Google Glass was supposed to be the eyewear of the future, but that future sounds pretty grim — at least if you read Reuters‘ latest report on the cyborg-like eyewear.
While Reuters doesn’t seem to have any evidence that the Glass project has been shelved — a notion which Google denies, naturally — Reuters does paint a surprisingly compelling picture of fading interest in the technology.
Nine of the 16 app Glass app makers that Reuters contacted said they’d abandoned their projects — including a guy who won $US10,000 for his efforts. “The Glass Collective,” a venture effort to fund apps for Glass, has quietly disappeared. Three of Google’s key employees on the Glass team have left. One source tells the publication that a consumer launch has been delayed, possibly till 2015.
Still, a launch is a launch, and Google says it’s still happening sooner or later. “We are as committed as ever to a consumer launch. That is going to take time and we are not going to launch this product until it’s absolutely ready,” the company told Reuters.
And though Google Glass didn’t have a splashy stage presence at this year’s Google I/O developer conference, the company didn’t exactly abandon it there. In fact, Google may be finding new uses for Glass in the workplace: Taco Bell and KFC are considering whether Glass could be used to help train employees.
Perhaps the real question isn’t whether Glass is doomed, but whether anyone would buy and wear a pair unless it’s part of the job description. Without a vibrant third-party app scene, that might be all they’re good for. [Reuters]
Picture: Google