Google’s Sergey Brin has shown off the sunglasses-version of Google Glass, taking to the roof of the Moscone Center to demonstrate how the incredible skydiving stunt yesterday was done. So far, Google Glass has only really been shown with open eyepieces, though some of the Google testers have worn the wearable computer over the top of their own prescription eyeglasses.
Sergey’s version, however, has clip-in tinted lenses, which can seemingly be slotted into place to suit the conditions at the time. Google has also confirmed that there will be support for prescription lenses, though it’s not clear whether they too will be removable or if they are fixed.
Google has generally been coy on Glass details, but a few tidbits have emerged this week at IO. The headset will support WiFi and Bluetooth, though not 3G or 4G as originally rumored, and be able to tether to a nearby phone so as to share its cellular connection.
As for battery life, again, there are no official figures but a careless aside from Brin suggested up to six hours from a single charge. That will undoubtedly depend on what Glass is being used for, however.
Google began taking preorders for the developer version of Glass, the so-called Explorer Edition, at IO yesterday, priced at $1,500. The first units will be shipped in early 2013, with consumer versions due within a year of that.
If you’re not one of the lucky few who met Google’s requirements (be a U.S. citizen attending IO) and don’t have $1,500 to drop on an early dev unit of an unproven technology, you might be wondering, “when can I get my hands on Glass?” The answer, straight from Sergey Brin’s mouth, is 2014… hopefully. The Google big wig told Bloomberg that, if all goes according to plan, Google Glass will become available to consumers en masse sometime in 2014. Of course, how much cheaper they’ll be two years from now is anyone’s guess. But we wouldn’t expect the first-gen to be an impulse purchase. When you check out the video after the break, you might notice that Sergey is wearing a new set of Glass glasses (how’s that for awkward sounding), these ones with some snap in shades. If you’re wondering if progress could be made any faster, we wouldn’t count on it. Brin says he spends more than half his time on this project — which means Google is putting a lot of stock in the future of wearable computers. Check out the complete interview after the break.
Google Glass will not have a cellular data connection, at least initially, meaning wearers of the augmented reality system will need to rely on WiFi or tethering to get online. The headset demonstrated at Google IO yesterday includes only WiFi and Bluetooth technologies, not 3G or 4G despite early rumors, with senior industrial designer on the Google Glass project Isabelle Olsson confirming to ABC News that users out of hotspot range will need to tether to their smartphone for WWAN access.
Talk of an integrated cellular link first began prior to Google making Project Glass public, when rumors of the wearable display initially broke. Then, it was suggested that Google would equip the headset with either 3G or 4G connectivity, making the unit as a whole self-contained.
Whether that was ever true or not is unclear – Google could have attempted to include WWAN but decided to drop it over battery or size concerns, perhaps – but the current iteration lacks it, according to Olsson. The designer declined to give battery life estimates, though fellow project member Sergey Brin was overheard suggesting a roughly six hour runtime in a post-keynote meeting.
Google was forced to use USB connection tethering with Glass for its live-streamed skydiving stunt, having found the WiFi could not handle the extreme conditions. Otherwise the components are much akin to a regular smartphone, all contained in the oversized arm of the glasses.
Google’s IO 2012 keynote has been and gone, and while the developer event as a whole isn’t over, you can certainly tell where the focus is by what made it onto the opening agenda. I’d already laid out my expectations for IO over at the Google Developers Blog, but there have been some surprises along the way too.
Jelly Bean was the obvious inclusion, and Google balanced its enthusiasm about the new Android version from a technological perspective – with encrypted apps and the perfectly named “Project Butter” for smoothing out the UI – with features that will make more of a difference for end-users. The new notifications system should make a major difference to Android usability, meaning you spend less time jumping between apps, while the Google Voice Search should present an interesting challenge to Siri.
I’ll need to spend some proper time with “Google now” before I can decide whether it brings any real worth to the table. Proper understanding of context is sorely missing from the mobile device market- our handsets can do no shortage of tasks, but they still wait for us to instruct them – though there are potentially significant privacy concerns which I think Google will likely be picked up on sooner rather than later.
The Nexus 7 is a double-hitter of a device, the tablet response not only to concerns that Android developers were opting out of slate-scale app creation, but to Amazon’s strongly-selling Kindle Fire. $200 is a very competitive price, without cutting on specifications, and Jelly Bean comes with all the bells and whistles you need for a tablet OS.
Of course, OS support wasn’t what let Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich down, it was the significant absence of any meaningful tablet application support from third-party developers. The Nexus 7′s low price should help get test units into coders’ hands, at least, though it will take more than a fanfare this week to decide whether Android can catch up on larger screen content with Apple’s iPad.
As for the Nexus Q, I’ll take some more convincing on that. $299 is a lot for a device that also needs an Android phone or tablet in order to work, and Google’s awkward presentation didn’t do a particularly good job of explaining why you’d rather have a Nexus Q than, say, an Apple TV, a Sonos system, or even just a cheap DLNA streamer.
The big surprise today was Google Glasses. Sergey Brin’s “surprise” interruption of the IO presentation, sporting Project Glass himself and then summoning a daredevil army of similarly-augmented skydivers, stunt bikers, abseilers and others onto the stage was a masterstroke of entertainment, and you could feel the enthusiasm and excitement in the auditorium. That the segment ended with a pre-order promise – albeit one at a not-inconsiderable $1,500 – was a suitably outlandish high-point, though we’ll have to wait until early 2013 to actually see Google make good on those investments.
Google Glasses are a long way off. More pressing is how the Nexus 7 holds up to the Kindle Fire (and, though it may not be quite a direct competitor, the iPad) and how quickly manufacturers can get Jelly Bean out to existing devices. Google may be putting a new system of early Android update access into place to speed that process for future iterations, but it looks to have come too late for Jelly Bean updates. We’ll have more from Google IO 2012 over the rest of the week.
Google aims to get its Google Glasses augmented reality headset shipping to consumers within a year of the $1,5000 Explorer Edition arriving with developers, the company has confirmed. That consumer version will be “significantly” cheaper than the Explorer Edition prototype hardware, Google co-founder and Glass project lead Sergey Brin told TechCrunch, though this won’t be a race to the bottom.
Instead, the team responsible for Glass has said, the priority will be balancing quality and affordability. No indication of what sort of final price will be settled upon has been given, but wearable eyepiece specialists have already – and separately – estimated that augmented reality headsets of Google Glasses’ ilk will most likely come in at around the $200-500 mark.
In the meantime, Google will be counting on developers to get up to speed with Glass. The cloud-based API they will have use of will be “pretty far along” by the time the Explorer Edition goes on sale, and Google’s own engineers are already testing Gmail, Google+ and other Android apps on the wearable.
As for battery life, Brin was overheard suggesting he had seen six hours of use from a charge, though it’s unclear what settings were enabled at that time. It’s already been confirmed that Glass will be able to locally cache content rather than upload it immediately, or indeed stream low-quality footage while caching higher-quality versions for later use.
Google made keynote history at IO yesterday, skydiving Google Glasses into the venue with the help of a team of stunt bikers and rappellers, and now the company is sharing some behind-the-scenes details. Unsurprisingly, an extreme-sports demo like that requires some practice, and Google has released a video of some of the test jumps Project Glass accompanied, which you can see after the cut.
Despite suggestions otherwise, Google insists that all of the in-flight footage was recorded using Glass. “The higher fidelity footage was recorded locally on the device whereas the hangouts were live streamed at a much lower resolution because of the challenges of networking a skydiver inflight” Google co-founder Sergey Brin said. ”Because we were unable to get regular wifi (which is built into Glass) to work under those conditions, we had to use extra networking gear which was tethered via usb to the device.”
According to Brin, the company will be revealing more details about the stunt after the second Google IO keynote later on today, weather permitting. Google has already begun taking preorders for the Glasses, priced at $1,500 for developers attending IO, and with deliveries expected early next year.
If you’ve not watched the full, surprise keynote appearance of Google Glasses – complete with a jump from a blimp down onto the roof of the Moscone Center – then you can find the must-see video here.
We already told you that Google’s Project Glass was shown at the Google I/O keynote today where the company revealed further details of the device. But if there’s one thing that mesmerized us during the event, it’s the video demo of Project Glass that Google co-founder Sergey Brin presented to us while explaining the capabilities of the device. Some gutsy guys in the video were skydiving, doing bicycle stunts, and rapelling down the building while wearing Project Glasses.
But unfortunately, not everyone got the chance to watch the thrilling video. Thankfully, Google published a video of Project Glass a few hours ago showing the highlights of the stunt. Sergey Brin said that he wanted to share the one-of-a-kind demo for all of you guys to enjoy. The video is about 2 minutes long and it features We Were Promised Jetpacks’ Quiet Little Voices song. And oh, there’s also another rough video of the epic moment during Sergey’s keynote speech this morning. You can check it out here.
Phew! On the heels of big events from Apple and Microsoft, Sergey and co. got their time to shine at the Google I/O event this week in San Francisco. The show kicked off with a a keynote that featured insight into Android Jelly Bean, the unveiling of the Nexus 7 tablet and Nexus Q media streaming device, plus some seriously amazing demos of Project Glass, among others. Was the two-hour-and-change press conference enough to push Google out in front of the competition? Check out our thoughts after the break.
Being an early-adopter is seldom cheap, but is Google having a laugh with its $1,500 Project Glass Explorer Edition? Put up for surprise pre-order at Google IO today – though not expected to ship until early next year – the search giant demands a hefty sum for those wanting to augment their reality early. Cutting edge costs, sure, but there’s the potential for significantly more affordable options that could be here just as soon as Google Glass is.
Google isn’t the only company working on wearables, after all. Back in March, eyeline display specialist Lumus confirmed to us that products using its technology were in the pipeline for 2013, with prices ranging from $200 for more basic models – perhaps just offering media playback – through to $500 for more advanced versions with what we’d think of as true augmented reality.
It’s not the only company working on AR projects, either. We caught up with Vuzix this month to take about its own smart glasses intentions, including the display technology it has been working on with Nokia Research. The company wouldn’t talk specific pricing, but did say that it was aiming more for the mass market and that Project Glass “is not the grail we are seeking.”
Of course, there’s a big difference between a developer kit and a commercial product, and there’s no telling exactly what Glass will do quite yet. Google has been playing its cards close to its chest on that front, only really showing camera use-cases, though we’re also expecting some other functionality like navigation. Still, even if Lumus’ estimates were to double by the time products reach shelves, that’s still a fair chunk less than Google is asking.
So, don’t feel too down-heartened if you’re not at Google IO to preorder a Glass Explorer Edition, or can’t muster the $1,500 Sergey Brin demands. Augmented reality and wearable tech is fast approaching its tipping point, and with that will inevitably come more affordable options.
$1,500? That’s a lot for some highfalutin’ glasses, but we just couldn’t resist. After wrapping up with the keynote, both myself and Darren Murph hopped in line and signed up for our very own pairs of Project Glass Explorer Edition devices. After completing a not-particularly-thorough sign-up process — which, by the way, does not ask for a credit card — those who agree to the terms of service receive an actual piece of glass with their number floating in the middle. This will match the serial number of the Project Glass device that will be shipped sometime next year. When will lucky numbers 782 and 788 be rolled? You can be sure you’ll be first to know.
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