Google Introduced Smart Contact Lens

Google has announced that it is working on a smart contact lens that's built to measure glucose levels in tears.

Google indicates on their blog that they are working on a prototype contact lens that use a tiny wireless chip and a miniaturized glucose sensor. These chips are embedded in between two soft layers of lens material.

Google notes that scientists have long looked into how certain body fluids such as tears that can help them track glucose levels.

Google Contact Lens

The blurb from Google blog is below.

We’re now testing 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. We’re testing prototypes that can generate a reading once per second. We’re also investigating the potential for this to serve as an early warning for the wearer, so we’re exploring integrating tiny LED lights that could light up to indicate that glucose levels have crossed above or below certain thresholds. It’s still early days for this technology, but we’ve completed multiple clinical research studies which are helping to refine our prototype. We hope this could someday lead to a new way for people with diabetes to manage their disease.

Google also indicated that they are in discussion with FDA and that there's still a lot more work to be done. They plan to look for partners to help bring the smart contact lens to market.

"These partners will use our technology for a smart contact lens and develop apps that would make the measurements available to the wearer and their doctor. We’ve always said that we’d seek out projects that seem a bit speculative or strange, and at a time when the International Diabetes Federation (PDF) is declaring that the world is “losing the battle” against diabetes, we thought this project was worth a shot."

Source: Google Blog /TechCrunch