HUD Google Glasses are real and they are coming soon
We detailed the first information about the Google [x] Glasses project in December. … Since then, we have learned much more regarding Google's glasses... Our tipster has now seen a prototype and said it looks something like Oakley Thumps (below).
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the second beat in a story 9to5Google started in December 2011, when it reported that Google X's mystery wearable was a heads-up display rather than an iPod Nano clone. What has changed with this report is specificity: a tipster claims to have seen an actual prototype, described as resembling Oakley Thumps sport sunglasses, and The Verge's syndicated pickup adds that a public beta is reportedly under consideration.
The story traveled unusually fast for a single-source rumor — The Verge, TechCrunch, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, SlashGear, Geek.com, Android Community and WebProNews all ran versions on or about February 6, 2012 — which signals how much appetite there is for any concrete read on what Google's secretive X division is building.
First-order effects
- Google's glasses project moves from abstract rumor to a defined product shape — Oakley Thumps-style sport eyewear with a HUD — giving developers, press and rivals something concrete to react to ahead of any official reveal.
- If the reported public beta materializes, early users outside Google X would be handling the hardware while the design is still unannounced, collapsing Google's usual secrecy buffer between prototype and public.
Second-order effects
- Sport-eyewear makers like Oakley suddenly sit adjacent to a consumer-electronics category: frame design, weight and optics become competitive differentiators, pulling fashion and lens expertise into Android's hardware orbit.
- Rival handset makers watching Android's momentum — NPD reported Android led first-time smartphone buyer share in Q4 2011 — face pressure to answer with their own wearable programs rather than cede the next device category to Google.
Third-order effects
- A camera-and-display worn on the face points computing toward body-worn sensors as the next interface layer after the smartphone, with whoever controls the wearable platform inheriting the same search-and-services funnel Google built on mobile.
- Always-on, head-mounted sensing prefigures the data-rights fights that follow when capture devices are socially invisible — the governance questions around what such glasses record will land on regulators and platforms before consumers settle them.
The trend: Computing interfaces are beginning to migrate off the phone and onto body-worn displays and sensors, with Google's X lab positioned to make the first mainstream attempt.