Verily Blog

Verily (Google) tried contact lenses, but couldn't get it to work: https://blog.verily.com/2018/11/update-on-our-smart-lens-program-with.…

While Google (and Verily) are getting a lot of the credit here, the underlying technology was developed by entomological researchers at the University of Kentucky [0] and the resulting company, MosquitoMate [1] partnered with Verily [2] to automate and scale the breeding of the sterilized male mosquitoes. [0] - https://uknow.uky.edu/research/uk-research-spinoff-company-mosquitomat… [1] - https://mosquitomate.com/about-us/ [2] - https://blog.verily.com/2017/07/debug-fresno-our-first-us-field-study.…

The actual blog post is much more informative: https://blog.verily.com/2018/11/update-on-our-smart-lens-program-with.… Sounds like they couldn’t, with today’s technology, measure glucose levels to the accuracy required for medical devices. But will continue work on measuring other things with those lenses. I don’t know why the negative tone of the article. Sounds like they tried something and demonstrated their specific solution didn’t work. Most research experiments generally don’t.

The Fresno result was a 68% reduction, also promising. https://blog.verily.com/2017/11/wrapping-up-debug-fresno-2017.html Better than the Chinese results on a more massive scale in Guangshou with about 50% reduction. I'd also like to see the Brazil and Vietnam results. https://www.worldmosquitoprogram.org/ Wonder why Australia had 12% better results? The sheer size of the experiment there? Australia was much bigger than Fresno, with only 300 acres there.

It's arrogant to assume that these species are "natural". Aedes aegypti did not exist at all in Fresno, for example, until 2013. These species of insects were introduced to these ecosystems. By humans. The diseases (for example, Zika) being spread now are the consequences of us introducing these mosquitoes in the first place. https://blog.verily.com/2017/07/debug-fresno-our-first-us-field-study.… https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4109175/

You are correct. MosquitoMate (mentioned in TFA) is working with Verily's Debug: https://blog.verily.com/2017/07/debug-fresno-our-first-us-field-study.…

> Where is the quote from? Coincidentally, Google isn't just in the business of releasing mosquitoes, but has other useful functions. https://blog.verily.com/2017/07/debug-fresno-our-first-us-field-study.…

The article links to the project's announcement, https://blog.verily.com/2017/07/debug-fresno-our-first-us-field-study.… , which says > "Debug Fresno will target the invasive Aedes aegypti mosquito, which can transmit diseases like Zika, dengue, and chikungunya. Aedes aegypti first appeared in the central valley of California in 2013, and since then has become pervasive in Fresno County. This study will be the largest U.S. release to-date of sterile male mosquitoes treated with Wolbachia, a naturally occurring bacterium, and will take place over a 20 week period in two neighborhoods each approximately 300 acres in size. When these sterile males mate with wild females the resulting eggs will not hatch." So it's targeting the mosquitoes themselves, not just the viruses they carry.

Honestly, it's cute but this is somewhat like what you'd expect to come out of a student project at a university, in which case -- the student is getting valuable research experience, student and advisors are advancing their careers, and any IP produced becomes owned by student and advisor. In this case, Google has spent shareholder resources on a project that really, could be done at any university, on a product that does not put the user first, and Google owns the IP. In fact, wake up -- you the public should view this product as a mechanism for Google to simply collect more data from people. The more people use this, the better Google's algorithms get at drawing. That's all there is to it. Thankfully, this product is not even fun. There is a dangerous creed currently executed by Google leadership. Consider the Verily Study Watch: https://blog.verily.com/2017/04/introducing-verily-study-watch.html . The watch shows to the wearer only one thing: the time. However, it collects all kinds of data, ostensibly for medical research (at least to start). Forget about putting the user first, the Verily blog post literally talks about "user compliance". Of any project that comes out of Google, you should ask: Does this project even put the user first? Does this project even put Google's shareholders first? And if you are a current Google shareholder (as many of their current and former employees are, if they haven't sold), you should agitate that Google start accepting and…