Google Glass

Glass is a display device similar to augmented reality glasses developed by Google and introduced at the I/O conference in June 2012. On April 15, 2013, the Glass Explorer edition was released to qualified developers for $1,500. While the consumer version went on sale on May 15, 2014 in the United States.

On June 23, 2014, Google announced that Glass had been released outside the US and reached UK consumers for €1,000, with the option to purchase the device in the following colours: Red, Black, Green, White and Blue. At the Google I/O 2014 conference, one of the absentees was Glass, but days later it was announced that the device would receive an upgrade in terms of its hardware, changing the RAM from 1 GB to 2 GB, in addition to adding new applications. The glasses currently sold include 2GB of RAM, but owners of an earlier model won't be able to upgrade.

It went on sale again on July 23, 2017, but with the cooperation of 11 companies that will sell Google Glasses.

The goal of Glass was to show information to mobile phone users hands-free, while also allowing access to the Internet through voice commands, similar to what Google Now offers on Android devices. The operating system will be Android. The Glass project is part of the company's Google X arm, which has worked on other futuristic technologies, such as an autonomous vehicle. The project was announced on Google+ by Babak Parviz, the electrical engineer who worked on installing the lens screens; Steve Lee, project manager and geolocation specialist; and Sebastian Thrun, who developed the online university Udacity and worked on the Google Car autopilot project for which Google has already patented Glass.

On January 15, 2015, the company announced that it would stop production of the Glass prototype.

The hardware

• Camera: Google Glass has the ability to take photos with a resolution of 5 Mpx and record a video of 720 pixels.
• Touchpad: The right temple of the Google Glass device has a touchpad that allows users to control the device through gestures such as swiping and pressing the touchpad.
• Additional lenses: These lenses have 2 loose Ray-Ban lenses (can be black or clear).

In addition, other companies such as Rochester Optical have also launched a line of prescription lenses for Google Glass.