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Google Glass 3.0? Google acquires smart glasses maker North
Google Hardware's latest acquisition is North, a wearables computing company that most recently was making smart glasses that seemed like a successor to Google Glass. Google Hardware SVP Rick Osterloh announced the purchase on Google's blog, saying, "North's technical expertise will help as we continue to invest in our hardware efforts and ambient computing future."
North developed and released a pair of smart glasses called "Focals," which came the closest we've seen so far to smart glasses that looked like normal glasses. First, the company didn't neglect the "glasses" part of "smart glasses" and provided the frames in a range of styles, sizes, and colors, with support for prescription lenses. The technology was noticeably less invasive, too. Google Glass's display surface was a transparent block distractingly placed in front of the users' face, but Focal's display surface was the glasses' lens itself. A laser projector poked out from the thicker-than-normal temple arms and fired into the lens, which has a special coating, allowing the projection to reflect light into the eye.
[...] Google's smart glasses contribution was, of course, the infamous Google Glass, which launched in 2012 and basically shut down as a consumer product about two years later. (North CEO Stephen Lake actually called Google Glass "a massive failure" in a 2019 tech talk. Awkward!) Most people would think of the product as dead, but Google quietly pivoted Glass to be an enterprise product for assembly-line workers, mechanics, doctors, and other professions that might benefit from hands-free computing. New Glass hardware came out as recently as 2019, with the "Google Glass Enterprise Edition 2," which featured a modern 10nm Qualcomm SoC. With Apple reportedly building a set of smart glasses, the consumer market will probably heat up again soon.
It's back.
Also at BBC.
Previously: Google Glass 'Enterprise Edition': Foldable, More Rugged and Water-Resistant
Intel Abandons Vaunt AR (Augmented Reality) Smartglasses
Intel's Vaunt Augmented Reality Smartglasses Concept Lives on at Canadian Company North
"North Focals" $1000 Smartglasses Reviewed
Related: Apple Glasses Leaks and Rumors: Here's Everything We Expect to See
(Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Thursday July 02 2020, @03:42PM (2 children)
I predict North employees have 3 years at the most. As for me, I'll add that particular brand as one never to buy or use, along with Vuze and countless other previous Google acquisitions.
Incidentally, when is that antitrust lawsuit coming? We're all waiting...
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday July 02 2020, @06:49PM (1 child)
WWGD?
What Would Google Do?
Most likely, take an interest in this project. For a while. Then abandon it.
What's wrong here?
Google has perverse incentives. No incentive to do the daily drudge work of maintaining and improving existing products. Too much incentive to create new products. Even products that overlap with existing products. Sometimes even 100% overlap.
Result: and endless treadmill of new products making your existing familiar products obsolete. Remember Google's attempt to replace Gmail with WhatWasItCalled? a few years ago?
It's not that I'm old and set in my ways -- it's that I expect some stability in products unless there is some really good reason to discontinue an old product in favor of a new but otherwise similar replacement product.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by acid andy on Thursday July 02 2020, @09:03PM
But what is the extra incentive they have to keep replacing their products? With Micro$oft I always said they kept changing the interface to make money on training courses.
I can understand it for products that people pay for, so they have to keep buying the replacement (like Apple do), but for free software where the customer is the real product, why risk replacing something when you already have a user base?
Or are attention spans so short these days and fads so popular that no-one wants to stick with the same product for more than a year or so anymore?
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?