If you haven’t yet heard about Google Glass, it is a wearable computer with an optical head-mounted display (OHMD) that is being developed by Google. Google Glass displays information in a smartphone-like hands-free format that can communicate with the Internet via natural language voice commands.
Early testers paid $1,500 for the device, but prices are supposed to decrease quickly to the $400 to $600 range – that is, once they get to market. That’s another unknown, but best guess is that they will be generally available in the next 3 to 6 months.
One of the biggest knocks against Google Glass by its critics is the perceived lack of practical uses for the wearable computing device. That’s about to change.
Eyes-On Glasses are billed as the world’s first wearable point-of-care system for real-time vascular imaging. The glasses allow the wearer to identify a patient’s veins by “seeing through” their skin using the company’s patented near-infrared (NIR) visualization. In the very near future, the wearable device could make delivering injections and positioning intravenous catheters a lot less painful and more efficient.
Eyes-On Glasses can also transmit the images viewed to remote locations via Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and 3G and are equipped with speakers for two-way audio conferencing and built-in storage for photos and videos.
In addition to the medical uses for the device, the Eyes-On also has the ability to connect directly to a hospital medical records system, allowing the wearer to view and document vital patient information.
The smart glasses will sell for about $10,000 and will begin shipping to most major world markets in the first quarter of 2014.