Google Glass Exits Incubation and Enters the Nest
However you feel about the emerging wearables market, many rightfully have found the notion of Google Glass over the top. Given its obvious potential to distract one's attention, it should be illegal to wear them on the streets and certainly when driving.
Google's announcement yesterday that it will end the Google Glass experiment on Jan. 19 was inevitable since all experiments come to an end. On the other hand, Google has a history of labeling new products or services either tests or beta for an extended amount of time -- remember when Gmail was a beta product for more than five years despite the fact that millions were using it?
Certainly millions weren't using Google Glass and given its $1,500 price tag, it's also not surprising that Jan. 19 is the last day Google will offer it. The company's announcement yesterday that it is moving Google Glass from the Google X research labs headed by Glass chief Ivy Rose into the Nest unit run by Tony Fadell makes sense.
Nest is the company that manufactures and sells network-enabled smart thermostats, which Google acquired last year for $3.2 billion. A few months later Nest also acquired Dropcam for $55 million, the provider of cameras which, like its thermostats, have built-in Wi-Fi connectivity.
Some reports are cheering the demise of Google Glass though the company seems to have future plans for it. Hopefully the Nest division will focus Google Glass on the practical usage: for vertical and specialty functions that can give medical practitioners and all kinds of field workers a tool to do useful things they are now incapable of doing.
Posted by Jeffrey Schwartz on 01/16/2015 at 12:32 PM