Google to reveal smartphone glasses: reports

May 13, 2017

By Mariya Karimjee

Google is stepping up the competition against rival Microsoft and taking on the latter’s Office software by offering products accessed over the Internet.
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By the end of the year, we'll all have the option to wear a pair of Google-made glasses that will stream information to our eyeballs in real time, The New York Times reported today.

The glasses are expected to cost as much as a smartphone (in the $250 to $600 range). The glasses will be Android based, come equipped with a 3G or 4G connection, and will include a small screen that will sit a few inches from the wearer's eye.

Seth Weintraub, a blogger with 9 to 5 Google, first wrote about the glasses last December. He discovered more information about them this month, revealing that the glasses would look like Oakley Thumps.

According to Weintraub's blog:

The navigation system currently used is a head tilting to scroll and click. We are told it is very quick to learn and once the user is adept at navigation, it becomes second nature and almost indistinguishable to outside users.

While the technology isn't supposed to be used 24/7, it comes with a cloud for storing information like Google Maps and Google Latitude.

They'll also come with a low resolution camera that will "monitor the world in real time, and overlay information about locations, surround building and friends who might be nearby," Fox News reported.

And while that sounds kind of creepy, according to The Times, the Google X team has been discussing the privacy implication of the glasses, as Google wants to ensure that people know if they are being recorded by someone wearing a pair of glasses with a built-in camera.