Google's wearable technology is shaping up to be more health-centered. The company, through project co-founders Brian Otis and Babak Parviz, confirmed on their blog Thursday, that it is currently beta-testing its wearable high-tech contact lens. The new gadget is supposed to replay the traditional finger-pricking method of testing glucose sugar levels of potential diabetic people.
The image posted on the company's blog post revealed a single contact lens equipped with a combination of a microchip and a miniature sensor.
Otis and Parviz explained the hardware used for the contact lens and said, "[It is] 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."
The blog post explained that the device aims to measure one's glucose levels using people's tears. The beta test it will be conducting will help the company refine a prototype, so this means that the image could be similar to the actual finished product. Google also added that it is working closely with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and is seeking actively for financial partners to finalize the product for commercial purposes.
According to PCWorld, Google's latest wearable technology came from their ultra-secretive facility known as Google X. Although its report argued the opportunities Google would have if it chooses to pair the technologies of both the contact lens and the more popular Google Glass, ZDNet countered that it might not be the case as the latter is set to be made available to consumers real soon and the lens technology could be years away to achieve commercial production.
A 2011 article published on the Economist deduced that eyes would be the next frontier for technology companies like Google. But it also pointed out that a Swedish company has already pioneered the wearable technology for the healthcare management field. Sensimed, a division spun out from Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, created the first contact lens designed to manage and treat patients with glaucoma.