Project Glass: Google Eye Or Googly-Eyed?

By Tech Wire Asia | 9 April, 2012

Google’s Project Glass — a heads-up display (HUD) concept in an eyeglass frame, could be renamed Google Eye, according to some reports. The HUD delivers the Internet to you in a small clear screen, and also works as a smartphone. The research team behind Project Glass see technology as a tool that works for people when they need it, something that can be tucked away when not in use.

A group of us from Google[x] started Project Glass to build this kind of technology, one that helps you explore and share your world, putting you back in the moment. We’re sharing this information now because we want to start a conversation and learn from your valuable input. So we took a few design photos to show what this technology could look like and created a video to demonstrate what it might enable you to do.

Concept HUD smartphone Project Glass / Google Eye may be the next step in mobile computing. (Image: Google)

The Project Glass team released a video on the concept, showing how the HUD shows messages, video calls, updates and other relevant information. It becomes your virtual assistant — all through voice commands. The comments on the Project Glass G+ page run the gamut from insightful to downright hilarious: (R. Lepage) “SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY”. Over 21,000 people gave the idea a (+), while 10,000 shared the news since it launched Thursday last week. Google likes to publish official-looking April Fool’s jokes, so some people were understandably wary.

Blogger Josh Constine dug deeper and found out Google took dibs on the GoogleEye.com domain in 2003. So the possible name for the HUD monocle may just be Google Eye — IF the search giant decides to actually produce it.

With the rise in so-called Internet addiction all over the globe, it might soon be easier to get your fix of G+, tagging your location on Google maps, plus sharing cool pics and videos along the way. I know, too Google-centric, but they will definitely be incorporating all their products into this next evolution of mobile computing. Google should consult with Apple (or Oakley) designers to help make Project Glass / Google Eye more sexy, it looks a bit drab right now.

If and when Google Eye comes out, we might soon see googly-eyed people walking around, one eye squinting into the monocle like Victorian counts. I just hope we won’t look like the person in the following picture.