Google glass

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[Kaos]

My vu is dejaing

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http://www.economist.com/node/21557818?fsrc=scn/fb/wl/ar/theeyeshaveit

Wearable computing
The eyes have it
Google advances its plan to bring smart glasses to the masses

Jun 30th 2012 | SAN FRANCISCO | from the print edition

GOOGLE has an ambitious vision for spectacles. On June 27th Sergey Brin (pictured above), one of the company’s co-founders, revealed the next stage of Project Glass, its effort to create wireless-connected glasses that allow their wearers to do a host of things, including receiving and responding to messages, and taking and sharing photos and videos. The goal is to get prototypes in the hands of software developers early next year and then to sell a more polished set of specs to consumers in late 2013 or early the following year.

A product of Google’s secretive X Lab, whose mission is to push the boundaries of computing, the glasses were on show at the company’s developer conference in San Francisco along with several other gizmos, including a cheap tablet computer and a new wireless media player for the home. These gadgets attracted plenty of attention, but the longest queues at the event were at booths where folk were trying on Google’s goggles.

That is hardly surprising because the glasses seem like something out of a science-fiction novel. A tiny transparent display towards the top of one lens allows wearers to see text and images by glancing upwards. And the spectacles can be controlled using either voice commands or a somewhat bulky touchpad integrated into one of the arms. Mr Brin says the goal is to “get technology out of the way” so people can, say, take videos without having to pull out a camera or smartphone each time they do so.

Google’s glasses reflect a growing interest in wearable computing, which many experts think could be the next big thing in personal technology after smartphones and tablets. But some tech veterans give warning that designing novel devices people feel comfortable wearing is an especially tricky task. “In general, the first attempt at producing new computing paradigms rarely sticks,” notes Sumeet Jain of CMEA Capital, a venture-capital firm.

If Google’s glasses are to prove an exception to that rule, the firm will have to meet several challenges. One is to refine their design so that wearers don’t look like nerds from a laboratory. Another is to assuage inevitable concerns around privacy that the glasses will raise. The firm will also need to reassure people their eyeballs won’t be blitzed with advertising, which is Google’s preferred way to mint money. Mr Brin stresses the aim is to make a profit on the glasses themselves, whose mass-market price will be well below the $1,500 developers are paying for a pair. That should make them worth a close look.