glass

When Google co-founder Sergey Brin demoed Google Glass, the search giant's attempt to build a next-generation wearable computer, with skydivers live streaming their descent, it became very clear that Glass wasn't some side project -- it was Google's future.

Glass won't be available to consumers until 2014, but a select group of developers will have the chance to purchase the "Explorer" edition of Glass in early 2013.

Why is Google giving Glass to developers more than a year before its consumer debut? Simple: Google wants to turn Glass into the next major developer platform.… Read more

Friday's news roundup will have you eyeing Google's competition:

We've sung this tune before: Amazon is tinkering with creating its own smartphone. A recent Bloomberg report has the media buzzing again about the possibility, but we first heard this last year from an analyst. If true, would Amazon knock Windows from the No. 3 spot? I think we're just hungry for more choice.

Google wasn't the first company to tinker with a computerized headset for augmented-reality vision. With all the buzz on Google Glass, Olympus felt confident about sharing news on its Glass-like prototype. And … Read more

How often have you looked at the latest, greatest innovation from a big Silicon Valley name like Apple or Google and thought "Pretty cool, but I'll wait to see if Olympus has a better take on it"?

Well, there's a first time for everything.… Read more

Following Google's stunt-filled Google Glass demo, Apple is showing that it's also thinking about glasses, according to a patent granted today.

The patent application, filed on October 13, 2006, is for a wearable computing device that allows an image to be projected in a "head-mounted display apparatus." Sounds like cyborg status for sure.

The device will receive and process data to generate images on the display mounted in front of the user's eyes.

As The Next Web points out, the device's description indicates that the glasses would be less of a mobile display than … Read more

SEATTLE -- It was an unseasonably warm June evening, the kind of day locals rave about because they come so rarely. At 6 p.m., I hopped on my bike for an evening spin.

My heart-rate quickly raced up to 157 beats per minute as I picked up my pace to 14 miles per hour up a gradual rise in the road. At the same time, my blood-glucose level dropped to 62 milligrams per deciliter, low, but not dangerously so for a non-diabetic. All in all, pretty solid data, given that the night before I slept six hours and 21 minutes, waking for brief periods 21 times during the night.

Welcome to my cyborg life. Google has generated tons of press in recent days with its Project Glass, computerized glasses that lets users take pictures and find information. But it's hardly the only company pursuing wearable computing. And while Project Glass won't be commercially available for another two years at the earliest, there are plenty of companies selling devices that consumers can slip into and strap on to collect reams of data about their daily lives.

To get a glimpse of that future, I strapped on a bunch of those gadgets. Here's what I learned.… Read more

Can we agree that humanity is pickled?

Our politics are an embarrassment. Our economies stink far more pungently than a full trash can in 100-degree humidity. And our inter-personal relations are so lifeless that they are enacted without bothering to meet face-to-face.

So along comes Google, looks at the state of the world today and says: "What a sorry, irrational mess. We just can't let these sorts of humans dominate our culture. It just looks bad in the third-eyes of our alien friends."

Unlike so many corporate beings who bury their heads in the sand and simply … Read more

Following Apple's Worldwide Developer's Conference and iOS 6 announcements, as well Microsoft's surprise Surface tablet, Google had tough acts to follow at its Google I/O conference this week. But the company didn't disappoint its audience of 5,500 developers packed into San Francisco's Moscone Center.

In the video above, CNET's Stephen Shankland breaks down Google's array of product introductions and the action-film stunts that accompanied Google co-founder Sergey Brin's presentation on Google Glass.   

Sergey Brin stormed on the stage in his Google Glasses like Iron Man Tony Stark, prepared to give the crowd of 5,500 developers what he called an "awesome" display of technology and daredevil live action.

He gave the play-by-play as a troop of skydivers, bikers, and rope rappellers converged on the Moscone convention center, in a scene that could have been the opening sequence of a "Mission: Impossible" movie (if it wasn't part of Brin's Google I/O Glass demo). 

The skydivers made jumping out of an airship look easy. But before … Read more

Thursday's big headlines still have us basking in the Google gadget glow:

Google co-founder Sergey Brin says he envisions consumers buying Google Glass by 2014, just a year after developers get to experiment with the version called Explorer Edition. Right now only bleeding-edge techies at the Google I/O conference get to preorder the augmented reality glasses for $1,500. But once those models ship next year, it wouldn't surprise me to see some being sold for high prices on eBay.

Already, someone from the conference is selling the attendee freebie Nexus 7 tablet on eBay, if you … Read more