contact-lenses-bc8bda3be83
https://www.mojo.vision/mojo-lens
https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GAC15_Technological_Tipping_Points_report_2015.pdf