We've been intrigued by Google's augmented reality glasses ever since we first caught wind of the top-secret project a few months ago, and now the company has come out with a lot more details about the venture. In a post shared on Google Plus Wednesday, the company released a teaser video showing off some of the remarkable features of the HUD contraption. Dubbed "Project Glass," the Google X Labs initiative is like a virtual alert system veil over your eyes, which responds to spoken commands as you make your way through your busy day.
In the demo video, we're placed in the shoes of a guy who's supposedly donned the futuristic frames, and we follow him as he accomplishes small missions all over New York City. He looks outside and checks the weather, looks up his appointments, shoots off a text message, navigates a new course when his regular route is blocked, sets a reminder, looks up a friend's location, snaps and shares a photo, controls his music and conducts a video call. Click on the embedded media below to check out the AR goggles in action yourself.
Google also revealed the design study for the prototype -- a silver wrap-around frame which looks exactly the odd sort of spectacle you'd expect from a science fiction story -- but "dozens of other shapes and variations" of the glasses are reportedly being built. According to The New York Times, we may even see augmented reality contact lenses in the future, since it's now possible to embed electronics into tiny contact lenses that will project pixels right into a person's eye.
The glasses are not yet for sale, but they could allegedly drop into the market by the end of the year. However, Google employees are already testing the glasses out in the public, so if you spot someone sporting a pair of the Star Trek-like bifocals, don't be alarmed. But you may want to duck out of their way lest they beam your identity up back up to the cloud.
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