Google To Sell Smart-Glasses By Year’s End

By on February 22, 2012 in News 27

techGet ready for augmented-reality glasses that stream information to your eyeballs about the people and places surrounding you. Also, they will look like Oakleys worn by dads on motorboats. The New York Times writes:

People who constantly reach into a pocket to check a smartphone for bits of information will soon have another option: a pair of Google-made glasses that will be able to stream information to the wearer’s eyeballs in real time.

According to several Google employees familiar with the project who asked not to be named, the glasses will go on sale to the public by the end of the year. These people said they are expected “to cost around the price of current smartphones,” or $250 to $600.

The people familiar with the Google glasses said they would be Android-based, and will include a small screen that will sit a few inches from someone’s eye. They will also have a 3G or 4G data connection and a number of sensors including motion and GPS. The glasses will have a low-resolution built-in camera that will be able to monitor the world in real time and overlay information about locations, surrounding buildings and friends who might be nearby.

They will also have a unique navigation system. “The navigation system currently used is a head tilting to scroll and click,” Mr. Weintraub wrote this month. “We are told it is very quick to learn and once the user is adept at navigation, it becomes second nature and almost indistinguishable to outside users.”

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  • Anarchy Pony

    Hooray! More needless techno dependence. Dumbing down the human race, one pointless peripheral gadget at a time.

    • Misterfurious1

      Shhh…. Someone is going to call you a “luddite,” and all of your dignity, self-respect and integrity will magically disappear….. 

      • Anarchy Pony

        I have no problem with that. People that think every single instance of technological advancement is a good thing are going to be the death of our species. And thousands and thousands of other species, so they can go fuck themselves.

        • Liam_McGonagle

          This feels to me like a relatively trivial refinement of already existing technologies, and it doesn’t seem 100% certain to me how this is a definitive game changer one way or the other.  I’m having a hard time understanding what one of these things could do that a smart phone couldn’t be rigged up to do already.

          The overwhelming impression I get is that it’s one of the increasingly desparate quests for empty novelty that heralds the unset of major social unrest.

          • Anarchy Pony

            Fair enough, but I find the whole “enhanced” reality thing to be really dangerous, in a sort of innocuous way. Instead of actually using and refining your own skills of observation and navigation, you just let something do it for you, so then you make yourself that much more dependent on some convoluted gizmo, which then becomes considered as a necessity when it is no such thing. 

          • Liam_McGonagle

            That’s true.  If an atavistic solar flare whiped out the sattelite communications networks tomorrow there’d be a 30% decline in population by next Tuesday.

          • Anarchy Pony

            They don’t seem to get that you only ever really as strong as you are without your tech. Sure, you’re powerful and have access to lot’s of information now, but if you find yourself without access to the tech that enabled that, then you are a pretty pathetic little mammal, that probably has no idea how to survive in any given place.

          • Misterfurious1

            This. The problem is we have become slaves to our technology in more ways than one, despite the fact that our technology hasn’t really improved things all that much and in fact have made a lot of things worse. Other than ice cubes and toilet paper, that is. Having ice for cold drinks and something soft yet durable to wipe my ass has definitely made my life much more worthwhile…..

          • Anarchy Pony

            Pssh, with the right high fiber diet, and barring illness, you would likely never even need to wipe your ass.

          • Calypso_1

            For those who can program and use their own refined skills of learning and observation to overlay reality with content of their own creation this could be fun.  I would love to store my personal knowledge base in a psychogeographic masquerade -  a dérive of virtual ambiences and real-world experience foraging. 

          • Anarchy Pony

            There you’ve got a similar problem as that internet makes smart people smarter and dumb people dumber situation.

          • Okay.

             Are you not on the internet?

            Stop being so indignant and acting like some part of you is being insulted by innovating. If you wish to go off and live in some wild ass area in your hut, do so. Don’t cause commotion for others with your fear of modern progression.

            Also, nice pony reference. Shame you argue against things being technologically inclined, else you may be able to actually enjoy techn-

            OH WAIT.

        • http://hormeticminds.blogspot.com/ Chaorder Gradient

          I prefer pseudo high-tech. Like EMP Arrows (Patent Pending)

    • Troll Vanquisher

      Troll begone! It’s funny someone so against technology commenting on something like this, where you’re most likely commenting from an iphone or on a tablet. And I’m sure if this product is a hit he/she will be wearing these glasses if they come with a two year data plan.

  • Liam_McGonagle

    Interesting.  I might pick up a pair.  But only if they administer a brutal shock of electricity to deter you from going home with some hog under the influence of a Friday night booze cloud.  That would be the Killer Ap to End Them All in Wisconsin.

  • William

    So it’ll be hip to walk round with a streaming camera disguised as trendy sunglasses? WE are big brother, do doubt about it. If you see anyone wearing these they are a NARC. No-one likes a narc.

    • Liam_McGonagle

      True enough.  But I don’t see that being a simple, one-way street.  Like cell phone photography, it could nail as many cops as anyone else.  It just seems like such a huge burden for a country to shut down ALL alternate information outlets, not that they aren’t trying really hard.  Even under the worst imaginable conditions you still get these horrific Youtube video streams of kids being maimed and killed by government thugs in Syria.

      It’s probably a matter of cultural orientation.  The deck is definitely stacked in favor of the status quo, but its impossible to stop change altogether.  Not that the process will be pleasant, or that we’ll be alive to see the next turn of the wheel.

  • Jdftp

    I might be paranoid but it seems kinda  rather sketchy.. I mean whats does it really  even help with that we need or cant do? Just sayin…

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_JR6QMHI5D3L6Z4JJBSAKO4KJBE brock

    Just another small step towards our shiny cyborg future

  • chinagreenelvis

    Shadowrun. The commlinks are upon us. If corporations are to be granted extraterritoriality, you can be sure Google will be the first to fully utilize the right. They’ve already got their own arcology.

    • Calypso_1

      Let the Ghostdance begin.

  • http://twitter.com/Temped james hewlett

    this is how terminators are made

  • http://dbakeca.com Dbakeca Italia

    Sounds like fun… these glasses …do they make french fries?

  • Tchoutoye

    Reality is not quantitative. Whatever you add to reality, the result is still merely reality.

  • Ryguy240

    When do I get contact lenses that do this :)

  • Simiantongue

    Google goggles. You can now see the world through rose colored glasses. Weee.

  • Code

    big brother in the form of shiny sunglasses.