Google Glass to be powered by Intel

Google has partnered with chip maker Intel for its next Google Glass. According to a report by WSJ, the next Google Glass will be powered by Intel and will arrive in 2015.

Wall Street Journal reports that Intel chip will replace the Texas Instruments processor which currently powers Glass. The next Google Glass is expected to have a better battery life. This a deal between Google and Intel is said to be part of a wider push into wearable's by the chip maker. According to reports, Intel also plans to promote Glass to generate new business, including pushing glass in work capacity to manufacturing businesses, hospitals and others.

Although Google has been promoting Glass for a while now, the wearable has yet to capture a market share. It has shown promise in medical and other businesses and such a professional adoption might be the right direction that Google needs to promote Glass. Google's Glass at Work initiative aims to push Google Glass usage in such industries. 

Intel has recently ventured into the wearable market with its first ever MICA bracelet for $495. The wearable is meant for fashion conscious women and comes with a stylish design. The bracelets body is laden with semi precious stones and pearls. It has a 1.6 inch OLED curved sapphire display and comes with an inbuilt SIM card, 3G and GPS connectivity. Apart from this Intel has also planned a smartwatch with Fossil and a smart bracelet in collaboration with Opening Ceremony.

Is Google Glass just an Experiment?

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.

Many of the glass app makers have stopped working on their projects or abandoned them, mostly because of the lack of customers or the limitations of the device. Few more have switched to developing for business, leaving behind consumer projects.

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.