Apple, Google and Samsung gearing up to tackle diabetes through technology

Three of the top tech companies in the world - Apple, Google and Samsung - are exploring different types of sensors that could be used in glucose-tracking wearable devices for diabetics, CNET reports.

The focus for all three companies when it comes to this technology is health monitoring - an industry that is exploding with new gadgets that do everything from counting calories and tracking steps to monitoring the depth of your breathing or measuring heart rate.

Samsung currently offers the "Galaxy Gear" smartwatch, while Google boasts something called Google Wear, which allows wearable devices to run the Android operating system. Apple, similarly, is said to be unveiling an "iWatch" at some point in the not-so-distant future.

"Countless reports over the last several months have suggested that all three firms are looking at ways to bundle sensors into wearable devices that would track key health data," CNET's Don Reisinger writes. "All three firms have built some health features into their respective products, but have mainly stuck to simple items such as miles walked."

Potential obstacles

Reisinger notes that tracking glucose non-invasively is still difficult, however - which means these companies' technologies will have to be sophisticated in a way we haven't yet seen from glucose monitoring systems that don't involve finger pricking.

Reuters reports that Samsung might be on the verge of revealing a system that alerts you of blood sugar danger via a "traffic light" system.

John Smith, former chief scientific officer of Johnson & Johnson's LifeScan, which makes blood glucose monitoring supplies, says that most large corporations are itching to be the first on the scene when it comes to this type of diabetic technology.

"All the biggies want glucose on their phone," Smith told Tech Times. "Get it right, and there's an enormous payoff."

Source: CNET

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