Today – this very day, in fact – I decided it was time to look like a dork.
And not just any old dork.
I wanted to look like a trend-setting dork, a post-hipster dork, a dork that was willing to embrace dorkitude in no uncertain terms.
A dork, in fact, with a thousand quid burning a hole in his pocket, who nevertheless refused to spend £2.99 on a new razor blade.
Like this:
Almost unbidden, my mouse moved towards “Buy Now”:
Hmmm.
I have no idea which country I’m supposed to be in that prevents me buying myself a Google Glass, because I’m using Tor.
(Even a New Man needs anonymity when he’s surfing fashion sites – you never know who’s keeping their eyes on you.)
But the prognosis for Glass sounds good, with Google “working to bring devices to more countries as quickly as possible.”
Are you serious?
OK, so I’m being facetious: I don’t want to buy Google Glasses.
But if you do, you’d better be quick, because, website promise or not…
…it seems as though the Great Glass experiment is over.
The UK’s Telegraph newspaper announces that:
Google has halted sales of its much-hyped Google Glass headset in a major U-turn for the technology company.
The BBC’s Rory Cellan-Jones opines that:
There will be a lot of disgruntlement from people who invested in Google Glass smart glasses.
And the Daily Mail, that just under a month ago started a headline with the words “Google Glass is an admirable failure” (it was a quote from Steve Wozniak, apparently), today offers us:
Google kills off Glass: Firm halts sales of controversial smart eyewear - but promises a new version for consumers is coming.
So there you have it.
In mathematical terminology, the total number of Glassholes in the world is now bounded above.
You could allocate a fixed-size buffer, stuff them all in it, and it wouldn’t overflow.
For the time being, anyway.
From next week, if you want to start a fight down at the pub, you’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way, with an annoying mobile phone ringtone.
Alan
“the Great Glass experiment is over”. No, it’s not. The Explorer program (aka beta version) is just finishing. Whatever the reasons for doing so, Glass will be available again ‘soon’ (for varying values of soon). Hopefully without the £1K price tag, but that’ll remain to be seen.
I know Google-bashing is popular at Sophos, but I also have to wonder if this article would still have the same written-by-a-12-year-old feel if Glass were an Apple product…
Paul Ducklin
Y’know, I think the fact that you had to write that Glass will be available “soon, for varying values of soon,” (which seems like a very 12-year-old way to put it, if you ask me) means that there is no “will” about it at all. Only “may.”
Do you really find fault with my suggestion that the “experiment is over” because the early-adopter programme (for which the word “experiment” is an excellent fit, socially, technically and functionally) has abruptly been ended, for undisclosed reasons?
What happens next, to borrow your words, will indeed “remain to be seen.”
Kelson
It’s not being discontinued, it’s being promoted from experiment to its own unit, to be run by Nest founder Tony Fadell.
Paul Ducklin
I hear you, but it still seems to me as though one phase of the project just ended, while the next phase has yet to start.
Anyway, it looks as though we agree on the idea that the “experiment is over.” As for the bit about “it’s being promoted,” I suppose we shall have to see.
Jack
Looks like google has fan boys too, cute! ;)
Paul Ducklin
Heck, if you’d paid 990 Britische Pfounds for your sci-fi spectacles, you’d love them too :-)
Ronny Vasquez
Some one gone to take the idea and make the money that Google waste with this idea.
DG
Why on earth are you using Tor?
Paul Ducklin
Firstly, it’s explained in the article.
Secondly, why not?
Stephen Brooks
This leaves Apple to make a more fashionable version called… iWear.
Paul Ducklin
Boom tisch.
Admin
iBrowse, iBall (with a verb to match), iLash (with extensions), iLid (fitted in the socket just above the eye), iPatch, iWitness, iGlass, iPiece, iCon … spoilt for choice, really. :-)