Project Glass not likely to offer augmented reality at launch

Google’s Project Glass has been receiving limited attention in recent months, largely due to the fact that Google has pumped the brakes on its promotional campaigns concerning the augmented reality glasses. Project Glass remains in a state of early development, but several prototype models have been seen in the real world, outside of Google’s laboratory. There have been rumors circulating that Project Glass will not actually include augmented reality technology, a feature that drew in the majority of attention concerning the high-tech eyewear. These rumors may actually be true.

Head engineer notes that augmented reality is not an immediate goal

Project Glass head engineer Babak Parviz has announced that augmented reality is not an immediate goal for the project. This may come as a shock for consumers that have been looking forward to the high-tech eyewear because Google has been very adamant about the inclusion of augmented reality technology in Project Glass. When the glasses were first unveiled in early 2012, augmented reality was billed as one of the project’s primary features.

Google faces criticism for hyping augmented reality

For several months after the unveiling of Project Glass, Google has been pushing the idea that augmented reality would be one of the cornerstone features of the glasses. According to Parviz, however, augmented reality has been difficult to incorporate into the project. As such, augmented reality may be completely absent from the commercial launch of Project Glass. Instead, the eyewear will come with an application programming interface that will allow developers to create their own applications.

Developers able to create their own applications for Project Glass

The application programming interface will be able to support augmented reality applications and Project Glass itself will certainly be equipped with the hardware necessary for these applications to run smoothly. Future incarnations of Project Glass may include augmented reality of its own, but the technology is not likely to be seen in the first commercial products that are released from Google.

Internet giant Google has settled with the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) in regards to its antitrust lawsuit that allows smaller players in the mobile industry access to mobile patents. The move is said to lower the amount of suits related to patent holders.

Google’s hold on patents

Philip Solis, of ABI Research in Oyster Bay, NY, stated that concerns have been raised about Google buying ‘standard essential patents’ from Motorola, essentially giving Google the ability to greatly suppress smaller competition. This settlement states what Google has said all along – that they would not use the patents in such a manner.

“It could start a trend around standard essential patents not being used for offensive purposes,” Solis said. “That is a good thing because it means potentially less litigation.” He goes on to say that bigger companies are not effected by having to work around patents in the mobile industry, but smaller companies lack the resources to do so.

What it means for competitors

Smart phones, gaming consoles, tablets, and even online search advertising are all affected in this settlement. Google will allow competition to license patents on what are called critical standardized technologies for all of the above. When Google acquired Motorola Mobility, it gained hundreds of different patents. Many of these are for most basic functions like device internet connectivity.

Google agrees to allow use of standard patents and thus the number of patent-related lawsuits should drop. FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said in a statement that Google has made a step that allows consumers to enjoy the benefits of competition in the online marketplace as well through the gadgets that they buy.

“This doesn’t remove the patents issue in general,” Solis said. Overall, he believes that this agreement opens up markets in both advertising and the mobile device market. Google has agreed not to use patents to delay other companies from releasing new products in a timely manner. It is not perfect, however.

Online Advertising

Google is known as an online giant in search and also in search related advertising. As part of this agreement, Google will give those that advertise online more flexibility to use their program as well as the advertising programs of their competitors. The company also promises that any site can remain excluded from Google vertical search results while still remaining visible under their standard search.