DHAKA: Consumer version of Google Glass, which was promised to go on sale this year, has now been delayed until 2015 - raising questions over its future.
It has emerged after Google co-founder Sergey Brin sauntered bare-faced into a Silicon Valley red-carpet event on Saturday though Google Glass was sporting at high-profile events for past two years.
The Googler had to left his pair in the car on that day, dailymail.co.uk reported on the same day.
The Googler, who heads up the top-secret lab which developed Google Glass, the gadget that transforms eyeglasses into spy-movie worthy technology, has hardly given up on the product - he recently wore his pair to the beach.
But, according to the report, 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 itself also has pushed back the Glass roll out to the mass market.
These have emerged the question when the Glass will release or whether it will be released or not.
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.
Moreover, 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.
However, 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,' 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.
'There's no market at this point,'
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.
'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.
'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.
BDST: 1101 HRS, Nov 15, 2014
