Sunday Times 2
Google kills off Glass
Google has halted sales of its controversial Glass wearable computer – but promises new versions are coming.
The troubled product has failed to fire the public’s imagination, with wearers dubbed ‘glassholes’ and even many Google employees abandoning them.
After an initial burst of enthusiasm, signs that consumers are giving up on Glass have been building (Reuters)
The company insists it is still committed to launching the smart glasses as a consumer product, but will stop producing Glass in its present form, according to the BBC.
Google told the BBC it will focus on ‘future versions of Glass’.
According to the report, Glass will switch from its dead Texas Instruments chip to a processor built by Intel and will get a full hardware refresh.
Late last year, of 16 Glass app makers contacted by Reuters, nine said that they had stopped work on their projects or abandoned them, mostly because of the lack of customers or limitations of the device. Three more have switched to developing for business, leaving behind consumer projects.
However, plenty of larger developers remain with Glass.
The nearly 100 apps on the official web site include Facebook and OpenTable, although one major player recently defected: Twitter.
‘If there was 200 million Google Glasses sold, it would be a different perspective,’ said Tom Frencel, the Chief Executive of Little Guy Games, which put development of a Glass game on hold this year and is looking at other platforms, including the Facebook Inc-owned virtual-reality goggles Oculus Rift.
‘There’s no market at this point,’
© Daily Mail, London