Tuesday, August 14, 2012

The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades

And not just any shades, I mean Google's Project Glass shades. Project Glass is a pet project of Google co-founder Sergey Brin and is touted as the next form of computing, an augmented-reality lens that provides access to online data such as weather, mails and messages. It takes the form of a pair of glasses that takes photographs, facilitates social networking and communication on the internet while storing everything on a cloud, all this, without hindering your ability to see. Google is currently in talks with several eyeglass manufacturers to tie-in sales for custom frames for Glass.

Project Glass is part of Google's strategy to adapt to the increasing shift to online mobile platforms, which now account for approximately a third of all Google searches, while creating a legacy product akin to Apple's iPhone that places technology in our lives in such a fashion that makes it essential and makes it feel like a natural extension of ourselves.

For those interested in it's features, Glass is expected to be voice-controlled via an Apple Siri-like voice engine as well as by gestures. Swipe gestures on the touch panel on its side control basic navigation while a button on the top serves as the action button for everything else. Additionally, a single gesture - a quick jerk up with your head, turns off the screen and sets the device into a sleep mod.
Though the commercial release of Project Glass is still sometime away, it will be available for $1,500 to those attending the Google I/O event. After this test run, and gathering product feedback, Glass is expected to be made available next year.

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