The story isn't over for Google Glass, the enterprise-connected AR headset. Although the original product didn't make a lot of noise, it did encounter a bit of controversy with its clunky appearance, but Google didn't give it up. Instead, the company moved away from the consumer market with the Glass Enterprise Edition. And now, Glass gets another update to Glass Enterprise version 2 announced today by Google. The new AR glasses feature some key improvements, with USB-C for faster charging, Bluetooth 5.0, Android Oreo (using AOSP), and a new Qualcomm Snapdragon XR1 chip for improved vision and machine learning. The new chip should save power while improving performance. The Glass team also worked with Smith Optics on special security frameworks, which opened up the product to more work environments.
All work and not play.
Even though The Glass feels like it's becoming a reality, even if it becomes popular enough that the team behind it returns to Google after Google's parent company Google Alphabet's Google X program. It's still not a consumer gadget. Technology advances and more powerful computer vision appears everywhere from independent cars to smartphone cameras. But between Glass Enterprise Edition 2 and Microsoft's HoloLens 2, the safest bet for viability remains business, at least for now. Most average consumers who need resolution-assist tools won't need them all the time, and as such tools start to appear on smartphones, you have little reason to buy a $1,000-plus device. Even for the few consumers who can justify buying a pair of glasses with a built-in camera to share photos with friends, there are much more affordable Snapchat glasses to meet their needs. So even if Google Glass gets a big upgrade and returns from X to Google, the long-awaited future where we use augmented reality glasses in our everyday lives hasn't arrived yet, but we might start looking for it in the years to come instead of. job.