More details about Project Glass are making their way into the media.
9to5Google reports that Project Glass used to be called “Project Wingfront”. Apparently there has been some turbulence among the team. Seth Weintraub reports: “Additionally, my understanding is that there has been a lot of strife in the Wingfront group over the past few months. Product people complain that they need time to iterate and perfect the experience, while management wants to get these into the outside world as soon as possible. Some strong tensions in the group are getting even more heated as more people are brought in.”
The Verge spoke with Brin after the dinner where he was photographed wearing the glasses. Bryan Bishop reports:
The Google co-founder told us that the glasses are still very much at the early prototype stage. While he said the company doesn’t usually like to announce products so far in advance, Google had done so in this case in order to collect feedback on what people think of the concept, and how they would like to use the product itself — something which he said the company has already found “very useful.” While a fully-functioning product was presented in Google’s announcement video, the prototype glasses aren’t quite there yet, with Brin commenting that “right now you really just see it reboot.”
He declined to clarify whether the prototypes were self-powered, but did state that Google hopes that the final product will be able to connect to all kinds of different devices. The glasses will also need to undergo the usual RF radiation testing seen with wireless devices, an issue the Google co-founder cited as being of particular importance to him — presumably to assuage concerns about strapping what amounts to a smartphone to your head.
Brin also said to give them time when he was asked if the glasses would be available this year.
Weintraub says he has a source who says that a decision has yet to be made about whether Google will hand these things out at Google I/O. With the event taking place in June, and judging from Brin’s comments to The Verge, I’d be very surprised if that happened, though Google could still show them off. They didn’t hand out Google TV devices when they showed that off in 2010.
As we looked at in a previous article, many people have doubts about Project Glass, but others are practically frothing at the mouth over the possibilities. I have to admit, I’m intrigued (and a little scared) about what Google glasses might be capable of if opened up to developers for liwemitless creation (especially in light of all of the talk about “Girls Around Me”).
And of course, there’s always the potential for bodily harm comically portrayed in some parody videos.