News that Google would stop selling its Glass eyewear next week left many pronouncing (and/or celebrating) the death of the high-tech gadgetry, but there is also plenty of evidence that the company is merely seeking a clean slate before marketing a better consumer product that s not so gauche.
Take, for example, the ongoing partnership between Google Glass and Italian eyewear company Luxottica, maker of Ray-Ban, Oakley, Persol and other brands. That partnership is still moving forward, the Italian glasses giant said Friday.
Ending sales of the current version of Glass does not affect the work we re doing with them on the next generation of Glass, said Luxottica spokeswoman Jane Lehman in an email to the Mercury News. Our partnership is incredibly strong and we re making great progress.
Luxottica s founder had already made clear his displeasure with how Google Glass looked, noting last year, It would be OK in the disco, but I no longer go to the disco. The Italian firm s involvement signaled that a new Glass version that could emerge in 2015 would have a more subtle style. Of course, along with refashioning the gear, Google and its partners could go a long way toward extinguishing the privacy complaints that flared up in the Bay Area and around the world last year by ditching its camera and recording device.
But was halting the sales of the pilot version smart or short-sighted? Morrison & Foerster partner and editor John Delaney took the latter view Friday, suggesting in a blog post that Google maybe shouldn t have let what he described as the anti-Glass hysteria doom the product.
Above: An attendee tried Google Glass during the Google I/O developer conference on May 17, 2013 in San Francisco. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
