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Alexa can refill your prescription and remind you to take it
Amazon's healthcare push now includes a simple but important convenience: the ability to manage y our prescriptions from your smart speaker. The company has partnered with Omnicell to let Alexa not only remind you when to take your medication, but to refill it when you're running low. Once you've linked your pharmacy account and enabled your pharmacy's skill, you'll get reminders based on your prescription data -- if you're not sure what you're supposed to take, you can ask. If you need more, you can tell Alexa to "refill my prescription" to put the pharmacy to work.
Costco and Instacart are testing one-hour prescription deliveries
People on the west coast who need medication quickly might be able to get their medication delivered in as little as 60 minutes. Costco and Instacart are testing prescription deliveries in Washington and California.
Amazon's first HIPAA-compliant Alexa skills help track your healthcare
Alexa's involvement in healthcare is about to extend well beyond putting Echo speakers in hospital rooms. Amazon has unveiled the first-ever HIPAA-compliant Alexa skills, letting you use the voice assistant to take care of sensitive medical issues. Providence St. Joseph Health's skill can book a same-day appointment, for example, while Cigna and Express Scripts have introduced skills that respectively track wellness incentives and manage prescriptions. Livongo, meanwhile, has a skill for diabetics that can provide blood glucose readings and health tips.
Magic Leap prescription lenses are available now for $249
Earlier this year, Magic Leap said that prescription inserts would soon be available for the Magic Leap One, and now you can get them through Frames Direct. The inserts cost $249 and Magic Leap says they're anti-reflective, compatible with the system's eye-tracking features and easy to install. You'll need a copy of your prescription from your eye doctor as well as your pupil distance measurement and you'll need to know which Magic Leap One size you have, but once you place your order, you should have your inserts in just a few days.
Walgreens offers next-day prescription deliveries through FedEx
Walgreens and FedEx announced today a partnership that will provide next-day prescription drug deliveries from Walgreens pharmacies. The service will be available nationwide for Walgreens customers and will cost $4.99 per drop off. Walgreens said some markets will have an option for same-day delivery, and the company plans to expand that service next year.
Warby Parker has an app that checks your eyes at home
Usually, completing a vision test for new glasses requires a trip to the optometrist and the glasses store. Newly announced technology could change that, however. Warby Parker, which started out as a try-before-you-buy mail-order eyeglasses company, is currently looking to use devices you already have in your home to help you get a new pair of glasses without having to drive to a doctor. If you have an expired vision prescription, you can use an iPhone, a computer and about 12 feet of space to find out if your vision has changed since your last exam.
Walmart's new app helps you skip store lines
Walmart doesn't just want its mobile app to speed up your checkout -- now, it might help you avoid lines altogether for certain services. An upgrade to the app has introduced "express lane" services for both prescription pickups and money transfers. Once you've filled in a medicine or money transfer order on your phone, you just have to waltz up to the appropriate store counter, scan a QR code with the app and complete your business.
Prescription lenses for Snapchat's Spectacles just got cheaper
While Snapchat's Spectacles are pretty neat, they're not ideal for those who need prescription lenses. A couple weeks ago, however, Rochester Optical announced that it would offer corrective lenses for the video-recording glasses for only $99. That sounds pretty good, right? Well, GlassesUSA announced today that it would offer the same thing starting at only $29 for single vision lenses. The catch here is that you'll need to have your very own pair of Snapchat Spectacles to start with. That's because you're only ordering the lenses themselves. Simply enter in your prescription and then you can choose from a variety of lenses such as reflective lenses, tinted sunglasses, transition lenses, computer "digital block" lenses" and more. Once you receive the lenses through the mail, you'll be able to "snap" those lenses in place yourself by following a how-to tutorial. There's no need to send the Specs to a specialty retailer. It all seems pretty easy enough, though the trick is getting those Snapchat Spectacles in the first place. Better head on over to New York City to get your pair now.
Prescription lenses for Snapchat Spectacles start at $99 (update)
Snapchat's video-recording Spectacles are super cool, but for folks who need prescription glasses they're just another tech accessory that they can't wear comfortably. Until now. The fine people who made prescription lenses for Google Glass at Rochester Optical will do the same for the ghostly wearable. Pricing starts at $99 for normal lenses, but pricing goes up for fancy options. High-index lenses are physically stronger and help slim down any Coke-bottle prescriptions, but they'll run you $149. Polarized and photochromic options cost $200. That's in addition to the $130 for Spectacles themselves, mind you.
Google lines up a new Glass partner for prescription, fashion and sport lenses (updated)
We've known for a while that Google is looking to develop prescription-lens versions of Google Glass, but now its plans are starting to become clear. The search giant has teamed up with Rochester Optical to design and produce "custom prescription, fashion, and sport lenses" for its high-tech wearable. Rochester expects to have them ready by early next year and will include transitions, tinting and matching color wire frames. Google recently announced that Glass Explorers will soon be able to to swap out their headset for a new version, which will work with future shades and prescription frames, helping to make Glass look like something you'd want to wear. If you're interested to see what the eyewear specialist has been cooking up, it'll share its latest designs later today -- we'll make sure to share them with you when they do. Update: According to Google, there is no actual relationship between Google Glass and Rochester Optical.
Google patent hints at Glass: Hipster Edition
So, while Google Glass: Explorer and Prescription editions are designed to sit on the right side of your head, wouldn't it be great if the wearable was, you know, built into an actual pair of glasses? That's the thinking behind Mountain View's latest patent, which incorporates the device into a thick pair of specs. Compared to the current versions, this concept (pictured, after the break) splits the camera and display modules across the frame. Presumably, therefore, wiring would run inside the frame and across the nose bridge -- and we'd hope that the greater real estate would also accommodate a bigger battery. While this particular design may never get further than a pile of paper on Sergey Brin's desk, the near-sighted futurists among us can always hope.
Google Glass 'prescription edition' makes a cameo at Google I/O
Google I/O is always full of surprises, and we came across yet another elusive bit of hardware on the show floor today: Google Glass "prescription edition". No, it's not actually called that (we made up the name), but what you're looking at is definitely Glass that's been neatly integrated with a pair of prescription glasses -- in fact, it looks a lot like the version of Glass that Google recently mentioned on its blog. We don't really know anything else about this device, but we've reached out to Google for comment. Is this a custom design built by combining Google Glass Explorer Edition with off-the shelf eyewear? Is this a Glass prototype that's designed specifically for people who wear prescription spectacles? Share your thoughts in the comments and don't forget to check out the gallery below. Update: Google's confirmed it's a prototype the company's experimented with that uses the same software as the Explorer Edition but slightly different hardware on the outside. Brad Molen contributed to this report.
Google Glass is, in fact, compatible with prescription glasses
We learned a lot about Google Glass yesterday at SXSW, including a sample of the kinds of apps it will be running when it becomes available to the public. Today on Google+, the Project Glass team let out a bit of rather important hardware info: namely that Glass is compatible with prescription glasses. Turns out that its "design is modular, so you will be able to add frames and lenses that match your prescription," though the team is still working on the frame design to get it juuust right. The prescription compatibility won't be ready for the Explorer edition of Glass, but we can expect the frames to officially debut "later this year."
Vitality GlowCaps smart pill bottle toppers now available on Amazon
Pill poppers rejoice! AT&T-connected Vitality GlowCaps are finally available on Amazon. The intelligent pill caps, which use flashing lights and audio reminders, as well as phone calls and SMS, to remind forgetful patients that it's down-the-hatch time, retail between $10 and $15 a month through a Vitality connectivity service plan. Details of GlowCap's functionality were still up in the air when we got our hands on one back in March, but it looks like AT&T and Vitality have ironed out all the smart Rx kinks. Basically, your pill bottle lights up and chimes when it's time for your meds. As soon as you open the bottle, adherence data is then sent via AT&T to Vitality, who then passes that data on to you, your doctor, and any other approved party, in the form of progress reports. They're also equipped to automatically refill your prescription when the bottle gets low. Considering you still remember what that little light means when it appears (and you don't have a penchant for over-medicating), GlowCap might just save your life. We've been using ours for about a month now, and still haven't kicked the bucket -- review coming soon.
Samsung adds prescription lens option to its active shutter 3D glasses
If the only thing holding you back from that new 3DTV purchase was the inconvenience of slipping the 3D glasses over the regular old 2D glasses you already wear, Samsung is the first major manufacturer with a solution now that it's unveiled a prescription version in Korea. The SSG-R2200 models appear to be very similar to the company's other active shutter 3D glasses in various shapes and sizes, but they're made to order from an optometrist. We know this is something several companies have been working on and expect to see these available in the US eventually as well, but we'll have to see a pricetag of some type before we decide if rocking the dual specs or just sticking with 2D is the best option.%Gallery-105461%
Drug vending machines start trial in UK, allow awkward videophone conversations with your pharmacist
You've got to imagine the Japanese are green with envy right now, as the BBC report not one, but two different drug vending machines are being tested out under Her Majesty's watchful eye. The first of these experiments is run by supermarket chain Sainsbury's, which has installed a pair of drug dispenser machines in its stores. They identify users by their fingerprint or a unique number, demand PIN verification too, and then finally accept your prescription. Then -- and this is the really silly part -- a pharmacist comes along, picks up your prescription, fills it out, and deposits it in the machine for you to pick up. So it's impersonal and unnecessarily convoluted, great. PharmaTrust seems to have a slightly better idea with its videophone-equipped, ATM-style robo-vendor: it's intended to allow pharmacists to approve prescriptions off-site and out of usual working hours by letting them speak to you via videophone. It could in fact be a big benefit in more remote areas, depending on how patients take to it -- we'll know more when the trial starts up in participating hospitals this winter.
Printable prescription drugs heading to a pharmacy near you?
If researchers at the University of Leeds, Durham University, and GlaxoSmithKline have their way, some drugs will be custom printed for you at the pharmacy in the near future. Prescription drugs are usually about 99.9 percent filler and 0.1 percent actual medication, so the new method they're working on would involve printing the active drug onto the surface of a pill in the pharmacy -- meaning that drugs could be customized for each person, and multiple drugs could potentially be included in one pill. The process currently only works with about one percent of prescriptions on the market, but they're moving toward expansion in the near future.
RealD figures designer glasses might help the acceptance of 3D
The solution to consumers gripes over ill fitting and odd looking 3D eyewear? Offer up polarized lenses in designer frames, or even prescription strength for glasses-wearers. That's what some execs have suggested at the 3D Entertainment Summit, revealing plans for Gucci and other frames to hit stores ahead of the launch of Avatar in December. We're still anticipating serious sticker shock when 3D comes home next year, tacking on ultraexpensive options above the already hiked theater price seems like the perfect way to stop any momentum this trend has gained.
