Google develops glucose monitoring contacts

Google has taken its wearable tech initiative a step further with a contact lens that packs sensors and an antenna to help people with diabetes. According to Google the contact lens relieves diabetics from the occasional pain in the finger they have to live with to keep a tab on their glucose levels.

Scientists had been looking at other bodily fluids that could indicate sugar levels to relieve people from the discomfort, and one fluid they looked into was - tears.

''At Google[x], we wondered if miniaturized electronics - think: chips and sensors so small they look like bits of glitter, and an antenna thinner than a human hair - might be a way to crack the mystery of tear glucose and measure it with greater accuracy,'' the company said in a blog post.

The wireless sensor and a ''miniaturised'' glucose monitor are contained within regular contact lens material. The product has already been put through a series of clinical research studies, and according to FDA is ''in discussions with the FDA'' for regulatory approval. If things work out with the product, Google might also incorporate LED lights in the contacts to warn customers that their blood glucose levels have surpassed safe levels.

However, the product which would take five years reaching consumers according to Google, 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.

The Google X lab which developed the over the last 18 months earlier came up with a driverless car, Google's Web-surfing eyeglasses and Project Loon, a network of large balloons designed to connect unwired places to the internet.

However, research on the contact lenses got underway several years back at the University of Washington, where scientists worked under National Science Foundation funding.

It was only on Thursday, that Google shared with Associated Press the details of the project, which till then the work had been kept under wraps.

Brian Otis, one of the lead researchers told Associated Press the researchers at Google had been given the latitude to invest in the project. He added, the beautiful thing was they were leveraging all of the innovation in the semiconductor industry that was aimed at making cellphones smaller and more powerful.