Google’s smart glasses: The biggest innovation yet?

The future is here, with Google rolling out its pair of Internet Smart glasses to developers at $1500. Smart glasses, known as Project Glass, were sold to developers at Google’s annual conference I/O conference in San Francisco. According to reports the glasses will ship early next year and won’t be available for sale outside the three-day conference.

“This is new technology and we really want you to shape it,” Google co-founder Sergey Brin told about 6,000 attendees. “We want to get it out into the hands of passionate people as soon as possible.”

Brin told reporters that Google intends to sell the glasses for significantly less once the product is released to the mass market. He added that Google hopes to start selling the device to consumers in early 2014.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin demonstrates Google's new Glass, wearable internet glasses, at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco. AP

So what are these smart glasses all about? With the glasses,everything will appear right before you eyes. From directions to

texts to a video chat, taking photos, even online shopping, it will all be possible on with your glasses.

Isabelle Olsson, an engineer on the Glass project, said the company created the glasses for people to interact with the virtual world without distracting them from the physical world. It’s designed to interact closely with your senses, without blocking them.

She said Google had two broad goals in mind: communications through images and quick access to information. The device has a camera to capture fleeting moments and allow others to see the world through your eyes.

Google demonstrated the device by having parachutists jump out of a blimp hovering about 7,000 feet above San Francisco. The audience got live video feeds from their glasses as they descended to land on the roof of the Moscone Center, the location of the conference.

So how did the attendees at the conference react to the live demos of these glasses? PCWorldis calling Google’s live demo of the glasses The Greatest Show on Earth.  Google got a standing ovation for its demonstration.

Watch Video demo

The project has been in development for more than two years, and is part of Google X, the online search leader’s secret facility that is responsible for the self-driving car.

The glasses might sound like something out of science fiction but the fact that Google gave two real flashy demonstrations of the device shows how close the search engine is to making this science fiction a reality. Sadly for now the device will only  be available for developers in the United states. According to CNet,  The geographic restriction is for regulatory reasons, Brin said. (Different countries have different requirements for radio-frequency emissions.)  

The big point is that glasses are definitely a new form of innovation, ahead of the tablet and the smartphone. They might not even be a big success by 2014, but the fact that Google is taking steps to tinker the product and is actually able to give a sense of how it works, means that the digital world is headed for a drastic overall in the next decade or so.