The company has announced that it will no longer be creating this wearable technology in its current form.
The present form of Google Glass is no longer going to be produced, as the company has decided that while it wants to remain committed to the idea of wearable technology in the style of smart glasses, the current design is not the path that they want to continue to take.
It also reveals that the Glass team will be leaving Google X and will be forming its own unique division.
The current style of the Google Glass wearables is a cross between a headband and a pair of glasses. It uses a tiny display near one eye to display messages, calls, news, and more to its wearer. It has been available in the United States, to a limited degree, since 2013. The company posted on its Google+ account that the Glass team would no longer be working in the incubator labs of Google X and would be heading to their own division, which would continue to be managed by its head, Ivy Ross.
Google Glass has received a great deal of criticism over its current design, which somewhat of a test model.
In the new position, Ross will be answering to the Next Labs chief exec, Tony Fadell. That is the home automation company that was purchased last January by Google for over $3 billion. That said, Ross will still have the autonomy to continue to run the Glass project.
The Glass Explorer program will be shutting down today, January 19. The company’s Google+ statement explained that it had been “a kind of ‘open beta’ to hear what people had to say.” It went on to explain that “As we look to the road ahead, we realize that we’ve outgrown the lab and so we’re officially ‘graduating’ from Google to be our own team here at Google.” It did point out that “You’ll start to see future versions of Glass when they’re ready.”
That said, by the time this article was written, the company had not issued any specific information with regards to when the next Google Glass versions would be ready, or when their designs would be released as a sneak-peek.