Internet ‘glasses’ set to arrive within two years

Google glasses that overlay the internet on daily lives should hit the market within two years — technology the tech giant hopes will someday make fumbling with smartphones obsolete.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin offered the estimated timeline after a project update on a new version of “Glass” wearable computers.

Mr Brin showed the “Explorer” edition of the glasses that developers could buy for $1,500 (€1,200) to become the first people outside the company to shape the revolutionary eyewear before it gets to market.

Explorer-edition glasses should ship early next year, and a version should be ready for the consumer market within a year after that, said Mr Brin.

The eyewear features built-in camera, microphone and speaker technology, and can sync to the internet using wireless connections.

Video through the eyes of wearers can be streamed live on Google’s social network.

Mini-screens in the glasses can display text messages, email, or other digitised information from the internet or mobile gadgets.

“It was kind of a nutty idea that somehow became real,” said Mr Brin while discussing Glass after the keynote presentation.

“The notion that you could jump out of an air ship with it and still communicate your experience makes holding a smartphone or laptop seem pretty damn awkward. It’s about you being less of a slave to your device; it has been really liberating.”

Mr Brin said he wears a prototype pair of Google glasses much of the time as he and the team he heads at the company’s X Lab are working to refine the technology.

Google has been speaking with eyeglass frame companies about ideas for a consumer version of the glasses.

“I expect that in three or four years watching people hold a mobile phone in their hands and look down at it will start to be unusual and that this will be normal,” said Google’s product manager Steve Lee.