The Next Google Glass

Apr 22, 2014
Sogeti Labs

When speaking to customers, colleagues and friends about wearing a Google Glass, we always end up talking about how small (and therefore less visible) these things are going to get. So it’s obvious that Google is focusing on making the current model look more attractive by partnering with specific partners. So next iterations of Glass should look more slick than the model I have. But a recent announcement and patent show that Google is also working on a real next generation of devices for your face.

It has been known for a while now that Google is working on bringing smart contact lenses to diabetes patients in order to alert them when their blood sugar falls to dangerous levels. The technology at work here are biometric sensors that are designed to read chemicals in the tear fluid of the wearer’s eye.

Now Google has secured two patents in order to do so.

Smart_Contact_Lens2

The picture above shows how Google is planning on making the lenses fit. The plan is to both communicate and power the electronics-embedded contact lens with a pair of antennas. This could eventually end up in juts one antenna according to the patent.

You might wonder how you will be able to see trough a chip on our eye? Next to transparent materials, the patent notes that the substrate is too close to the eye to be in focus and it’s positioned away from the center of the eye and, thereby, away from where light is transmitted to the retina.

The point here is that this specific project is wonderful if your a diabetes patient. But the potential for applications of this technology far exceeds only this context. If they can get the technology right, this could well be the future of Google Glass.more–>

One of the trends in technology is that it is increasingly fading into the background. “As the technology becomes more finely integrated into daily life, it will become, paradoxically, less visible. The future of the Internet is to literally disappear into the woodwork“. Glass broke with this line of development, basically boiling down to sticking a piece of hardware to your face. With a move towards lenses wearable computing becomes increasingly less visible. For some that might also imply that this technology becomes increasingly creepy. What do you think?

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SogetiLabs gathers distinguished technology leaders from around the Sogeti world. It is an initiative explaining not how IT works, but what IT means for business.

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