It has been nearly two years since Google Glass was publicly introduced as the future of smart eyewear, but Google has yet to escape the public derision that has surrounded its new technology. In fact, a new report published by Reuters points out that Glass may never be able to redeem itself from the stigma of being worn by Glassholes and may be dying an early death.
Google co-founder Sergey Brin himself, chief of the Google X Labs that heads Google's moonshot projects, including Google Glass, stepped out at a red carpet media event for the first time without his trusty Glass on, fueling further speculations that Google is giving up on the hotly hyped but now hotly hated eyewear. Asked about where his Glass was, Brin reportedly said that he left it in his car.
Despite the potential of Glass to become a particularly useful piece of technology for certain specialized fields, such as health care, military and manufacturing, it's not turning out to be a big hit for consumers, who view the device as a way for inconsiderate nerds to inconspicuously take photos and videos of other people in public without their knowledge and consent. Developers and investors who adopted the technology early on are feeling the impact of the lack of public support.
Reuters reports that more than half of the Glass developers it has spoken with say they have dropped their Glass app projects mostly due to the lack of consumer adaptation. While many of the larger developers, such as Facebook and OpenTable, are sticking with the platform, one major developer, Twitter, kickstarted what could become a mass exodus.
Adriana Vecchioli, creator of an app that marks the location of objects by taking pictures with Glass, says having to wear the device on the face was a major obstacle that prevented consumers from adapting the technology. Vecchioli says she has cut back on time working on her app because Glass users didn't wear their eyewear often enough and other people reacted to Glass users negatively.
"If there was 200 million Google Glasses sold, it would be a different perspective," says Tom Frencel, CEO of Little Guy Games.
Little Guy Games is one of the developers who abandoned its Glass app project and is currently working on projects centered on Facebook-owned Oculus Rift. Like many early adopters, Little Guy Games was initially attracted to Glass as a revolutionary new platform to play on. However, when consumers did not welcome Glass the way Google hoped they would, developers started looking to other devices that are more widely accepted by the mass market, such as wrist wearables.
"Developers like cutting-edge stuff but, ultimately, they're slaves to volume, in terms of the number of devices being used," says John Jackson, mobile technology analyst at IDC.
It's not just developers jumping ship, though. A number of key Glass personalities, including creator Babak Parviz, have left the Glass team to work on other projects. In July, Parviz resigned from his position as lead developer to work at Google rival company Amazon, leaving along with electrical engineering chief Adrian Wong and developer relations director Ossama Alami.
Google has also quietly taken down its website for its Google Glass-funding efforts. Dubbed The Glass Collective, the effort was initiated by Google's investment arm Google Ventures in partnership with major venture capitalists Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Andreessen Horowitz.
Visitors who go to the website are now redirected to the main Glass website. Asked about the site's closing down, a Google Ventures spokesperson told Reuters that "it's easier for entrepreneurs to come to us directly."
Google insists it is as enthusiastic as ever about the direction that Glass is going, with tens of thousands of Glass users and hundreds of Google engineers and executives working on a consumer Glass version. The company has even hired former Calvin Klein executive Ivy Ross to work on Glass, presumably to give the device the "cool factor" it currently lacks.
"We are completely energized and as energized as ever about the opportunity that wearables and Glass in particular represent," says Chris O'Neill, head of business operations for Google Glass.
Moreover, some developers remain optimistic about the future of Glass. Popular running and cycling app Strava, for one, says its users are happy about how Glass is able to provide them real-time statistics about their performance.
DriveSafe, a company that created an app that helps prevent drivers from dozing off behind the wheel, says Glass is essential to its existence.
Google is also partnering with business establishments in a program called Glass for Work to develop Glass apps for the workplace. Boeing and Taco Bell, for instance, have jumped in. A healthcare initiative called CrowdOptic, which is currently implemented in 19 hospitals around the country, lets medical practitioners use Glass as portable computers as they move in and out of their offices.
Even so, a source tells Reuters that Google has yet again pushed back the launch of a consumer version of Glass to 2015. Brin had been gunning for a 2014 public release, but given the fact that the end of the year is just around the corner, it's likely that a Glass launch won't happen until 2015.
