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Google Glass sales halted

444 points by kerrsclyde 12y ago

deleted 12y ago
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DonHopkins 12y ago
What's a narcissistic douchebag to do for attention, now? https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10151579664444655 https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/1015157966444465...
- DonHopkins 12y ago
  "7. On that note, don't give one to Robert Scoble" http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/google-glass-2-0-eight-things-address-if-next-generation-headset-succeed-1483755 http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/google-glass-2-0-eight-things-addre...
lgleason 12y ago
From the glass-community forums they are not shutting down and will still support existing warranties etc..... My understanding is that there are some exciting things in store for the platform.
owly 12y ago
yay! no more glassholes. seriosly though, they should have given them away to every popular actor and musician out there and pay them to use at events and concerts.
yupyupnice 12y ago
let us rejoice ;)
SocksCanClose 12y ago
augmented reality's first home run will be in the mundane industrial sector where it can be used for training, inventory management, logistics, and any number of other things. i take this as a cautionary tale of product-market fit. as mark andreessen says, where a market exists and a competent but not visionary startup finds itself, the market will often "pull the product out of the startup." that obviously didn't happen here. i think it is because glass was both narrative AND product. narrative meaning that glass was supposed to be a transformational product, meant to elevate google from a search company to a product company. they weren't going to let the product find its market (my thesis: industrial). instead, pushed it to the market they wanted it pushed to (consumer), because it fit a narrative they _wanted_ to be true.
cpeterso 12y ago
Google should rename Google Glass to "Googly Eyes".
jtlienwis1 12y ago
I don't know what to say about Google glass, but the women at 3:57 of the BBC video is IDDG, intellectually drop dead gorgeous. Capturing her smile with $1500 glasses would be worth it.
jonpress 12y ago
"Instead it will focus on 'future versions of Glass' with work carried out by a different division to before." Is that division made up of people from Magic Leap by any chance? http://gizmodo.com/how-magic-leap-is-secretly-creating-a-new-alternate-rea-1660441103 http://gizmodo.com/how-magic-leap-is-secretly-creating-a-new... The next step is to project 3D images directly into the eyeballs!
emodendroket 12y ago
Wow! Who could have anticipated this? Shocking.
- banana69 12y ago
  Yeah, we were planning apps for it too... Sigh.
zirkonit 12y ago
Not really unexpected, the writing was on the wall. It's a shame though, Glass hate is coming from the old school, technophobe camp. While it _is_ a clunky, underdesigned, underpowered piece of tech, we should aim for sleeker, more powerful, more useful head-mounted computers… instead for no HMC at all.
- vernie 12y ago
  I think your assessment of Glass detractors is way off.
- saosebastiao 12y ago
  I'm not anywhere near technophobe but I definitely hate Google Glass. It has less to do with the technology than the type of person that gloms onto it and what it enables them to do. Examples: Talking loudly to oneself in a restaurant/bus, not watching where one is walking, elitist or showoff attitudes, lax attitude toward invasion of privacy, etc.
  - waqf 12y ago
    Do you remember when we used to say the same about people with cellphones?
    - saosebastiao 12y ago
      We still do say the same about (some) people with cellphones. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/17/lakeysha-beard-kicked-off_n_863149.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/17/lakeysha-beard-kick... But many, if not most people have learned how to respect people around them while owning and using a cellphone.
    - _almosnow 12y ago
      >Talking loudly to oneself in a restaurant/bus, not watching where one is walking, elitist or showoff attitudes, lax attitude toward invasion of privacy, etc. Are you implying that doing these things with a cellphone is now alright?
sambeau 12y ago
So, is this good news or bad news for current Glass owners? If it was me I think I'd be upset to see that my expensive piece of kit had effectively (if not officially) been end-of-lifed. (if not for Google themselves but almost certainly for any 3rd-party developers.) But, I suspect some people would like the new exclusivity and perhaps the rare collectibility?
- lnanek2 12y ago
  Disappointed owner here. I'm a developer, but I'm not going to write software for a product that isn't even for sale. There just won't be enough users, and even if I wrote something that justified the cost of buying it, people couldn't. That said, it was very clear last Android update that Google just isn't capable of supporting the TI chip any more. It was horrendous.
  - turnip1979 12y ago
    Me too. Kinda annoying I paid 1500 to be a beta tester for a product that never properly launched. Explorer ... yeah.
- Chronic30 12y ago
  Are you really that surprised that Google shut down one of their products?
- owenwil 12y ago
  It's pretty bad; it seems Google is sunsetting the product. We just don't know if that means it'll turn off the servers that support it too, yet.
- msabalau 12y ago
  I wouldn't want to speak for other explorers, but if a next gen commercial product can build on the potential, create a better product, and create a way for developers to make money, that's a great thing. The current iteration and program seemed to have reached the end of its ability to generate new insight. I'm happy with my participation, it was a chance to play around with a bit of what the future could be like. It was like owning a Nokia internet tablet back in the day. You could see what it would be like to make (skype) calls , stream music, and use apps on a connected computer in your pocket. But that didn't mean that one didn't think it was a great thing when the iPhone came out, and pushed the vision at consumer scale.
deleted 12y ago
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tedunangst 12y ago
So what will Scoble do when his pair breaks? How will he live?
psbp 12y ago
I'm not sure what it means for the future of Glass, but doesn't the title and most of the content of the article undermine that it's being moved to an actual product division?
- kolencherry 12y ago
  The title is sensational and meant to be clickbait. It does not focus on the fact that by moving Glass to an actual product division, Google is expressing commitment to the ecosystem and the product. Edit: "Glass at Work has been growing and we’re seeing incredible developments with Glass in the workplace. As we look to the road ahead, we realize that we’ve outgrown the lab and so we’re officially “graduating” from Google[x] to be our own team here at Google. We’re thrilled to be moving even more from concept to reality." https://plus.google.com/+GoogleGlass/posts/9uiwXY42tvc https://plus.google.com/+GoogleGlass/posts/9uiwXY42tvc
  - aaronbrethorst 12y ago
    ::cough:: http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com
untog 12y ago
And by "Glass programme" they mean the Explorers program, not the entirity of Glass itself, which is being moved from Google X to something less R&D-y, in the hands of the Nest CEO. Probably about time - Glass needs to sink or swim already.
- owenwil 12y ago
  It's more specific than that: current versions of Google Glass are dead and are planned to be sunset. So, Glass, as we know it, is dead.
  - AlyssaRowan 12y ago
    This is totally not a surprise regarding the current version of Glass. To paraphrase briefly: Google Glass = ti OMAP 4430 → Texas Instruments axed the OMAP division → no more (closed source) driver updates → no more easy kernel updates → no more Android/system software updates → end-of-life. ☹
    - guyzero 12y ago
      Exactly. This is like the G1 being discontinued. It's a product EOL, not a product line being killed.
      - vmlinuz 12y ago
        If the G1 had been discontinued at 3 days' notice - and without there being a replacement already on the market - I'd have expected people to have some pretty harsh things to say about the future of Android...
fidotron 12y ago
Aside from the mismanagement of the software/hardware associated directly with Google Glass the true problem it had was the contradiction between the benefits of the user and those around the user. The single greatest thing about Glass, and it really was brilliant, was the ability to take pictures that almost perfectly captured your field of vision. This is, however, the precise feature those around you might take objection to. Take that feature away and Glass really has no use at all. The irony of this is it's not hard to conceal cameras on people in order to record their surroundings if you're so inclined, and the reception to Glass just demonstrated how opposed people are to this when it's a visible intrusion, regardless of the actual threat presented.
- forgottenpass 12y ago
  The irony of this is it's not hard to conceal cameras on people The idea that something is technically possible but socially unacceptable is not irony. Concealing something socially unacceptable is not ironic. Expressing disapproval of someone openly breaking social norms is not inherently ironic. The idea society runs on trust is not ironic!
  - ignostic 12y ago
    The person you're responding was clearly just saying that it's funny how uncomfortable people were about being recorded by Google Glass, while covert methods of recording are not difficult but rarely worried about. Take it easy - we know what was meant. No need to get pedantic about the definition of "irony."
    - 0xDOOD 12y ago
      >while covert methods of recording are not difficult but rarely worried about. Unless you're a woman who's ever worn a skirt in public, gone to a gym, or used the changing room in a store.
      - avar 12y ago
        ...or a guy who's used the changing room in as store. What's so different about being a woman in that context?
owenwil 12y ago
Based on what Google's implying with this Glass news, seems it wasn't happy with the product and wants to change course. Now that it's an actual product division and they're killing the current iteration, I'd expect we don't hear anything for a long while until there's something new.
- psbp 12y ago
  I don't understand how moving it from (a highly public) R&D to a product division means that we'll be hearing less.
  - lnanek2 12y ago
    This was sort of a public beta, like GMail. A product division won't show it to anyone until it is done. Maybe even hide it in a fake casing like so many phones.
  - owenwil 12y ago
    Google is scaling back its plans while it works on new designs and ways of presenting the product to avoid what happened with the Glass program.
cddotdotslash 12y ago
Sometimes, technology is simply ahead of its time. Honestly, I don't see a fit for Google Glass in society right now. That will likely change in three or five years, but right now, I feel there needs to be some kind of evolution to where Google Glass is considered "normal." It has already started with wearables - smart watches, fitness bands, etc. But it needs to expand in a more logical way before Glass can be included in that list.
- robmcm 12y ago
  Most things are tried a few times before the technology or society is really ready. Take the Newton and the iPad, I can't think of a product category which hasn't been tried before and failed. When you have a screen on your glasses or contact lense I can't see how it can't succeed.
- jdmichal 12y ago
  The watches and bands are just piggybacking on the fact that those things are considered normal already. Having a more connected version of the same without drastically changing the form factor is a nothing. However, Bluetooth earpieces still aren't considered "normal". I have no idea what it will take something like Glass to reach that status. They will probably have to very closely match the size and shape of normal frames, if the watches are any indication.
- bsder 12y ago
  > Honestly, I don't see a fit for Google Glass in society right now. There's a huge fit for Google glass. But there is no high volume huge fit. And Google doesn't care about low-volume as they can't move enough ads across it.
- sthomas1618 12y ago
  I think the concept is ahead of its time, but definitely not the technology. The whole problem with Glass is the technology simply isn't there yet: it is way too big. If you could fit Glass into the size of regular pair of sunglasses, I think it would have a huge appeal. (Or in my dream sci-fi scenario, contact lenses). As it is right now, its obvious and cumbersome. The mere sight of it is intrusive and awkward to those around you. I want the HUD capabilities of Glass, but without the weird stares of those around.
ChuckMcM 12y ago
So some speculation (since we on the outside can never be sure, and when I worked at Google it was always interesting to see the difference between what was reported vs the reality inside the company.) I've always felt that consumer products were going to be really hard for Google to pull off. It reminded me of Intel trying to make an LED wristwatch in the early 80's. Too much consumer 'hands on', too much industrial design. Neither of which Google are strengths. I expect glass is dead, all the money they might have invested in making it real they spent on Magic Leap, and now its up to the Leap guys to be the 'visual interface to Google.' The small android experience will fold into the IoT part of Google (Nest) and that will be that.
- fidotron 12y ago
  One of the most stinging criticisms I've heard of Google is that they just don't get products. They can, in some cases, do services, but the idea that something ever reaches a finished state in which everything is complete doesn't seem to be part of their DNA. It's as if they are an eventually consistent system that is constantly moving towards a state of consistency that they never completely reach.
  - danieldk 12y ago
    It's as if they are an eventually consistent system that is constantly moving towards a state of consistency that they never completely reach. They have some products which were nearly perfect. For instance, the Chromecast is more or less finished. It's not intended to be a game console or something to have apps in on a television. It's an extremely cheap device that allows you to stream a tab or from apps. That vision is well-executed, because it is cheap and works well for streaming. Of course, some people will have gripes about the Chromecast, but the fact that a device that looked incredibly boring at the start is now a pretty big success indicates that for many people it's exactly the product that they want.
    - hessenwolf 12y ago
      The chromecast thing is great. It's an ugly little widget that comes in an overly-fancy box and does what it's supposed to. However, it's terribly advertised, and it still annoyingly says "beta" all over stuff. I feel like I bought it out of some kind of anonymised side-door at the back of the warehouse.
xacaxulu 12y ago
"calls end to" apparently equals "moved to another division for continued development on different timeline". Linkbaitish title.
- ebbv 12y ago
  Yeah I mean you could be right, or the claims that they will still be releasing it, etc. could be face saving so as to not spook investors by the amount of money that was squandered on Glass. It's hard to know which one it is without further details like what division? How big is this division? What kind of timeline? etc.
  - giarc 12y ago
    I doubt many large investors bought into google without knowing their desire to fund moonshot programs.
    - ebbv 12y ago
      It's not the initial investment, it's the continued investment after it was obvious to most people that it was a bad idea. That's what wall street tends to have objections to.
      - giarc 12y ago
        If you are talking about Wall Street investors, then they have no excuse for investing in a company that loves pet projects. They have all the research at their fingertips. I could understand if Joe from down the street invested $25,000 in GOOG and is now pissed because he thought they would try harder or whatever.
    - aetherson 12y ago
      First: you might be surprised. Second: Glass isn't just any GoogleX project. It's the most publicized and most heavily bought into except perhaps the automatic car. Large investors may well expect Google to chase some dead-ends, but to kill them before they get to the prominence and public stature of Glass. There are plenty of other reasons why Google might save face on Glass -- there might be internal morale reasons or the pride of an executive or wanting to keep competitors guessing.
uptown 12y ago
Disclaimer: I never tried glass. But the actual product screens I saw never seemed to come close to the slick marketing demo they showed with the parachuting guys.
saosebastiao 12y ago
Google Glass took a good idea for some contexts and mass marketed it to a completely different context where it's primary feature was mostly useless. HUDs and AR make a ton of sense when you need to augment human knowledge, intelligence, and sensory in real time with voice as the primary user interaction. Flying fighter jets, driving race cars, fighting on a battlefield, working in complex and unsafe industrial operations, etc. AR doesn't significantly augment your experience of riding the bus to work, ordering dinner at a restaurant, taking a walk around the block, or even most forms of labor (manual or otherwise). So not only did Google Glass not have much of a benefit, but it had the drawback of annoying countless people who had to be around the glasshole who never stopped yapping at their glasses.
- cLeEOGPw 12y ago
  They fell into trap of "product/service that seems to be wanted by a very large amount of people a little bit", instead of making it for a niche market where small amount of people need that item very much. PG was right, even the smartest people make these mistakes.
- Fuxy 12y ago
  That's the problem. You actually need to talk to your glasses which can be annoying and distracting to some people. Now if you could talk to you devices without actually talking it would be great. Like they do in "Ghost in the Shell"[1]. [1] http://anidb.net/a247 http://anidb.net/a247
- usrusr 12y ago
  There isn't quite as much money in targeting ads at fighter jet pilots as there is in targeting ads at people riding the bus. Asking Google to not do glass for the guy on the bus (fighter pilot or not) is like asking them to not do it at all, given the nature of Google's business. Which, in hindsight, might have been the right call. The Nest division, where glass seems to be headed now, could maybe evolve into a completely new branch with a more straight forward business model, more product than platform. Maybe there glass could still be salvaged, surviving as a simple, focused HUD tool for the "jet pilot", after failing as a pervasive wearable for the guy on the bus.
auvi 12y ago
This is a speculation but I think Google is dropping Glass because they are convinced that Magic Leap will be the winner. We have to wait to see what comes out from Magic Leap.
mkawia 12y ago
Why don't they just pivot . GoPro is not a mainstream product but they are very successful
- daenz 12y ago
  I don't think Google needs to pivot this project to be successful.
bitemix 12y ago
I think we place too much emphasis on visuals simply because they're more readily at-hand for the individual user, even when doing so forces those around that individual far outside their comfort zone. It creates a barrier, putting both sides on the defensive, at odds with each other. Meanwhile, we drastically underestimate the potential utility of non-visual sensory augmentation. For instance, a hidden device providing vibrotactile information could provide far subtler, lower-level cues about the world around us, even to the point of widening the human experience to nearly limitless novel senses [0]. That's the direction I'd love to see us move wearables and technology in general: pervasive, yet unobtrusive. [0]:http://www.mase.io/tech/wearables/2014/10/23/wearables/ http://www.mase.io/tech/wearables/2014/10/23/wearables/
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jimrandomh 12y ago
The sad thing is, many of the problems which sank this incarnation of Glass would have been fixed by the community if only they'd released the source code.
- dreamweapon 12y ago
  But the biggest problem of all with Glass -- its affect on other people around the Glasshole wearing it -- had nothing to do with source code, of course.
stevebot 12y ago
I remember when it first came out and developers in my area would kind of gloat over it and being one of the chosen "glass explorers". they would wear it to meetups and brag about the apps they were developing for it. I'm kind of glad that it flopped in its current form and that those days are over.
radicalbyte 12y ago
One of the largest supermarkets in the UK have just released their own Google Glass app. http://www.pcpro.co.uk/wearables/1000284/google-glass-app-launched-by-tesco http://www.pcpro.co.uk/wearables/1000284/google-glass-app-la... Nice timing.
donpdonp 12y ago
Google Glass was ahead of its time, for a while. They re-engineered the guts of a cellphone to fit into an eyeglass frame. The visual 'cube' that forms the display was a novelty and kept the project within the bounds of whats possible to be manufactured today. Then Google came across a fiber optic eye-ball projector that made the Glass visual interface look like an 8-Track of the Doobie Brothers. They immediately realized this and dumped a half billion dollars on the project, Magic Leap. http://gizmodo.com/how-magic-leap-is-secretly-creating-a-new-alternate-rea-1660441103 http://gizmodo.com/how-magic-leap-is-secretly-creating-a-new... Some day, Google will spring a productized version of this on the public and it'll be like nothing before, including Oculus. Its the best shot we've got at 'true' augmented reality.
- MrScruff 12y ago
  While I'm excited about Magic Leap as well, I don't see it in the same category as Oculus. AR will certainly be useful, but less so for the 'experience' type audience that VR is seeking. But yeah, probably worlds ahead of Glass for AR.
- daturkel 12y ago
  Glass actually offloads most of the work to your phone, rather than fitting all that hardware inside the frame.
- 3_2__1 12y ago
  Google will never bring a Glass-like product to market successfully. Period. They are incapable.
  - andrewfelix 12y ago
    You need to elaborate. Adding the term 'Period' doesn't magically strengthen your argument. Genuinely interested in your rationale though.
alextgordon 12y ago
If Google wanted to sell it to the world, they should have first made it without the camera. Later on when people are comfortable with the form factor: add the camera. This is how we have ended up with mobile phones with cameras that nobody seems to mind about. Phones only got cameras halfway through their life. By then, it was too late to stop.
- Mangalor 12y ago
  Allowing customers to look like they are surveilling other people was a radically Orwellian-seeming move. It amazes me that Google was OK with this from the beginning.
  - eyeareque 12y ago
    You do know how google figures out what ads to show people? They collect everything they can about you :)
  - fixermark 12y ago
    It amazes me that people still worry about this when humans already walk around with two cameras connected to better resolution and light-level management hardware than the glass camera embedded in their skulls, and the input of those cameras, converted to audio, is generally admissible in all courts of law.
    - slavik81 12y ago
      It may be sharable through speech, but a picture is worth a thousand words. Even the most detailed prose leaves much to the imagination. I don't think I'd even care if someone told a story about accidentally seeing me naked, but I'd be pretty pissed off if they were sharing a video.
      - avar 12y ago
        What if they had photographic memory and a lot of drawing skills and were able to produce a drawing of you naked that was indistinguishable from a photo? Should we ostracize those people from society?
Isamu 12y ago
I was hoping this would be useful at some point for my daughter, who has low vision. So I am hoping that augmented vision catches on, in more than just niche categories, so that the hardware can evolve more quickly. It probably needs to be carefully separated from the recording capability, to work around the "creepy" factor.
ereckers 12y ago
I see it as something like Google Wave, a bit before the market is ready for it with a terrible form factor. However the technology and intent is correct. These things will be back, but they won't be Google Glass, they'll be the "GoPro of Google Glass". Probably single function at first, cool looking, wearable/usable, with modders and hobbyists starting to build out functionality piecemeal until they have something really cool. And back to that form factor, I'm just a regular guy, and I wouldn't be caught dead in these things. When the visual impression of your product is Robert Scoble wearing them in the shower, you know you're doomed.
huhtenberg 12y ago
It's the camera. Google made a massive mistake by bundling the Glass with the camera. Camera is the reason for the backlash and the seriously tainted brand ("glassholes" and such). Of course they couldn't launch it as is. Though I wonder if they learned the lesson or if they will just hold a pause and relaunch it with no hardware changes.
Pxtl 12y ago
Glass should not have been pushed at the cellphone consumer-good fashion-accessory market until they had something swanky that actually looked tasteful on a set of glasses. At the current price-point? Enterprise would be the only market that would pay $1000 in decent quantities for such a niche device. If they could get it down to $200? It could be great for the GoPro set.
chaostheory 12y ago
If I didn't read this line I would feel that it would be a dead product: > She and the Glass team will report to Tony Fadell, the chief executive of the home automation business Nest It sounds like they're just transitioning the responsibility to an Apple vet who has good taste.
dghughes 12y ago
Sales halted of something I could never buy even if I had the money.
mmanfrin 12y ago
Google's Lisa. Maybe I can recoup the cost 20 years down the road as a collectors item.
thankyouu 12y ago
Thank the lord.
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- eknkc 12y ago
  I think you should blame the rock more.
mrslx 12y ago
i would absolutely love to use my glass at my desk when working. would do wonders to clear away all the apps i'm running for notifications and constantly checking my phone to see if i got a text or missed call from a client while i was in a meeting or drafting an email.. the major prob is the product is heavily focused on google services. if they came out swinging with a mac notifications app and ios app - i would use it all day. but they didnt, it sits in my drawer as something i use for show and tell.
tmwh91 12y ago
The glass team sent this email to Explorers: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8895743 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8895743 tldr; all XE development stopped as of Monday
amikula 12y ago
It seems to me that Glass wouldn't have suffered half the backlash it got if the original release had excluded the camera. Even if everybody was just grumbling about how useless the product was without a camera, people still would have bought it, and it probably wouldn't have gotten half the bans or negative press it ended up getting.
- shadowmint 12y ago
  That's always been the problem with glass; it's not an AR application platform, it's just an awkward mini-screen floating in the middle of your face. Without a camera it would have been so pointless no one would have bothered to look at it. (seriously, can you imagine the sky diving demo sans camera? 'What was thing thing on his face?' 'No idea, I think it was showing him tweets or something')
- bduerst 12y ago
  That's doubtful. It was a $1500 accessory that never really solved a common problem. Many confused it with Augmented Reality, even the top comment on HN. If anything, it's analogous to the segway - ie. an expensive, niche piece of technology seen as a novelty.
aledalgrande 12y ago
I bought one for dev purposes, and I was never really convinced about the design (even being a prototype). It looks nice, but it is unbalanced on a side, they could have put an extra battery on the other side, the official blog was just talking about Instagram-like uses (who is that had that horrible idea?) and the screen was not great.
hnriot 12y ago
not a big surprise, they've all but completely disappeared from sight around S. Another Segway, but I doubt Google were ever serious about Glass, it was a demonstration of Google as committed to being a futuristic hi tech company. The problem with the product is that people like the compartmentalization of the smartphone, you take it out of your pocket to take a photo, nothing surreptitious. And to be honest, the smartphone just does a lot more. This is going to be the challenge that the Apple Watch will also face, it competes with the smartphone for your attention and has to add enough additional value to justify the product segment. Meanwhile, it's no big deal, products come and go and some end up with much smaller target customer base, although I suspect Glass is (as Segway was) being considered for a few specific markets but over the coming year or two will just vanish only to be revisited in a decade but with holographic projection (a la R2D2) and streetview-like surround-camera and built in plethora of biometric sensors that all feed into the big post-Singularity GoolgleBrain to provide it's eyes, ears and voice...
3_2__1 12y ago
"An update on Google Glass..."
rbrogan 12y ago
Wondering if Google had always expected this and Glass was a long-term strategic move or if this was unexpected and should be considered a blunder.
koolkoder 12y ago
Glass doesn't add any value to your life
tdicola 12y ago
Weren't they building some insane barge in San Francisco and New York to be a consumer showcase for Glass? Guess that's sunk now.

444 points by kerrsclyde 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

What's a narcissistic douchebag to do for attention, now? https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/10151579664444655 https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/1015157966444465...

DonHopkins 12y ago
"7. On that note, don't give one to Robert Scoble" http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/google-glass-2-0-eight-things-address-if-next-generation-headset-succeed-1483755 http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/google-glass-2-0-eight-things-addre...

lgleason 12y ago

From the glass-community forums they are not shutting down and will still support existing warranties etc..... My understanding is that there are some exciting things in store for the platform.

owly 12y ago

yay! no more glassholes. seriosly though, they should have given them away to every popular actor and musician out there and pay them to use at events and concerts.

yupyupnice 12y ago

let us rejoice ;)

SocksCanClose 12y ago

augmented reality's first home run will be in the mundane industrial sector where it can be used for training, inventory management, logistics, and any number of other things. i take this as a cautionary tale of product-market fit. as mark andreessen says, where a market exists and a competent but not visionary startup finds itself, the market will often "pull the product out of the startup." that obviously didn't happen here. i think it is because glass was both narrative AND product. narrative meaning that glass was supposed to be a transformational product, meant to elevate google from a search company to a product company. they weren't going to let the product find its market (my thesis: industrial). instead, pushed it to the market they wanted it pushed to (consumer), because it fit a narrative they _wanted_ to be true.

cpeterso 12y ago

Google should rename Google Glass to "Googly Eyes".

jtlienwis1 12y ago

I don't know what to say about Google glass, but the women at 3:57 of the BBC video is IDDG, intellectually drop dead gorgeous. Capturing her smile with $1500 glasses would be worth it.

jonpress 12y ago

"Instead it will focus on 'future versions of Glass' with work carried out by a different division to before." Is that division made up of people from Magic Leap by any chance? http://gizmodo.com/how-magic-leap-is-secretly-creating-a-new-alternate-rea-1660441103 http://gizmodo.com/how-magic-leap-is-secretly-creating-a-new... The next step is to project 3D images directly into the eyeballs!

emodendroket 12y ago

Wow! Who could have anticipated this? Shocking.

banana69 12y ago
Yeah, we were planning apps for it too... Sigh.

zirkonit 12y ago

Not really unexpected, the writing was on the wall. It's a shame though, Glass hate is coming from the old school, technophobe camp. While it _is_ a clunky, underdesigned, underpowered piece of tech, we should aim for sleeker, more powerful, more useful head-mounted computers… instead for no HMC at all.

vernie 12y ago
I think your assessment of Glass detractors is way off.
saosebastiao 12y ago
I'm not anywhere near technophobe but I definitely hate Google Glass. It has less to do with the technology than the type of person that gloms onto it and what it enables them to do. Examples: Talking loudly to oneself in a restaurant/bus, not watching where one is walking, elitist or showoff attitudes, lax attitude toward invasion of privacy, etc.
- waqf 12y ago
  Do you remember when we used to say the same about people with cellphones?
  - saosebastiao 12y ago
    We still do say the same about (some) people with cellphones. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/17/lakeysha-beard-kicked-off_n_863149.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/17/lakeysha-beard-kick... But many, if not most people have learned how to respect people around them while owning and using a cellphone.
  - _almosnow 12y ago
    >Talking loudly to oneself in a restaurant/bus, not watching where one is walking, elitist or showoff attitudes, lax attitude toward invasion of privacy, etc. Are you implying that doing these things with a cellphone is now alright?

sambeau 12y ago

So, is this good news or bad news for current Glass owners? If it was me I think I'd be upset to see that my expensive piece of kit had effectively (if not officially) been end-of-lifed. (if not for Google themselves but almost certainly for any 3rd-party developers.) But, I suspect some people would like the new exclusivity and perhaps the rare collectibility?

lnanek2 12y ago
Disappointed owner here. I'm a developer, but I'm not going to write software for a product that isn't even for sale. There just won't be enough users, and even if I wrote something that justified the cost of buying it, people couldn't. That said, it was very clear last Android update that Google just isn't capable of supporting the TI chip any more. It was horrendous.
- turnip1979 12y ago
  Me too. Kinda annoying I paid 1500 to be a beta tester for a product that never properly launched. Explorer ... yeah.
Chronic30 12y ago
Are you really that surprised that Google shut down one of their products?
owenwil 12y ago
It's pretty bad; it seems Google is sunsetting the product. We just don't know if that means it'll turn off the servers that support it too, yet.
msabalau 12y ago
I wouldn't want to speak for other explorers, but if a next gen commercial product can build on the potential, create a better product, and create a way for developers to make money, that's a great thing. The current iteration and program seemed to have reached the end of its ability to generate new insight. I'm happy with my participation, it was a chance to play around with a bit of what the future could be like. It was like owning a Nokia internet tablet back in the day. You could see what it would be like to make (skype) calls , stream music, and use apps on a connected computer in your pocket. But that didn't mean that one didn't think it was a great thing when the iPhone came out, and pushed the vision at consumer scale.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

tedunangst 12y ago

So what will Scoble do when his pair breaks? How will he live?

psbp 12y ago

I'm not sure what it means for the future of Glass, but doesn't the title and most of the content of the article undermine that it's being moved to an actual product division?

kolencherry 12y ago
The title is sensational and meant to be clickbait. It does not focus on the fact that by moving Glass to an actual product division, Google is expressing commitment to the ecosystem and the product. Edit: "Glass at Work has been growing and we’re seeing incredible developments with Glass in the workplace. As we look to the road ahead, we realize that we’ve outgrown the lab and so we’re officially “graduating” from Google[x] to be our own team here at Google. We’re thrilled to be moving even more from concept to reality." https://plus.google.com/+GoogleGlass/posts/9uiwXY42tvc https://plus.google.com/+GoogleGlass/posts/9uiwXY42tvc
- aaronbrethorst 12y ago
  ::cough:: http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com

untog 12y ago

And by "Glass programme" they mean the Explorers program, not the entirity of Glass itself, which is being moved from Google X to something less R&D-y, in the hands of the Nest CEO. Probably about time - Glass needs to sink or swim already.

owenwil 12y ago
It's more specific than that: current versions of Google Glass are dead and are planned to be sunset. So, Glass, as we know it, is dead.
- AlyssaRowan 12y ago
  This is totally not a surprise regarding the current version of Glass. To paraphrase briefly: Google Glass = ti OMAP 4430 → Texas Instruments axed the OMAP division → no more (closed source) driver updates → no more easy kernel updates → no more Android/system software updates → end-of-life. ☹
  - guyzero 12y ago
    Exactly. This is like the G1 being discontinued. It's a product EOL, not a product line being killed.
    - vmlinuz 12y ago
      If the G1 had been discontinued at 3 days' notice - and without there being a replacement already on the market - I'd have expected people to have some pretty harsh things to say about the future of Android...

fidotron 12y ago

Aside from the mismanagement of the software/hardware associated directly with Google Glass the true problem it had was the contradiction between the benefits of the user and those around the user. The single greatest thing about Glass, and it really was brilliant, was the ability to take pictures that almost perfectly captured your field of vision. This is, however, the precise feature those around you might take objection to. Take that feature away and Glass really has no use at all. The irony of this is it's not hard to conceal cameras on people in order to record their surroundings if you're so inclined, and the reception to Glass just demonstrated how opposed people are to this when it's a visible intrusion, regardless of the actual threat presented.

forgottenpass 12y ago
The irony of this is it's not hard to conceal cameras on people The idea that something is technically possible but socially unacceptable is not irony. Concealing something socially unacceptable is not ironic. Expressing disapproval of someone openly breaking social norms is not inherently ironic. The idea society runs on trust is not ironic!
- ignostic 12y ago
  The person you're responding was clearly just saying that it's funny how uncomfortable people were about being recorded by Google Glass, while covert methods of recording are not difficult but rarely worried about. Take it easy - we know what was meant. No need to get pedantic about the definition of "irony."
  - 0xDOOD 12y ago
    >while covert methods of recording are not difficult but rarely worried about. Unless you're a woman who's ever worn a skirt in public, gone to a gym, or used the changing room in a store.
    - avar 12y ago
      ...or a guy who's used the changing room in as store. What's so different about being a woman in that context?

owenwil 12y ago

Based on what Google's implying with this Glass news, seems it wasn't happy with the product and wants to change course. Now that it's an actual product division and they're killing the current iteration, I'd expect we don't hear anything for a long while until there's something new.

psbp 12y ago
I don't understand how moving it from (a highly public) R&D to a product division means that we'll be hearing less.
- lnanek2 12y ago
  This was sort of a public beta, like GMail. A product division won't show it to anyone until it is done. Maybe even hide it in a fake casing like so many phones.
- owenwil 12y ago
  Google is scaling back its plans while it works on new designs and ways of presenting the product to avoid what happened with the Glass program.

cddotdotslash 12y ago

Sometimes, technology is simply ahead of its time. Honestly, I don't see a fit for Google Glass in society right now. That will likely change in three or five years, but right now, I feel there needs to be some kind of evolution to where Google Glass is considered "normal." It has already started with wearables - smart watches, fitness bands, etc. But it needs to expand in a more logical way before Glass can be included in that list.

robmcm 12y ago
Most things are tried a few times before the technology or society is really ready. Take the Newton and the iPad, I can't think of a product category which hasn't been tried before and failed. When you have a screen on your glasses or contact lense I can't see how it can't succeed.
jdmichal 12y ago
The watches and bands are just piggybacking on the fact that those things are considered normal already. Having a more connected version of the same without drastically changing the form factor is a nothing. However, Bluetooth earpieces still aren't considered "normal". I have no idea what it will take something like Glass to reach that status. They will probably have to very closely match the size and shape of normal frames, if the watches are any indication.
bsder 12y ago
> Honestly, I don't see a fit for Google Glass in society right now. There's a huge fit for Google glass. But there is no high volume huge fit. And Google doesn't care about low-volume as they can't move enough ads across it.
sthomas1618 12y ago
I think the concept is ahead of its time, but definitely not the technology. The whole problem with Glass is the technology simply isn't there yet: it is way too big. If you could fit Glass into the size of regular pair of sunglasses, I think it would have a huge appeal. (Or in my dream sci-fi scenario, contact lenses). As it is right now, its obvious and cumbersome. The mere sight of it is intrusive and awkward to those around you. I want the HUD capabilities of Glass, but without the weird stares of those around.

ChuckMcM 12y ago

So some speculation (since we on the outside can never be sure, and when I worked at Google it was always interesting to see the difference between what was reported vs the reality inside the company.) I've always felt that consumer products were going to be really hard for Google to pull off. It reminded me of Intel trying to make an LED wristwatch in the early 80's. Too much consumer 'hands on', too much industrial design. Neither of which Google are strengths. I expect glass is dead, all the money they might have invested in making it real they spent on Magic Leap, and now its up to the Leap guys to be the 'visual interface to Google.' The small android experience will fold into the IoT part of Google (Nest) and that will be that.

fidotron 12y ago
One of the most stinging criticisms I've heard of Google is that they just don't get products. They can, in some cases, do services, but the idea that something ever reaches a finished state in which everything is complete doesn't seem to be part of their DNA. It's as if they are an eventually consistent system that is constantly moving towards a state of consistency that they never completely reach.
- danieldk 12y ago
  It's as if they are an eventually consistent system that is constantly moving towards a state of consistency that they never completely reach. They have some products which were nearly perfect. For instance, the Chromecast is more or less finished. It's not intended to be a game console or something to have apps in on a television. It's an extremely cheap device that allows you to stream a tab or from apps. That vision is well-executed, because it is cheap and works well for streaming. Of course, some people will have gripes about the Chromecast, but the fact that a device that looked incredibly boring at the start is now a pretty big success indicates that for many people it's exactly the product that they want.
  - hessenwolf 12y ago
    The chromecast thing is great. It's an ugly little widget that comes in an overly-fancy box and does what it's supposed to. However, it's terribly advertised, and it still annoyingly says "beta" all over stuff. I feel like I bought it out of some kind of anonymised side-door at the back of the warehouse.

xacaxulu 12y ago

"calls end to" apparently equals "moved to another division for continued development on different timeline". Linkbaitish title.

ebbv 12y ago
Yeah I mean you could be right, or the claims that they will still be releasing it, etc. could be face saving so as to not spook investors by the amount of money that was squandered on Glass. It's hard to know which one it is without further details like what division? How big is this division? What kind of timeline? etc.
- giarc 12y ago
  I doubt many large investors bought into google without knowing their desire to fund moonshot programs.
  - ebbv 12y ago
    It's not the initial investment, it's the continued investment after it was obvious to most people that it was a bad idea. That's what wall street tends to have objections to.
    - giarc 12y ago
      If you are talking about Wall Street investors, then they have no excuse for investing in a company that loves pet projects. They have all the research at their fingertips. I could understand if Joe from down the street invested $25,000 in GOOG and is now pissed because he thought they would try harder or whatever.
  - aetherson 12y ago
    First: you might be surprised. Second: Glass isn't just any GoogleX project. It's the most publicized and most heavily bought into except perhaps the automatic car. Large investors may well expect Google to chase some dead-ends, but to kill them before they get to the prominence and public stature of Glass. There are plenty of other reasons why Google might save face on Glass -- there might be internal morale reasons or the pride of an executive or wanting to keep competitors guessing.

uptown 12y ago

Disclaimer: I never tried glass. But the actual product screens I saw never seemed to come close to the slick marketing demo they showed with the parachuting guys.

saosebastiao 12y ago

Google Glass took a good idea for some contexts and mass marketed it to a completely different context where it's primary feature was mostly useless. HUDs and AR make a ton of sense when you need to augment human knowledge, intelligence, and sensory in real time with voice as the primary user interaction. Flying fighter jets, driving race cars, fighting on a battlefield, working in complex and unsafe industrial operations, etc. AR doesn't significantly augment your experience of riding the bus to work, ordering dinner at a restaurant, taking a walk around the block, or even most forms of labor (manual or otherwise). So not only did Google Glass not have much of a benefit, but it had the drawback of annoying countless people who had to be around the glasshole who never stopped yapping at their glasses.

cLeEOGPw 12y ago
They fell into trap of "product/service that seems to be wanted by a very large amount of people a little bit", instead of making it for a niche market where small amount of people need that item very much. PG was right, even the smartest people make these mistakes.
Fuxy 12y ago
That's the problem. You actually need to talk to your glasses which can be annoying and distracting to some people. Now if you could talk to you devices without actually talking it would be great. Like they do in "Ghost in the Shell"[1]. [1] http://anidb.net/a247 http://anidb.net/a247
usrusr 12y ago
There isn't quite as much money in targeting ads at fighter jet pilots as there is in targeting ads at people riding the bus. Asking Google to not do glass for the guy on the bus (fighter pilot or not) is like asking them to not do it at all, given the nature of Google's business. Which, in hindsight, might have been the right call. The Nest division, where glass seems to be headed now, could maybe evolve into a completely new branch with a more straight forward business model, more product than platform. Maybe there glass could still be salvaged, surviving as a simple, focused HUD tool for the "jet pilot", after failing as a pervasive wearable for the guy on the bus.

auvi 12y ago

This is a speculation but I think Google is dropping Glass because they are convinced that Magic Leap will be the winner. We have to wait to see what comes out from Magic Leap.

mkawia 12y ago

Why don't they just pivot . GoPro is not a mainstream product but they are very successful

daenz 12y ago
I don't think Google needs to pivot this project to be successful.

bitemix 12y ago

I think we place too much emphasis on visuals simply because they're more readily at-hand for the individual user, even when doing so forces those around that individual far outside their comfort zone. It creates a barrier, putting both sides on the defensive, at odds with each other. Meanwhile, we drastically underestimate the potential utility of non-visual sensory augmentation. For instance, a hidden device providing vibrotactile information could provide far subtler, lower-level cues about the world around us, even to the point of widening the human experience to nearly limitless novel senses [0]. That's the direction I'd love to see us move wearables and technology in general: pervasive, yet unobtrusive. [0]:http://www.mase.io/tech/wearables/2014/10/23/wearables/ http://www.mase.io/tech/wearables/2014/10/23/wearables/

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

jimrandomh 12y ago

The sad thing is, many of the problems which sank this incarnation of Glass would have been fixed by the community if only they'd released the source code.

dreamweapon 12y ago
But the biggest problem of all with Glass -- its affect on other people around the Glasshole wearing it -- had nothing to do with source code, of course.

stevebot 12y ago

I remember when it first came out and developers in my area would kind of gloat over it and being one of the chosen "glass explorers". they would wear it to meetups and brag about the apps they were developing for it. I'm kind of glad that it flopped in its current form and that those days are over.

radicalbyte 12y ago

One of the largest supermarkets in the UK have just released their own Google Glass app. http://www.pcpro.co.uk/wearables/1000284/google-glass-app-launched-by-tesco http://www.pcpro.co.uk/wearables/1000284/google-glass-app-la... Nice timing.

donpdonp 12y ago

Google Glass was ahead of its time, for a while. They re-engineered the guts of a cellphone to fit into an eyeglass frame. The visual 'cube' that forms the display was a novelty and kept the project within the bounds of whats possible to be manufactured today. Then Google came across a fiber optic eye-ball projector that made the Glass visual interface look like an 8-Track of the Doobie Brothers. They immediately realized this and dumped a half billion dollars on the project, Magic Leap. http://gizmodo.com/how-magic-leap-is-secretly-creating-a-new-alternate-rea-1660441103 http://gizmodo.com/how-magic-leap-is-secretly-creating-a-new... Some day, Google will spring a productized version of this on the public and it'll be like nothing before, including Oculus. Its the best shot we've got at 'true' augmented reality.

MrScruff 12y ago
While I'm excited about Magic Leap as well, I don't see it in the same category as Oculus. AR will certainly be useful, but less so for the 'experience' type audience that VR is seeking. But yeah, probably worlds ahead of Glass for AR.
daturkel 12y ago
Glass actually offloads most of the work to your phone, rather than fitting all that hardware inside the frame.
3_2__1 12y ago
Google will never bring a Glass-like product to market successfully. Period. They are incapable.
- andrewfelix 12y ago
  You need to elaborate. Adding the term 'Period' doesn't magically strengthen your argument. Genuinely interested in your rationale though.

alextgordon 12y ago

If Google wanted to sell it to the world, they should have first made it without the camera. Later on when people are comfortable with the form factor: add the camera. This is how we have ended up with mobile phones with cameras that nobody seems to mind about. Phones only got cameras halfway through their life. By then, it was too late to stop.

Mangalor 12y ago
Allowing customers to look like they are surveilling other people was a radically Orwellian-seeming move. It amazes me that Google was OK with this from the beginning.
- eyeareque 12y ago
  You do know how google figures out what ads to show people? They collect everything they can about you :)
- fixermark 12y ago
  It amazes me that people still worry about this when humans already walk around with two cameras connected to better resolution and light-level management hardware than the glass camera embedded in their skulls, and the input of those cameras, converted to audio, is generally admissible in all courts of law.
  - slavik81 12y ago
    It may be sharable through speech, but a picture is worth a thousand words. Even the most detailed prose leaves much to the imagination. I don't think I'd even care if someone told a story about accidentally seeing me naked, but I'd be pretty pissed off if they were sharing a video.
    - avar 12y ago
      What if they had photographic memory and a lot of drawing skills and were able to produce a drawing of you naked that was indistinguishable from a photo? Should we ostracize those people from society?

Isamu 12y ago

I was hoping this would be useful at some point for my daughter, who has low vision. So I am hoping that augmented vision catches on, in more than just niche categories, so that the hardware can evolve more quickly. It probably needs to be carefully separated from the recording capability, to work around the "creepy" factor.

ereckers 12y ago

I see it as something like Google Wave, a bit before the market is ready for it with a terrible form factor. However the technology and intent is correct. These things will be back, but they won't be Google Glass, they'll be the "GoPro of Google Glass". Probably single function at first, cool looking, wearable/usable, with modders and hobbyists starting to build out functionality piecemeal until they have something really cool. And back to that form factor, I'm just a regular guy, and I wouldn't be caught dead in these things. When the visual impression of your product is Robert Scoble wearing them in the shower, you know you're doomed.

huhtenberg 12y ago

It's the camera. Google made a massive mistake by bundling the Glass with the camera. Camera is the reason for the backlash and the seriously tainted brand ("glassholes" and such). Of course they couldn't launch it as is. Though I wonder if they learned the lesson or if they will just hold a pause and relaunch it with no hardware changes.

Pxtl 12y ago

Glass should not have been pushed at the cellphone consumer-good fashion-accessory market until they had something swanky that actually looked tasteful on a set of glasses. At the current price-point? Enterprise would be the only market that would pay $1000 in decent quantities for such a niche device. If they could get it down to $200? It could be great for the GoPro set.

chaostheory 12y ago

If I didn't read this line I would feel that it would be a dead product: > She and the Glass team will report to Tony Fadell, the chief executive of the home automation business Nest It sounds like they're just transitioning the responsibility to an Apple vet who has good taste.

dghughes 12y ago

Sales halted of something I could never buy even if I had the money.

mmanfrin 12y ago

Google's Lisa. Maybe I can recoup the cost 20 years down the road as a collectors item.

thankyouu 12y ago

Thank the lord.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

eknkc 12y ago
I think you should blame the rock more.

mrslx 12y ago

i would absolutely love to use my glass at my desk when working. would do wonders to clear away all the apps i'm running for notifications and constantly checking my phone to see if i got a text or missed call from a client while i was in a meeting or drafting an email.. the major prob is the product is heavily focused on google services. if they came out swinging with a mac notifications app and ios app - i would use it all day. but they didnt, it sits in my drawer as something i use for show and tell.

tmwh91 12y ago

The glass team sent this email to Explorers: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8895743 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8895743 tldr; all XE development stopped as of Monday

amikula 12y ago

It seems to me that Glass wouldn't have suffered half the backlash it got if the original release had excluded the camera. Even if everybody was just grumbling about how useless the product was without a camera, people still would have bought it, and it probably wouldn't have gotten half the bans or negative press it ended up getting.

shadowmint 12y ago
That's always been the problem with glass; it's not an AR application platform, it's just an awkward mini-screen floating in the middle of your face. Without a camera it would have been so pointless no one would have bothered to look at it. (seriously, can you imagine the sky diving demo sans camera? 'What was thing thing on his face?' 'No idea, I think it was showing him tweets or something')
bduerst 12y ago
That's doubtful. It was a $1500 accessory that never really solved a common problem. Many confused it with Augmented Reality, even the top comment on HN. If anything, it's analogous to the segway - ie. an expensive, niche piece of technology seen as a novelty.

aledalgrande 12y ago

I bought one for dev purposes, and I was never really convinced about the design (even being a prototype). It looks nice, but it is unbalanced on a side, they could have put an extra battery on the other side, the official blog was just talking about Instagram-like uses (who is that had that horrible idea?) and the screen was not great.

hnriot 12y ago

not a big surprise, they've all but completely disappeared from sight around S. Another Segway, but I doubt Google were ever serious about Glass, it was a demonstration of Google as committed to being a futuristic hi tech company. The problem with the product is that people like the compartmentalization of the smartphone, you take it out of your pocket to take a photo, nothing surreptitious. And to be honest, the smartphone just does a lot more. This is going to be the challenge that the Apple Watch will also face, it competes with the smartphone for your attention and has to add enough additional value to justify the product segment. Meanwhile, it's no big deal, products come and go and some end up with much smaller target customer base, although I suspect Glass is (as Segway was) being considered for a few specific markets but over the coming year or two will just vanish only to be revisited in a decade but with holographic projection (a la R2D2) and streetview-like surround-camera and built in plethora of biometric sensors that all feed into the big post-Singularity GoolgleBrain to provide it's eyes, ears and voice...

3_2__1 12y ago

"An update on Google Glass..."

rbrogan 12y ago

Wondering if Google had always expected this and Glass was a long-term strategic move or if this was unexpected and should be considered a blunder.

koolkoder 12y ago

Glass doesn't add any value to your life

tdicola 12y ago

Weren't they building some insane barge in San Francisco and New York to be a consumer showcase for Glass? Guess that's sunk now.