Google Glass is lastly shattered
Again in 2013, Google tried to get approach forward of the augmented actuality recreation with its Google Glass headset. Though first billed as a tech recreation changer, the $1,500 price ticket and privateness considerations made it a wholesale industrial flop. However regardless of some belated success amongst medical professionals and first responders by way of Google’s 2017 Glass Enterprise revamp, the much-memed product by no means actually broke by means of to the lots. Yesterday, Google formally introduced the demise of its Glass product line.
In keeping with an organization assertion, headsets are not accessible for buy, whereas assist for Glass Enterprise Version will proceed by means of mid-September of this 12 months. “Thanks for over a decade of innovation and partnership,” writes Google, within the temporary finish to one of many extra notorious trendy tech rollouts.
[Related: Doctors are wearing the new Google Glass while seeing patients.]
Initially resembling frameless eyewear, Google’s headset included a small, rectangular, clear glass (therefore the identify) above the wearer’s proper eye. A miniature onboard pc system beamed bits of knowledge by means of the prism. Customers may then make the most of options like map instructions, photograph and video capabilities, and climate forecasts in entrance of them whereas sustaining a transparent imaginative and prescient of their surrounding, real-world surroundings. Future iterations resembled protecting eyewear designs, and have been typically utilized in industries equivalent to manufacturing facility manufacturing.
The announcement probably comes as no shock to most—alongside a “Wait, Google nonetheless made these?” from many others—because the Huge Tech large’s final version of Glass Enterprise got here out virtually 4 years’ in the past in 2019 alongside a $999 price ticket. Since then, Google’s chief rivals at Meta and Apple have poured huge quantities of money into their very own respective AR tasks. In 2021, Meta collaborated with Ray-Ban to launch camera-embedded sun shades, albeit with no augmented show options, and (till just lately) was going all in on pushing a “metaverse” expertise by way of its Meta Quest headset line. In the meantime, Apple is broadly reported to be on the cusp of rolling out its personal wearable AR/VR product line.
[Related: Best VR headsets in 2023.]
As CNBC additionally notes, the demise of Glass under no circumstances means Google is out of the AR recreation—removed from it, actually. Final summer time, the corporate unveiled a brand new prototype iteration of augmented actuality eyewear, though specifics like a launch window, value level, or perhaps a identify have but to be introduced. No matter its identify could also be, maybe it received’t be as straightforward to show right into a snarky pun as Google Glass.
