Heads-up on Google goggles

THEY may look like a pair of clunky sunglasses and the wearer may be accused of having a nervous tic, but the first hi-tech specs with a built-in screen are about to be unveiled.

Google’s “heads-up-display” glasses have been under development at the company’s Googleplex laboratories and are believed to resemble Oakley’s Thump MP3 player headset.

But the new gadget – nicknamed the Google Goggles – is expected to be the first to incorporate mobile phone technology into eye attire, and the chances are it will kick off a multi-million-pound race to dominate the market.

The prototype, to be revealed at an electronics fair later this year, will be equipped with a built-in Google Android phone plus camera, microphone and speakers designed to give a 3D-like “augmented reality” experience.

One lens will contain a “heads-up display” designed to overlay information, like an incoming phone call, text or selected website on a transparent surface – similar to how jet pilots read data.

Wearers can respond with a tilt of the head to scroll and click on a navigation system, or use voice response. Combining the head movement with a voice command – Apple has already brought out its Siri voice-recognition system on its smartphones – enables phone calls to be picked up or made. The hardware currently encased in a smartphone will be contained in the arms, which will have a row of function buttons along them.

Google, locked in a battle with Apple for mobile technology supremacy, has not officially released details of its new product because of the competitive nature of its business. But Computerworld magazine’s emerging technologies commentator Sharon Gaudin confirmed the company is close to coming out with the eyeglasses. “The ‘Goggles’ will be equipped with processing power, Android phone functionality and a front-facing camera,” she said.

Dan Olds, a technology analyst with the Gabriel Consulting Group, said: “I’m only surprised it has taken so long for any company to come out with them.” Olds predicted that the “Goggles” will represent the “beginning of an entirely new category of devices”.

Seth Weintraub, a veteran Google watcher, said a prototype had been seen and “it looks something like Oakley Thumps. These glasses, we heard, have a front-facing camera used to gather information. The heads-up display (Hud) is only for one eye and on the side. The navigation system currently used is a head tilting to scroll and click. We are told it is very quick to learn.”

The 9to5Google website, which has a track record of publishing early information on the company’s forthcoming products, said trials of the hi-tech eyewear will soon be underway, with a prototype expected soon.

Excitement about the new project grew last year when Google poached Richard DuVaul from Apple, in a move representing a significant blow to Apple’s own hi-tech specs project work. DuVaul is a world-leading researcher specialising in Huds, with a doctorate dissertation entitled “The Memory Glasses” that concentrates on overcoming problems associated with such wearable technology.

Chris Mellor, of online computer website The Register, said: “Google is actually working on twitch-responsive sci-fi-style head-up display glasses, and the new tech apparently includes a cursor that responds to head movements.

“The cursor on the Hud screen is moved and “clicked” by the wearer tilting his head – this should look like a nervous head tic to onlookers. We’re told these Hud shades will have voice input and output, so there must be a mic and headphones.

“As the wearer walks around, the clever shades know where he or she is and can pop up locationally relevant information: ‘Special offer on Burger King flame-grilled Whoppers today!’ If Google can get these working they will become the absolutely must-have, gee-whiz tech.”

Apple is believed to have ceded that Google is ahead in the computerised eyewear field. Rodney Brooks, a computer science and artificial intelligence professor emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said, “They [Google] are pretty far out in front now.” The creator of the iPhone and iPad is now expected to concentrate on marketing the first computerised wristwatch.

While the glasses technology is under development, the name is likely to change to avoid confusion with another Google product. A Google Goggles app is already on the market that allows users to take a picture of an object, such as a painting or photograph, and in seconds see an identification of the image and search results for more information.