Google Glass future clouded as some early believers lose faith
Google Glass future clouded as some early believers lose
faith
By Alexei Oreskovic, Sarah McBride and Malathi Nayak
SAN FRANCISCO Fri
Nov 14, 2014 12:57pm EST
(Reuters) - After two years of popping up at high-profile
events sporting Google Glass, the gadget that transforms eyeglasses into
spy-movie worthy technology, Google co-founder Sergey Brin sauntered bare-faced
into a Silicon Valley red-carpet event on Sunday.
He'd left his pair in the car, Brin told a reporter. The
Googler, who heads up the top-secret lab which developed Glass, has hardly
given up on the product -- he recently wore his pair to the beach.
But Brin's timing is not propitious, coming as many
developers and early Glass users are losing interest in the much-hyped, $1,500
test version of the product: a camera, processor and stamp-sized computer
screen mounted to the edge of eyeglass frames. Google Inc itself has pushed
back the Glass roll out to the mass market.
While Glass may find some specialized, even lucrative,
uses in the workplace, its prospects of becoming a consumer hit in the near
future are slim, many developers say.
Of 16 Glass app makers contacted by Reuters, nine said
that they had stopped work on their projects or abandoned them, mostly because
of the lack of customers or limitations of the device. Three more have switched
to developing for business, leaving behind consumer projects.
Plenty of larger developers remain with Glass. The nearly
100 apps on the official web site include Facebook and OpenTable, although one
major player recently defected: Twitter.
"If there was 200 million Google Glasses sold, it
would be a different perspective. There’s no market at this point," said
Tom Frencel, the Chief Executive of Little Guy Games, which put development of
a Glass game on hold this year and is looking at other platforms, including the
Facebook Inc-owned virtual-reality goggles Oculus Rift.
Several key Google employees instrumental to developing
Glass have left the company in the last six months, including lead developer
Babak Parviz, electrical engineering chief Adrian Wong, and Ossama Alami,
director of developer relations.
And a Glass funding consortium created by Google Ventures
and two of Silicon Valley's biggest venture capitalists, Kleiner Perkins
Caufield & Byers and Andreessen Horowitz, quietly deleted its website,
routing users to the main Glass site.
Google insists it is committed to Glass, with hundreds of
engineers and executives working on it, as well as new fashionista boss Ivy
Ross, a former Calvin Klein executive. Tens of thousands use Glass in the pilot
consumer program.
“We are completely energized and as energized as ever
about the opportunity that wearables and Glass in particular represent,"
said Glass Head of Business Operations Chris O'Neill.
Glass was the first project to emerge from Google’s X
division, the secretive group tasked with developing “moonshot” products such
as self-driving cars. Glass and wearable devices overall amount to a new
technology, as smartphones once were, that will likely take time to evolve into
a product that clicks with consumers.
“We are as committed as ever to a consumer launch. That
is going to take time and we are not going to launch this product until it’s
absolutely ready,” O'Neill said.
Brin had predicted a launch this year, but 2015 is now
the most likely date, a person familiar with the matter said.
GLASS SELLING... ON EBAY
After an initial burst of enthusiasm, signs that
consumers are giving up on Glass have been building.
Google dubbed the first set of several thousand Glass
users as "Explorers." But as the Explorers hit the streets, they drew
stares and jokes. Some people viewed the device, capable of surreptitious video
recording, as an obnoxious privacy intrusion, deriding the once-proud Explorers
as “Glassholes.”
“It looks super nerdy,” said Shevetank Shah, a
Washington, DC-based consultant, whose Google Glass now gathers dust in a
drawer. “I’m a card carrying nerd, but this was one card too many.”
Glass now sells on eBay for as little as half list price.
Some developers recently have felt unsupported by
investors and, at times, Google itself.
The Glass Collective, the funding consortium co-run by
Google Ventures, invested in only three or four small start-ups by the
beginning of this year, a person familiar with the statistics said.
A Google Ventures spokeswoman declined to comment on the
number of investments and said the Web site was closed for simplicity. "We
just found it's easier for entrepreneurs to come to us directly," she
said.
The lack of a launch date has given some developers the
impression that Google still treats Glass as an experiment.
“It’s not a big enough platform to play on
seriously," said Matthew Milan, founder of Toronto-based software firm
Normative Design, which put on hold a Glass app for logging exercise and
biking.
Mobile game company Glu Mobile, known for its popular
“Kim Kardashian: Hollywood” title, was one of the first to launch a game on
Glass. Spellista, a puzzler released a year ago, is still available, but Glu
has discontinued work on it, a spokesman for the company said.
Another developer, Sean McCracken, won $10,000 in a contest
last year for creating an aliens-themed video game for Glass, Psyclops, but
Google never put it on the official hub for Glass apps, making it tougher to
find. He has quit working on updates.
Still, there are some enthusiastic developers. Cycling
and running app Strava finds Glass well-suited for its users, who want
real-time data on their workouts, said David Lorsch, vice president of business
development. And entrepreneur Jake Steinerman said it is ideal for his company,
DriveSafe, which detects if people are falling asleep at the wheel.
PIVOTING AWAY
In April, Google launched the Glass at Work program to
help make the device useful for specific industries, such as healthcare and
manufacturing. So far the effort has resulted in apps that are being tested or
used at companies such as Boeing and Yum Brands' Taco Bell.
Google is selling Glass in bulk to some businesses,
offering two-for-one discounts.
CrowdOptic, which uses Glass as portable computers for
surgeons and other people out of offices, is currently in use at 19 U.S.
hospitals and expects that to grow to 100 hospitals early next year, said Chief
Executive Jon Fisher.
Alex Foster began See Through, a Glass advertising
analytics firm for business, after a venture firm earlier this year withdrew
its offer to back his consumer-oriented Glass fitness company when it became
clear no big consumer Glass release was imminent.
"It was devastating," he said. "All of the
consumer glass startups are either completely dead or have pivoted," to
enterprise products or rival wearables.
(editing by Edwin Chan and Peter Henderson)
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