Last-minute unlikely moonshot for Google I/O: Nano blood bots that are read by Android Wear

I missed out scooping the Google Glass skydiving unveil at Google I/O 2012 because I didn’t believe my source. He knew about the entire thing, but it was too unbelievable for me to post. I’m posting this late word from my source because I think there is a small chance that Google announces it tomorrow (by posting late, it hopefully won’t go mainstream and I don’t look like an idiot when it doesn’t happen).

According to the source, Google has some biomedical superstars working in its X Lab on some cutting-edge micro bots that can detect things like certain kinds of cancer. These bots are small enough (the size of blood cells) to fit through human capillaries, yet they can detect diseases in the blood and can trigger an RFID reader, which in turn talks to a watch – perhaps a device running Android Wear. I was told this technology is at least 2 years from being a real product (and likely more when you consider FDA and public outcry). This isn’t the first time we’ve heard of nanobots circulating human bloodstreams, with scientists working on the idea as far back as 2009.

The bots would circulate in your blood stream, and when they went through your wrist (under your watch), the watch would be capable of reading the status (cancer/no cancer etc.).

Similar technology is already well documented and in recent years has become closer to something Google could actually use in a product. Ray Kurzweil, futurist and director of engineering at Google, described his vision for nanobots that could enter our blood stream in a piece he penned for The Guardian back in 2007:

Within a couple of decades, we will have “nanobots” in our blood stream, basically small robots the size of blood cells, that will keep us healthy at the cellular and molecular level. There are already dozens of successful experiments with a first generation of such devices in animals. One scientist cured type-I diabetes in rats with a blood cell-sized device, and scientists at MIT have microscopic devices that can scout out cancer cells in the bloodstream and destroy them. These devices will be a billion times more powerful than they are today in 25 years, and will continue the accelerating path to radical life extension.

I know this is a longshot, but I’d get upset with myself if I they announced and I didn’t publish.