Looking Sexy

A major leap forward in technology or an affront to decency?  Opinion has been sharply divided as to the latest innovation from tech giants Google: the 'smart' contact lens.  "It's the next logical step after Google Glass," Google spokesperson Ezekiel Fring told the press at the new lenses' official launch last week.  "These lenses have all the great features of Google Glass, but with the advantage that they don't make you look like a twat whilst wearing them!"  In addition to being far more discreet than the somewhat cumbersome Google Glass, the so called 'smart' lenses are also, according to Google, far more powerful, with the ability not just to record what the wearer sees and project information directly into their eyes, but are also able to allow users to superimpose images over what they are seeing.  "Finally, people can dispense with the dull reality of their everyday surroundings and live in the kind of worlds they think they deserve," enthused Fring.  "It has many advantages - if you regularly have to cut through some appalling slum full of ugly poor people and lowlifes on your way to work, say, now you can transform it all into an enchanted forest, full of pixies and elves!  Obviously, the horrible reality is still there, but you don't have to experience it!"  Fring also believes that the new lenses could render the whole concept of home décor obsolete.  "Why bother decorating your house?" he asked the assembled press reporters.  "From now on you can just have bare walls and use our lenses to project any colour scheme and décor you like!  Best of all, it will eliminate arguments over what colour to paint your walls: every member of the household can project their own preferences on the house interior!"

However, critics of the new technology have been quick to denounce it as intrusive, with some denouncing it as being little more than a means of enabling voyeurism and sexual depravity.  "At least with Google Glass you were aware that some sad techno-voyeur was invading your privacy by filming you without consent," Russell Twinnickson, of human rights advocates Liberty told the Sunday Bystander last weekend.  "But these lenses are a peeping Tom's dream - they don't even need binoculars now to peer into your windows and cop an eyeful of private nudity!  Really, these things could mean the end of privacy as we know it - from now on, every time you make love to someone, you'll always have the nagging suspicion that they could be wearing those bloody lenses and be filming, or worse, live streaming, the whole thing!  Porn from a first-person perspective - these lenses could open the floodgates to a whole new genre of smut!"  However, civil liberties groups' greatest ire has been reserved for what has already become the most downloaded app for the new lenses - the nude filter.  "It's amazing - I never have to look at another munter again!  It's like 'beer goggles' without the hangover," Sammy Jinks, an early adopter of the lenses, told yesterday's Daily Norks, describing the app, which projects an image of stunning beautiful women over every adult female he looks at.  "But even better, it allows me to see what, under ideal circumstances, what any bird I encounter might look like naked!  It's like having X-Ray specs!  Really, it's every blokes dream!"