Google made a huge splash when it first unveiled Google Glass and its tight knit $1500 ‘club-fee’ to enter the testing group for them. Glass had many accolades thrown its way as surgeons, first responders, firefighters, educators, police and many others were heaping their praises on the virtues and possibilities that Glass presented to the world. Even though they have received more refinement and app developers jumping on board to make them even better, there has been a huge campaign from many so-called techno wizards that Google has waited too long to release their product and that the frenzy that once existed is now a ‘who cares’ attitude.
Why would Google want to release a half-baked product? I still believe that Glass will be one of the hottest items when it is finally released for public sale – especially if priced properly…and why wouldn’t Google want them priced low enough for the average person to purchase them, after all, Google has made its billions in advertising, and that is exactly what Glass will be – an advertising mecca. If Glass has passed its time, then it certainly is not stopping other companies, such as Vuzix, from developing their own version of Glass, nor is it stopping some other big companies, such as Intel, from investing in these companies…Intel just announced that they will invest $25 million in Vuzix for a 30-percent stake. Vuzix will use the money to speed up its development of its next line of “fashion-based wearable display products” and Intel sees this wearables market as a huge growth area for its chipsets. Funny Intel didn’t see that happening with the smartphone and tablet market.
Intel’s general manager of new devices, Mike Bell, told the Web Summit conference in November that “We want to be in this space quickly. We’re like to help drive it. Wearables is one of those things where if someone doesn’t show leadership and make it happen, the hype won’t happen. We’re making a very big bet on wearables. We have announced we have a family of chipsets coming out in the next year that are wearables specific. It’s a pretty safe bet … Our plan is to partner with the best people, and have them teach us. We are trying to bring technology companies and fashion companies together.”
Please hit us up on our Google+ Page and let us know if you are looking forward to wearable Glasses or if you will pass on them. Is Google waiting too long to release Glass or are they simply fueling the market for such a product so that they can jump in and make their money off of advertising…as always, we would love to hear from you.