Today’s contact lenses are made from either plain hydrogel or silicon hydrogel. The purpose of a contact lens is primarily to provide the corrective vision that people with bad eyesight need. They trump over regular spectacles in terms of utility and let the users do more without having to worry about where they kept their glasses. Their utility does not stop just there though. Modern contact lenses are also used to change the look and the aesthetics of the eye itself. Contact lenses can change the color of your eye and even change the pattern of the eye.
Types of Contact Lenses
Contact lenses are commonly segmented into hard lenses and soft lenses. The former are made of glass that is gas permeable and cover only part of the cornea. On the other hand, soft contact lenses are extremely flexible, water absorbing and cover most of the cornea. Soft contact lenses, however, come with a shorter shelf life and need to be replaced regularly.
Modern Advancements in Contact Lenses
- Cheaper Contact Lenses: Johnson & Johnson, one of the largest players in the global market for contact lenses, recently revealed that they are about to drop the lower price requirement on their lenses. While this means that contact lenses could get embroiled in a price war that could make them cheaper to the public, the repercussions of this for the companies is yet to be known. This move could be made once the law passed by the Utah government – for banning minimum prices on contact lenses – by Johnson & Johnson and Alcon, all of whom had contested the bill.
- Sony Files Patent for Camera Contact Lenses: In what seems to be taken right out of a fiction novel’s page, Sony has filed for a patent on a contact lens that can take and store pictures and record movies. Although Sony had actually filed for the patent in 2013, it was made public only recently. The camera can be operated by blinking the eye.
- Google Bionic Eye: Google has another patent filing done, that of an electronic eye. This device could help a user permanently correct his/her eyesight, at the cost of undergoing a rather intrusive surgery.