Inside Google X's Project Glass, Part I
Google's Project Glass product lead Steve Lee walks us through his experience with the development of the company's sci-fi-inspired eyewear—from his team's “hundreds of variations and dozens of early prototypes” to his vision of the future.
Context & Ripple Effects
Project Glass has moved from rumor to demonstration in under six months: a December 2011 report pegged Google X's wearable as a heads-up display rather than an iPod Nano-style device, and by late April the team was showing it off publicly, including a photo of Charlie Rose taken from the headset itself. A week before this piece, The Verge published the first video sample shot through the hardware.
Fast Company's sit-down with product lead Steve Lee adds the development narrative those demos lacked: hundreds of variations and dozens of early prototypes inside Google X. It lands against a skeptical backdrop — Wired's April conversation with augmented-reality experts catalogued serious technical and social hurdles the glasses still face.
First-order effects
- Steve Lee's framing positions Glass as an unfinished experiment rather than a shipping product, managing expectations ahead of any consumer release.
- The disclosure of dozens of prototypes signals Google X is still solving form-factor basics — where the display sits, what the device looks like — before addressing the battery, camera, and social-acceptance questions AR experts raised in April.
Second-order effects
- Rival consumer-electronics makers watching Google's prototype cadence face pressure to show their own wearable research or cede the 'post-smartphone' narrative to Google X.
- Coverage breadth — Fast Company joined by The Verge and Engadget on the same story — turns each Glass demo into a media event, raising the cost for Google of any stumble in subsequent reveals.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, wearables become the next platform contest defined by design iteration speed rather than spec sheets, with heads-up displays competing for attention after the smartphone.
- Sustained skepticism from the AR expert community points toward a public debate over camera-equipped eyewear and privacy norms that will shape regulation and social acceptance regardless of whether Glass ships.
The trend: Personal computing is edging from pocket devices toward worn displays, with Google X's rapid prototype-and-demo cycle setting the pace for the wearable category.