Google Glass Is Dead, Long Live Google Glass

DumbSwede writes BBC reports on the demise of Google Glass as we know it: Google Glass sales halted but firm says kit is not dead. One can only assume there will be dissatisfied early adopters and developers given Google's decision. Here is to hoping Google Glass 2.0 (assuming there is one) will be better received. The Verge expands a bit on the re-org that the linked BBC article mentions, as a result of which Google Glass moves from the Google X incubator to its own division: Google's announcing today Glass is "graduating" from the Google X experimental projects incubator to become its own independent division — a division that will report into Nest's Tony Fadell. Current Glass head Ivy Ross will retain day-to-day authority, but she'll report to Fadell. Nest itself will remain separate and independent, and Tony will still be in charge there as well.

Comments

My company bought a Google Glass

[Tetetrasaurus]

...and it's sitting in a box in the corner, having failed to adequately meet the needs of any of our ideas to use it with our products. And we really tried too. Epic fail.

Glass was doomed from the start

[mrchaotica]

Glass never had a chance, not because of the privacy issues but because it just didn't actually have the processing power or battery life to do anything useful. Considering the guy who designed it has worn wearable computers for more than a decade, I expected better.

Re:Glass was doomed from the start

[JaredOfEuropa]

I've seen few applications that wouldn't be better or more conveniently served with either a GoPro or a Smart Watch. The one application that I would have jumped on was banned by Google: facial recognition. I'm seriously bad at remembering names and faces, and having a HUD showing people's names would be some help in overcoming this social handicap.

It was never really for sale

[Russ1642]

Until it's on a store shelf it isn't for sale. It was never advertized as a consumer product. It wasn't even promoted. To get it you had to go out of your way to even find out where you were supposed to get the damn thing.

Not surprised

[Elledan]

Best way to judge how successful a new technology is going to be is to look at how many clones stream out of China. Haven't seen a single Google Glass clone so far. Cloners may be cheap, but they're not crazy :)

Good idea...outside of the public eye

[ErichTheRed]

One of the things that I always thought about Google Glass was this -- it has a billion good uses for work, but is stupid and creepy when you start walking around in public with it. It's creepy in more than one way - there's the "everyone thinks you're a stalker" thing, the weird head gestures you need to make to control it, the talking to yourself, and also the "Google now knows exactly what my eyes are tracking in any given image" kind of creepy. I'm not a millenial, so I probably sound like an old coot, but Google already knows enough about us - phones, search, Gmail, etc.

Now, that all goes out the window when you're talking about work use. With all these cloud data centers hosting thousands of racks of servers, maintenance techs would be able to get real time info. Warehouses would be able to show human forklift drivers where stuff is. Aircraft and car mechanics would be able to get manuals without having to print/read paper job cards. Stuff like that is very useful - walking around with them in public is a different story.

Maybe Google is realizing this and tailoring future devices for certain applications.

Re:I hope this still comes to the industrial secto

[Anrego]

I honestly think we'll see the kind of jobs requiring that being automated before we see better tools for those jobs. The days of people going around warehouses gathering stuff on a list are coming to an end.

adios Explorers

[kencurry]

Got my official "see you later, dude" email today. quick takes:

The Good:
Display was quite good.
No visual acuity problems for far-sighted eyes
Good for hands free access to your phone

The Bad:
Terrible battery life
Poor public image
"Google vs. Apple" crappy tactics i.e., poor iPhone integration [We are trying to break new ground, why do we need that sh*t involved?]