Minwook Paeng develops robot eye to help users walk while looking at their phones

Industrial design student Minwook Paeng has created a robotic Third Eye that is fixed to the forehead and looks out for obstacles when the wearer’s real eyes are glued to their smartphone. The prosthetic automatically opens its plastic eyelid when the head is tilted downwards and sounds a warning buzz if a hazard is detected up to a metre ahead. This allows users to navigate their lives while texting or scrolling through Instagram, uninterrupted by real-world obstacles. Developed by Paeng as part of his Innovation Design Engineering degree at London’s Royal College of Art and Imperial College, the project provides a satirical look at how humans are evolving into “phono sapiens“. “By using smartphones in a bad posture, our neck vertebrae are leaning forward giving us ’turtle neck syndrome’ and the pinkies we rest our phones on are bending along the way,“ he told Dezeen. “When a few generations go by, these small changes from smartphone