Google X acquires maker of the tremor-canceling spoon

tremor-canceling spoon

Google’s research division Google X has acquired Lift Labs, a company which is best known for its tremor-canceling spoon, made for people suffering from neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s and essential tremor.

Lift Labs’ spoon comes equipped with sensors that are commonly found in today’s smartphones and digital cameras, which are used to detect tremors and cancel them out by as much as 70%.Lift Labs announced the deal on Google+, saying that it will continue to sell its Liftware system, with Google enabling them to reach even more people living with Parkinson’s or essential tremor. Google on its end said that the plan is to use Lift’s technology to explore additional ways to help people suffering from neurodegenerative diseases.

Said spoon is equipped with sensors that are commonly found in today’s smartphones and digital cameras (accelerometer and gyroscope), which are used to detect tremors and cancel them out by as much as 70%.

Google X explores a number of different technologies, including the driverless car, the Internet balloons and Google Glass. In the life sciences “department,” they are running the life-extension project Calico for which it has hired several renown experts, such as Dr. Robert Cohen, molecular biologist Cynthia Kenyon, and Princeton University genetics researcher David Botstein, to serve as advisers.

Earlier this month, Calico teamed-up with large biopharma company AbbVie to jointly invest in a new R&D facility in the Bay Area which will focus on developing drugs to treat nerve degeneration and cancer in older adults.

[Via: VentureBeat]