Google revealed the new Google Glass in a post to the company's social media site late last night. But the core problem remains the same: The new Google Glass still looks as ridiculous and hilariously out of touch as the old Google Glass, even on the brows of beautiful people.
The new version does come with a few notable improvements. First, you can clip it to a wider variety of sunglasses now, as well as your prescription frames. The other big change is that instead of a speaker, it comes with a detachable monobud that you can plug into your ear.
You still can't drive with it. The developer edition will still set you back $1,500 until the much-cheaper shelf edition comes out. (Although Explorers can now invite up to three friends to buy a pair if they so desire!) And it's still unfortunately rather bulky, especially for something designed for you to wear on your face every waking hour.
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And that's the crux of Glass' problem, really. While its privacy concerns are overstated, it's simply too glaring and obvious for anyone outside of a small confluence of rich white guys to wear and use with any regularity. As Google's woefully unconvincing Glass spread in Vogue taught us, fashion's trickle-down only works when form takes precedence over function. Take a look at this Kickstarter for a bracelet that attunes to your smartphone, the idea of which is hardly new. Technology is at its best when it fades from the foreground.
That won't last long. Google will figure it out, and appears to be making strides in the right direction — like hiring the Warby Parker folks — to make Glass look less like a cyberpunk millionaire's wet dream and like something more agreeable to the proletarian standards of us regular folks. We'll get there some day.
There isn't any doubt that the technology powering a side-mounted face computer can do some cool stuff: Its utility for surgeons in the emergency room is vastly under sung. The same goes for law enforcement, whose proclivity for overreach could benefit immediately from the added transparency of always-on recorded video.
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But Glass still looks silly and obstructive to socializing, like the botched sketchbook daydream of a billionaire otaku. You can't take anyone wearing it seriously. And the only way Glass will reach a point where form and function waltz harmoniously onto the heads of a waiting public is to mock it mercilessly until it stops making everyone who wears it look so darn goofy.
Chris Gayomali is the science and technology editor for TheWeek.com. Previously, he was a tech reporter at TIME. His work has also appeared in Men's Journal, Esquire, and The Atlantic, among other places. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.
