Microsoft Originally Funded The Smart Contact Lens That Monitors Blood Sugar

Last night, Google revealed their latest Google[x] project called Smart Contact Lens. This smart contact lens is 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. Google is already testing prototypes that can generate a reading once per second which will serve as an early warning for the wearer. Also, Google is exploring integrating tiny LED lights that could light up to indicate that glucose levels have crossed above or below certain thresholds. The media went crazy about this new project in a way that Google invented this whole new concept, but it is not the case.

The project was originally started by researchers from the University of Washington (UW) and it was a Microsoft Research Connections-funded project supporting advanced technology research. Babak Parviz, then researcher at UW(now a Google employee), and Desney Tan, a senior researcher at Microsoft Research, were developing the “functional lens” that has almost all the features of this Google Smart Contact Lens.

Microsoft even demoed the research project which you can watch above.

Source: Google, Microsoft