project glass

SAN FRANCISCO -- It's time to think of Google as much more than just a search engine, and that should both excite and spook you.

Search remains critical to the company's financial and technological future, but Google also is using the search business' cash to transform itself into something much broader than just a place to point your browser when asking for directions on the Internet.

What it's now becoming is an extension of your mind, an omnipresent digital assistant that figures out what you need and supplies it before you even realize you need it.

Think … 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

It could be a few years before the rest of us get the chance to take our own pair of Google Glass skydiving.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin told Bloomberg that the "Explorer Edition" of Project Glass will be delivered to developers next year and made available to the general public a year after that -- that means 2014. … Read more

We can now confirm that at least one human being not in the employ of Google has touched those mysterious Project Glass spectacles.

In an episode of Current TV's "Gavin Newsom Show," set to air on Friday, the host and California lieutenant governor dons the futuristic goggles with an embedded heads-up display that have been the subject of much speculation and some comedy over recent months.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin and his wife Anne Wojcicki -- co-founder of gene-mapping startup 23andMe -- guest on the show. Brin claims to snap a picture of Newsom, seemingly without using his hands, and then passes the glasses to Newsom to show him the shot. … Read more

How does Google and its high-tech-specs effort top company VP Sebastian Thrun's viral photo of a dad's-eye view of Thrun swinging his boy round in circles?

Easy. It puts the Project Glass spectacles on someone, puts that someone on a trampoline, then puts the setting on "video" and lets that someone start jumping and filming.… Read more

Google has received three patents for a "wearable display device" which appear to be the foundation for its Project Glass augmented reality glasses.

Company engineers submitted patent applications for a wearable display device last fall and they were assigned today.

There aren't detailed description attached to the patents, but the patent references the types of inventions you would expect, such as display designs for showing data and playing music.

Google's secretive research lab, Google X, announced Project Glass last month and showed off early prototypes of the device, some of which are now being tested by … Read more

You know what sucks about visiting Google? Seeing the Google Glasses but not being able to try them yourself. Thanks a lot, Vic.

But we are, slowly, learning more about this project. In particular, the prototypes that are appearing in the field, on TV, and in tantalizing interviews with online journalists are not capable of displaying the full-on, in-your-face type of augmented reality that 15 million people have seen in Google's demo video (and all the spoofs).

While Google+ chief Vic Gundotra didn't say much about the Glasses during an interview this morning, a later discussion with another spokesperson confirmed that the popular prototype model, as seen on Gundotra as well as Google X Lab founder Sebastian Thrun in a Charlie Rose interview, shows information above the wearer's usual line of sight, "about where the edge of an umbrella might be." … Read more

In today's show, Google takes us for a spin, ultrabooks are no longer ultra-pricey, and the iPad isn't just for humans anymore:

Hewlett-Packard announced several new thin and light laptops under the Envy brand. Some are officially called ultrabooks, equiped with Intel's latest Ivy Bridge processors, while less-expensive ones are called sleekbooks. But regardless of the different labels, it means high-quality thin and light laptops are moving into the $600 to $700 price range. (There's even a rumor that the MacBook Air -- the computer that kickstarted the ultrabook craze -- will drop its price to $… Read more

Google's Project Glass glasses might not be the most stylish pair of lenses you've ever worn, but a new image released by the search company shows how far they might go in changing the state of photography.

Google fellow and vice president Sebastian Thrun yesterday posted an image he took while wearing his Project Glass eyewear. In it, he's spinning his son, Jasper, around with both hands while the glasses he's wearing snap the photo.

Soon after it was posted, the image went viral on the Google+ social network, and it was reposted by company co-founder Sergey Brin, … Read more