Google Glass Zombie Edition

Google launched its "augmented reality" device (Google Glass Explorer Edition) in 2013 to much fanfare, though the hype soon overtook the realities of the product. Though never aimed at consumers (it cost around £1,000), the media, and to some degree Google, positioned it as that. Then came the crash and people wearing Glass were known as "glassholes".

Google Glass Explored Edition was just that, a platform that "explorers" i.e. developers, could start experimenting with augmented apps. Though the device did have a camera and wearers could take snaps of things they saw and camera info could be used by apps, Glass is really more of a Head's Up Display (HUD).

In 2015 Google stopped production of the Explorer Edition, but quietly in the background apps were developed and Glass found a market in the industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) arenas. Think surgery and having access to patient data or access to information about the operation, or in industry working on some device and instant access to pertinent information maybe an instruction or service manual. The list goes on and in these areas, lightweight HUD technology is a big winner.

Now it's 2017 and Google have announced Google Glass Enterprise Edition. This will be sold by resellers and positioned squarely for the ISM markets and launch partners were in those very fields. It's definitely NOT a consumer device. Google were right all along and there's a good chance they sell lots of units in those specialist areas.

The other contender is Microsoft Hololens, again people are writing it off as an expensive tech gadget, but Hololens is to Microsoft and Glass is to Google.