Google Glass may have finally found its true calling thanks to the Glass at Work program.
Even Glass' greatest detractors can admit that the tech could prove highly useful in professional environments, where it can be implemented by the likes of doctors, lawyers, sports professionals, police officers, day traders, entertainers, and more.
After a mere two months of behind-the-scenes work, Google has rounded up its first five official Glass at Work partners, each of whom is working to develop Glass apps for businesses, industries, and professionals. Among the perks these partners enjoy are co-branding with Google Glass and listings on the Glass at Work website.
The partners were announced June 16 in a post on Google Glass's Google+ page. The five companies selected are as follows:
- APX Labs, which created Skylight, an app that provides hands-free, real-time access to enterprise data and information employees need to do their jobs.
- Augmedix, a service for doctors that gives instant access to medical records so they can spend more time with patients and less time on paperwork.
- CrowdOptic, a platform for broadcasting live events from Google Glass. Its app is smart enough to recognize worthwhile broadcast events and then offer that content for reuse by others.
- GuidiGO, a free augmented-reality app for museum tours that provides extra context and details in real time about the art and history on display.
- Wearable Intelligence, creator of a suite of apps for helping various industries to work more efficiently. Their clients work in energy, manufacturing, health care, and more.
"We've been searching for developers who are creating Glassware to help businesses reach their goals," the search company says in its Google+ post. "We heard from hundreds of enterprise developers and today we're excited to announce our first round of Glass at Work Certified Partners."
Google first began to develop the Glass at Work program in April 2014, one year after the first public wearers of Google Glass -- known as Explorers -- began wearing their headgear in public. Before the advent of Glass at Work, Explorers have already had access to apps that perform tasks like facial recognition, translation, photo manipulation, social sharing, health and fitness tracking, and more.
The hardware will no doubt be a hot topic at next week's Google I/O conference, which takes place over two days, June 25-26.
Companies interested in partnering with Google for Glass at Work apps are encouraged to contact Google. More information about the Certified Partner Program can be found at the Glassware Developer site.
