Google this week announced “Project Glass” – a research and development program which aims to prototype and build an augmented reality (AR) head-mounted display.
Although this technology is not a new idea, the project is gaining media attention due to its backing by such a high-profile company, as well as the design concepts which are smaller and slimmer than previous versions of head-mounted displays. These early demos appear to more closely resemble normal eyeglasses, where the lens is replaced by a heads-up display, and may be integrated into people’s day-to-day eyewear in the future.
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| Google’s futuristic, Internet-connected glasses |
Project Glass is part of Google X Lab, a secret facility which has worked on other futuristic technologies including a self-driving car. The project’s intended purpose is to allow hands-free displaying of information currently found on smartphones, while providing interaction with the Internet via natural language voice commands, in a manner similar to the iPhone application Siri.
The New York Times reports that the glasses will be available for “around the cost of current smartphones” – $250 to $600 – by the end of 2012.
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