{"id":16658,"date":"2012-06-28T08:00:01","date_gmt":"2012-06-28T06:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=16658"},"modified":"2012-06-28T10:42:46","modified_gmt":"2012-06-28T08:42:46","slug":"google-glasses-a-step-closer-to-retail-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/hardware\/16658\/google-glasses-a-step-closer-to-retail-reality\/","title":{"rendered":"Google Glasses a step closer to retail reality"},"content":{"rendered":"

Google Inc<\/a> expects to roll out a consumer version of its electronic eyewear that can live-stream images and audio and perform computing tasks in less than two years, though it stopped short of putting a price tag on the “smart” glasses.<\/p>\n

Google Glass, as the technology is known, will be sold to consumers at a price “significantly” lower than the $1,500 that the company is selling it to U.S.-based software developers from early next year, Google co-founder Sergey Brin<\/a> said.<\/p>\n

Brin showed off the glasses at Google’s annual developer conference in San Francisco on Wednesday, providing the most in-depth public look at the futuristic technology since Google first announced the project in April.<\/p>\n

Google also unveiled its first tablet which it will start selling from mid-July for $199, hoping to replicate its smartphone success in a hotly contested market now dominated by Amazon.com Inc’s<\/a> Kindle Fire and Apple Inc’s<\/a> iPad.<\/p>\n

Google Glass is a stamp-sized electronic screen mounted on the left side of a pair of eyeglass frames which can record video, access email and messages, and retrieve information from the Web.<\/p>\n

In a high-octane demonstration of the technology, several skydivers wearing the glasses jumped out of an airship and landed on the roof of San Francisco’s Moscone Center, sharing a live video of the stunt with the crowd.<\/p>\n

Reporters at a briefing after the conference lined up to try on Brin’s personal pair of glasses, where they were able to watch a video of fireworks displayed on the small screen. The perspective in the video shifted as wearers moved their heads to look up, down or sideways.<\/p>\n

The glasses, which weigh less than some sunglasses, contain a wireless networking chip and essentially all the other technology found inside a typical smartphone – save for a cellular network radio – Google executives said.<\/p>\n

The battery is smaller than a smartphone battery, but Google is working on ways to make the battery charge last for a full day.<\/p>\n

Brin said he expects the glasses to be available to consumers less than a year after the developer version is available.<\/p>\n

Google is still experimenting with various aspects of the glasses, including potentially providing directions on the screen and the ability to have the glasses speak out text messages, Brin said.<\/p>\n

He said, in response to a question, that there are no plans to offer any kind of advertising on the device.<\/p>\n

Related articles<\/strong><\/p>\n

Google unveils Nexus 7 tablet<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Google Nexus Q streaming media player unveiled<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Microsoft unveils the Surface tablet<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Google Inc expects to roll out a consumer version of its electronic eyewear that can live-stream images and audio and perform computing tasks in less than two years, though it stopped short of putting a price tag on the “smart” glasses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":9213,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[25,53,2248],"class_list":["post-16658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hardware","tag-active","tag-google","tag-google-glasses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16658"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16658\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16666,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16658\/revisions\/16666"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}