After two years of popping up at high-profile events sporting Google Glass, the gadget that transforms eyeglasses into spy-movie worthy technology, Google co-founder Sergey Brin sauntered bare-faced into a Silicon Valley red-carpet recently.
The
Googler, who heads up the top-secret lab that developed Glass, has hardly given
up on the product- he recently wore his pair to the beach.
But
Brin’s timing is not propitious, coming as many developers and early Glass
users are losing interest in the much-hyped, $1500 test version of the product:
a camera, processor, and stamp-sized computer screen mounted to the edge of
eyeglass frames. Google itself has pushed back the Glass roll out to the mass
market.
While
Glass may find some specialized, even lucrative, uses in the workplace, its
prospects of becoming a consumer hit in the near future are slim, many
developers say.
Plenty
of larger developers remain with Glass. The nearly 100 apps on the official
website include Facebook and OpenTable.
Google
insists it is committed to Glass, with hundreds of engineers and executives
working on it. Tens of thousands use Glass in the pilot consumer program.
Glass
was the first project to emerge from Google’s X division, the secretive group
tasked with developing “moonshot” products such as self-driving cars. Glass and
wearable devices overall amount to a new technology, as smartphones once were,
that will likely take time to evolve into a product that clicks with consumers.
Brin
had predicted a launch this year, but 2015 is now the most likely date for the
launch.
The
lack of a launch date has given some developers the impression that Google is
still treating Glass as an experiment.
In
April, Google launched the Glass at Work program to help make the device useful
for specific industries, such as healthcare and manufacturing.
0 comments: