Google announced last month that the Google Glass project is “graduating” from the famous Google[x] lab and the Google Glass Explorer Edition will no longer be available while the company works on a brand new version. The new team, led by Ivy Ross, a jewelry designer, and Tony Fadell, a former Apple product executive and creator of Nest, will be redesigning Google Glass from scratch.
Although the first Google Glass attracted a lot of excitement and attention when it was introduced to the public, it was eventually described as “the worst product of all time” by tech reviewers and seemed to quickly turn in to a joke (and more jokes).
The problem with the first version of Google Glass, according to some former employees, was that the team knew it wasn’t ready for the public but Sergey Brin and Google’s marketing team decided to let consumers in anyway. From there, the excitement and production took over and the group wasn’t able to quietly focus on fixing the bugs and improving the design. Instead, disagreements and personal issues within the team (like Brin leaving his wife for the Google Glass marketing manager) created even more dividedness. After that, Google Glass “seemed to wither away”, according to a recent article in the NY Times.
This time around the company does not plan to share any of the process with the public and will keep the project private until completely finished. Here are few things we can expect to see from the future of Google Glass:
- “The updated gadget will be cheaper and have longer battery life, improved sound quality and a better display”, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal.
- Google also plans to address the social stigma by changing the appearance of the gadget.
- As for the privacy issue, Google is “reportedly considering adding a light to show when the outward-facing camera is recording”, according to Tech Cheat Sheet.
Sources:
https://plus.google.com/+GoogleGlass/posts/9uiwXY42tvc?e=-RedirectToSandbox
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/05/style/why-google-glass-broke.html?_r=0
http://www.wsj.com/articles/google-makes-changes-to-its-glass-project-1421343901