Google Develops CL That Monitors Glucose, Possibly Stealing Microsoft's Lead in the Field

"Google unveiled Thursday a contact lens that monitors glucose levels in tears, a potential reprieve for millions of diabetics who have to jab their fingers to draw their own blood as many as 10 times a day," according to an ABC News post. "The prototype, which Google says will take at least five years to reach consumers, is one of several medical devices being designed by companies to make glucose monitoring for diabetic patients more convenient and less invasive than the traditional finger pricks." Read more.

CNET notes that "Google is the only big tech company that's visionary and disruptive enough to back an idea like the smart contact lenses to help diabetics monitor blood-sugar levels, right? Wrong. Microsoft, that dowdy old has-been (at least in Silicon Valley conventional wisdom), was involved in the very same project in 2011. Project co-founder Babak Parviz, who today also leads Google Glass, previously worked on the contact-lens idea while at the University of Washington, cooperating with Microsoft. The project, at that time clearly at an earlier stage of maturity, is the centerpiece of a Microsoft video spotlighting the idea of a natural user interface that lets people work with computers without even knowing it. The contact lenses include a tiny microprocessor that could judge glucose levels in tears, then beam that information wirelessly to a device that could process the data and display results." Read more.

"Google is developing contact lenses with embedded electronics that can track the levels of glucose in a person’s tears and transmit that data wirelessly to a nearby receiver, an official blog post by Babak Parviz, a leader of the Google Glass wearable computing project revealed Thursday. The device is intended to help diabetics track their glucose levels without drawing blood." That's the start of a post from MIT Review about augmented contact lenses. Read more.