Google
Glass, the company’s ambitious smart-glasses project is no longer
available in an Explorer Edition for interested buyers. Towards the end
of January, Google made a shocking announcement that it was halting
sales of Google Glass’ Explorer Edition which cost $1,500 and was
available on the US Play Store site.
So
is Glass as we know dead? Wired’s Cade Metz says it is far from dead
and has done a detailed story pointing out how many firms in the
medical, industrial sector are still relying on Glass. According to the
report, “Google is selling these companies as many devices as they need,
and by all appearances, it’s ramping up the number of Google employees
working to turn Glass into something more than a consumer gadget that
looks funny on your face.”
One
such company that continues to rely on Glass is Brain Power, a startup
that hopes to convert Google Glass into “a neuro-assistive device” for
autistic children. According to the report, “Glass can provide
instruction while kids are engaging with other people, and its
accelerometer can track how well they’re responding.”
BrainPower’s
founder Ned Sahin also defended Glass and told Wired, that “it’s
(Glass) still a much-matured device, certainly compared to the wearable
stuff coming out of startups and other companies today.”
For
starters, Glass was one of the most awaited projects from Google and
given that Google co-founder Sergey Brin was seen roaming everywhere
with Glass, most had assumed that it would be a matter of time before
the device would be made available to the public. After the end of the
Explorer sales, New York Times‘ Nick Bilton did a detailed story
highlighting exactly how the whole Glass project went off the rails. He
pointed out how Glass had always been a prototype in the eyes of even
those who were working on the project.
It
should be noted though that no one had ever said that Glass was
entirely dead. The Wired piece for instance does have some
contradictions where Glass’ use is concerned and points how even Astro
Teller, the head of Google X, couldn’t wear the smart-glasses because
“it was just frustrating.” The piece also end up repeating the point
made by New York Times’ story: Google Glass was hardly a finished
product when it was released to the public.
Also
it was clear even though sales of Glass were stopped, the device would
continue evolving at Google. A big indicator to this was the fact that
Glass was made into a separate division, one that now operates outside
of Google X. Glass is now headed by veteran marketing executive Ivy
Ross and Tony Fadell, who played an instrumental role in the design of
Apple’s iPod and Nest Labs’ smart thermostat, a company that Google
bought for $3.2 billion last year.
NYT
had pointed out Fadell will “redesign the product from scratch” and
that “there will be no public experimentation.” If Fadell does redesign
the product, we are unlikely to see it hit the market, at least the
consumer version, anytime soon, which might actually be a good thing.
Earlier in November Wired had also done a piece on how killing Google
Glass was perhaps the only way to save it.
The
article had noted how Google’s failure with hardware and the high price
of Glass meant that it wasn’t cut out for commercial success, at least
not yet. The report had quoted JP Gownder, who covers the wearable
device market for Forrester Research, as saying, “People don’t know what
to do with these devices.”
From
the looks of it start-ups like Brain-Power are able to use Google Glass
for medical benefits where autistic children are concerned. But as the
NYT piece had rightly pointed out for now the general public hasn’t
really embraced Glass.
Posted by : Gizmeon
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