What Are Google Glasses? Sci-fi or reality?

Google has strategically leaked details on the Google Project Glass, an initiative of Google X Labs. For those of you not in the know, Google X Labs is a “top secret facility in the Bay Area” working on the most innovative and futuristic initiatives the company is developing. (So. James. Bond.) But what’s really interesting about the project is the terms the company is using to describe the impact of the technology: “putting you back in the moment.”

What is Google’s Project Glass?

Google Glass is the attempt to make wearable computing mainstream, and it’s effectively a smart pair of glasses with an integrated heads-up display and a battery hidden inside the frame.

Wearable computing is not a new idea, but Google’s enormous bank account and can-do attitude means that Project Glass could well be the first product to do significant numbers.

When will it be released?

It looks as though Project Glass will see a public release in 2014 at the earliest. Latest news is that developers will be able to get hold of ‘explorer edition’ units at some point in 2013 with a “broad consumer offering” arriving a year later.

What will I be able to do with Google Glasses?

According to Google’s own video, you’ll be a super-being with the ability to have tiny people talking to you in the corner of your eye, to find your way around using sat-nav, to know when the subway’s closed, to take and share photographs and to learn the ukelele in a day.

OK, what will I really be able to do with Google Glass? Is Google Glass a vision of the future?

Nobody knows. The idea is to deliver augmented reality, with information that’s directly relevant to your surroundings appearing in front of you whenever you need it. For example, your glasses might tell you where the nearest decent restaurant is, book your table, invite your friends and show you how to get there, or they might provide work-related information when you’re at your desk.

What information we’ll use it for, if we use it at all, remains to be seen: like Apple’s Siri, it’s a technology with enormous potential. It could even end up in contact lenses: one of the Project Glass team, Babak Parviz of the University of Washington, recently built a contact lens with embedded electronics. Sounds amazing and to be honest frightening as well, what do you think?

Diane von Furstenberg has already tried it at last NYFW!

By: Itziar Arriola H.