Google’s Smart Contact Lenses

Just a couple of weeks after the New Year, Google made an announcement that left many of us spellbound. On 16 January 2014, Google announced that they were testing smart contact lenses that could monitor glucose. With such a smart contact lens, millions of diabetics around the world could keep tabs on their blood sugar levels. This was truly path-breaking.

Many of us were left thinking, of course this had to come from Google. But it so happens that the idea didn’t originate at Google. Microsoft – perceived of the has-been of technology innovation – was onto this back in 2011.

The Idea Originated At The University Of Washington (UW), Seattle

It now comes to light that the original work on glucose-sensing contact lenses was conducted by a graduate student, Claire Yao, at the University of Washing, Seattle. Yao was responsible for building the original prototype in the Washington Nanofabrication Facility at the University of Washington.

Yao is currently working at Google.

The Project’s Co-Founders Belong To UW As Well

The project managers currently in-charge of the project, Babak Parviz and Brian Otis were researchers and faculty on the department of Electrical Engineering back then, at the University of Washington and were actively working on the project.

Guess Who Was Supporting This Smart Contact Lens Project?

In its early days, the project was funded by the National Science Foundation, and received collaboration and support from none other than Microsoft.

Desney Tan, the Microsoft researcher who worked on this project addressed this topic on The Official Microsoft Blog.

Obviously, The Credit Still Goes To Google

This is not to say that Microsoft knew it all back then. Google has developed the project from ground-up and deserves credit.

It’s just very interesting to think that it could have been Microsoft.