Google Glass Technology Could Prevent Public Health Threats

Despite the possibility of Google Glass turning the human population into a bunch of walking computers, a new study published in the journal ACS Nano has found that the new technology could be beneficial for worldwide health.

The new Google Glass technology will enable its users to utilize an array of features with relative ease and convenience. By simply wearing the glasses, you can command the software to take a picture or record a video by stating "take a picture" or "begin recording". You can ask for directions, speak to send a message, ask a question, translate your language, and customize the glasses; you can choose your own color (of the five colors offered) and type of lenses you prefer. More information about Google Glass can be found here.

This eyewear with unprecendeted technological capabilities is now believed to have the potential to save lives by halting public health threats across the world. New developments of the Google Glass app are supposedly enabling the technology to take a picture of a diagnostic strip and have the data sent to computers in which a report is sent back to the user. This study, conducted by the American Chemical Society, has found that this particular use of Google Glass can help researchers track the spread of diseases.

Dr. Aydogan Ozcan and his colleagues at UCLA designed this custom app, which uses the built-in camera on the Google Glass to take a picture of a diagnostic test and ubiquitously provide the data to scientists by sending it to computers for further examination.

"With our app for Google Glass and our remote computing and data analysis power, we can deliver a one-two punch - provide quantified biomedical test results for individual patients, plus analyze all those data to determine whether an outbreak is imminent," said Ozcan, in a news release.

The pilot tests of the app showed promising results through providing HIV and prostate-specific antigen assays within eight seconds of the retrieval of the information.

To read more about Ozcan and his colleagues' development of the Google Glass app, visit this UCLA news release.