Before you get all excited and start to dump your next few months paychecks into your savings account — no, Google‘s “Smart Contact Lens” will not give you the ability to see through walls or shoot lasers from your eyes . While the Smart Contact Lenses are not a direct successor to the Google Glass, they will serve a more humanitarian purpose. Using a lens, a microchip and a mini antenna that is thinner than a follicle of human hair, the SCL will allow diabetics to monitor their glucose levels on the fly – no more finger pricking.
The SCL utilizes the user’s tears to read the level of their blood sugar. According to Brian Otis of Google’s Google X unit, ”looks and feels like a regular soft contact lens”.
The Google X team are the ambitious individuals behind the SCL and several other dicey futuristic ventures, including a self-driving car and the famed Google Glass. Google X are testing the SCL and awaiting approval from the FDA, so it could be a while before this worthwhile technology manifests. However, if approved its benefit is boundless.
-Khari Clarke (@KINGCLARKEIII)