Before we start, a caveat: Yeah, Google is now owned by an umbrella company called Alphabet. And it's Alphabet that owns many of these crazy-cool technologies. But the people who own Alphabet are, essentially, Google's top brass. You'll forgive us the minor liberty.
Why have contacts that just help you see? According to Google, the company is developing a smart contact lens that's "built to measure glucose levels in tears using a tiny wireless chip and miniaturized glucose sensor that are embedded between two layers of soft contact lens material."
Published:Caption:Lisa BernierPhoto:US Patent and Trademark Office
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A robot army
Google has acquired Boston Dynamics, a company devoted to "changing your idea of what robots can do." Among their robots includes one called Petman, which is developed to move like a human and test chemical conditions.
And let's not forget their robotic menagerie, which includes Cheetah, "the fastest legged robot in the world," RiSE, which climbs buildings like a bug, and BigDog, an advanced rough-terrain robot.
The Google Cultural Institute gathers international collections and exhibits from museums as well as archives worldwide (including, yep, works of Salvador Dali), and brings them to anyone with an Internet connection. Price tag: your soul (just kidding, it's free).
Star Trek nanites (aka tiny robots in your blood to cure disease)
Essentially, these are tiny magnetic robots that go into your blood. These nano-particles would bind themselves to molecules and identify potential illnesses.
As if blood robots weren't freaky enough, Google is also developing synthetic skin. You know. So their nanoparticles can talk to you. Maybe it'll look like this. Maybe it'll look even freakier.
A digital microphone that would be tattooed into the user's throat is another invention Google potentially wants to develop. The patent (which Google acquired via a Motorola Mobility subsidiary) describes a wireless device that is able to transmit the sound of a user's voice to devices like smartphones.
Google is looking to land on the moon by funding the Google Lunar XPRIZE, which has contestants racing to land a robot on our friendly lunar satellite.
Project Loon is Google's attempt to bring Internet everywhere. Balloons would carry signals to parts of the world that still don't have Internet access.
Google owns Zagat, the famous travel guide to, well, everything, including top restaurants like this one. Why? We're guessing it's an attempt to bring Google Maps to the next level.
Another initiative, called Project Tango, is Google's stab at combining 3D motion with mapping. The goal of the project is to have software on your phone that's the digital replica of a human eye.
This isn't your typical Times Square billboard. Patented by Google in 2008, this sensor, once placed in a smartphone, could read temperature, light, humidity, sound and the chemical composition of the air around it. Ads would then change based on those readings.
Does Google own the third dimension? Of course not. Does it own a database where you can download a plethora of 3D designs to print? Yep. There's so many, they even call it a warehouse.
Skybox imaging was obtained by Google in 2014. The company provides commercial, high resolution satellite imagery of Earth. So now Google is literally watching you from space.
If you use a walking stick, you obviously want it to take pictures of the glorious vista you just hiked to see, so Google, of course, owns a patent for an invention that would do just that.
Published:Caption:Lisa BernierPhoto:US Patent and Trademark Office
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A virtual assistant just for your social media
In 2011, Google bought a patent for technology that would allow your computer or smartphone to wittily post all those social media status updates for you -- basically, your virtual social Jeeves.
Published:Caption:Lisa BernierPhoto:Photo illustration by Lisa Bernier
