Google Contact Lens Could Be Option for Diabetics Smallest Wireless Glucose Sensor
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TECHNOLOGY SATURDAY, JANUARY 18, 2014 Google contact lens could be option for diabetics Smallest wireless glucose sensor MOUNTAIN VIEW: Brian Otis gingerly holds The contact lenses were developed during health care decisions on the data we get from vative, they are up on new technologies, and what looks like a typical contact lens on his the past 18 months in the clandestine Google our monitors,” he said. also we have to be honest here, the driving index finger. Look closer. Sandwiched in this X lab that also came up with a driverless car, Other non-needle glucose monitoring sys- force is money,” he said. lens are two twinkling glitter-specks loaded Google’s Web-surfing eyeglasses and Project tems are also in the works, including a similar with tens of thousands of miniaturized transis- Loon, a network of large balloons designed to contact lens by Netherlands-based Radio frequency waves tors. It’s ringed with a hair-thin antenna. beam the Internet to unwired places. NovioSense, a minuscule, flexible spring that is Worldwide, the glucose-monitoring Together these remarkable miniature elec- But research on the contact lenses began tucked under an eyelid. Israel-based OrSense devices market is expected to be more than tronics can monitor glucose levels in tears of several years earlier at the University of has already tested a thumb cuff, and there $16 billion by the end of this year, according diabetics and then wirelessly transmit them to Washington, where scientists worked under have been early designs for tattoos and saliva to analysts at Renub Research. a handheld device. National Science Foundation funding. Until sensors. The Google team built the wireless chips in “It doesn’t look like much, but it was a crazy Thursday, when Google shared information A wristwatch monitor was approved by the clean rooms and used advanced engineering amount of work to get everything so very about the project with The Associated Press, FDA in 2001, but patients said the low level to get integrated circuits and a glucose sensor small,” he said before the project was unveiled the work had been kept under wraps. electric currents pulling fluid from their skin into such a small space. Thursday. Researchers also had to build in a system to During years of soldering hair-thin wires to pull energy from incoming radio frequency miniaturize electronics, Otis burned his finger- waves to power the device enough to collect tips so often that he can no longer feel the tiny and transmit one glucose reading per second. chips he made from scratch in Google’s Silicon The embedded electronics in the lens don’t Valley headquarters, a small price to pay for obscure vision because they lie outside the what he says is the smallest wireless glucose eye’s pupil and iris. Google is now looking for sensor ever made. partners with experience bringing similar Just 35 miles away in the beach town of products to market. Google officials declined Santa Cruz, high school soccer coach and uni- to say how many people worked on the proj- versity senior Michael Vahradian, 21, has his ect or how much the firm has invested in it. own set of fingertip callouses, his from prick- Dr. David Klonoff, medical director of the ing himself up to 10 times a day for the past 17 diabetes research institute at Mills-Peninsula years to draw blood for his glucose meter. A Health Services in San Mateo, worked with cellphone-sized pump on his hip that attaches Google to see whether glucose is present in to a flexible tube implanted in his stomach tears and whether the amount of glucose is shoots rapid-acting insulin into his body proportional to the amount of glucose in around the clock. blood. He’s still analyzing but optimistic about “I remember at first it was really hard to his findings and warns there are many poten- make the needle sticks a habit because it hurt tial pitfalls. “Already this has some break- so much,” he said. “And there are still times I through technologies, but this is a moonshot, don’t want to do it - it hurts and it’s inconven- there are so many challenges,” he said. One is ient. When I’m hanging out with friends, head- figuring out how to correlate glucose levels in ing down to the beach to body-surf or going MOUNTAIN VIEW: Brian Otis, Google X project lead, holds a contact lens Google is testing tears as compared with blood. And what hap- to lunch, I have to hold everyone up to take to explore tear glucose in Mountain View, California. — AP pens on windy days, while chopping onions or my blood sugar.” during very sad movies? As with any medical The idea that all of that monitoring could “You can take it to a certain level in an aca- was painful, and it was buggy. device, it would need to be tested and proved be going on passively, through a contact lens, demic setting, but at Google we were given “There are a lot of people who have big accurate, safe, and at least as good as other is especially promising for the world’s 382 mil- the latitude to invest in this project,” Otis said. promises,” said Dr. Christopher Wilson, CEO of types of glucose sensors available now to win lion diabetics who need insulin and keep a “The beautiful thing is we’re leveraging all of NovioSense. “It’s just a question of who gets to FDA approval. close watch on their blood sugar. the innovation in the semiconductor industry market with something that really works first.” Karen Rose Tank, who left her career as an that was aimed at making cellphones smaller Palo Alto Medical Foundation endocrinologist economist to be a health and wellness coach Big promises and more powerful.” Dr. Larry Levin said it was remarkable and after her Type 1 diabetes diagnosis 18 years The prototype, which Google says will take American Diabetes Association board chair important that a tech firm like Google is get- ago, also is encouraged that new glucose at least five years to reach consumers, is one of Dwight Holing said he’s gratified that creative ting into the medical field and that he’d like to monitoring methods may be on the horizon. several medical devices being designed by scientists are searching for solutions for peo- be able to offer his patients a pain-free alterna- “It’s really exciting that some of the big companies to make glucose monitoring for ple with diabetes but warned that the device tive from either pricking their fingers or living tech companies are getting into this market,” diabetic patients more convenient and less must provide accurate and timely information. with a thick needle embedded in their stomach she said. “They bring so much ingenuity; invasive than traditional finger pricks. “People with diabetes base very important for constant monitoring. “Google, they’re inno- they’re able to look outside the box.” — AP $28 million bitcoins Facebook adds trending topics to site NEW YORK: In a move that echoes Twitter, Facebook is judges and promised a new attitude and Vitter intro- forfeiture is a record adding a feature to its service that lets users know the duced a bill that would require people show photo IDs topics of discussion that are trending among the site’s to make purchases with food stamps. NEW YORK: A record $28 million of bit- Bharara said it was the largest forfeiture of 1.2 billion users, whether it’s the death of a world leader Chris Stuhar, a software engineer at Facebook who coins was formally transferred to the US bitcoins ever by the government. He called or the Oscars. works on the site’s news feed, said the feature is government several months after it was Silk Road “a global cyber business designed Users in the US, UK, India, Canada and Australia will designed to uncover the most interesting content seized from the server of the black market to broker criminal transactions.” The web- begin seeing a list of trending topics on the right side of across the site and fits into the company’s broader website Silk Road after the government site is believed to have collected more than their Facebook pages in coming weeks. It will be avail- effort to make Facebook “your personal newspaper.” claimed the digital currency was used to $1 billion in revenue from more than able in more countries later on. Facebook is already seen as a place where users go to facilitate money laundering, prosecutors 100,000 customers. “These bitcoins were Trending topics won’t be available on the mobile find out what their friends and family are up to. Stuhar announced Thursday. forfeited not because they are bitcoins, but version of Facebook, but the company said it is testing said learning that a friend got married or discovering The action came a day after a because they were, as the court found, the the feature in its app for smartphones and tablet com- what his friends are doing on a Friday night is “certainly Manhattan judge approved the forfeiture proceeds of crimes,” Bharara said. puters. Facebook, which signaled last year that it would news,” but Facebook has a “much broader vision of of the bitcoins and the website, and three The prosecutor said investigators also introduce trending topics at some point, said Thursday where we want news feed to go in the future. months after San Francisco entrepreneur seized more than $130 million worth of bit- that the topics people see will be tailored to the user’s ”Facebook’s new feature represents another move Ross Ulbricht was arrested on charges he coins from computer hardware belonging interests and location.