NEW YORK: Though developers have sold 200 million Google Glasses around the world, but now not only users, but also the owners are losing their interests in using this tech goggles.
After two years of wearing his pair to high-profile events, even Google co-founder Sergey Brin turned up without his pair to a Silicon Valley red-carpet event on Sunday, saying that he had left them in his car.
While Mr Brin, who heads up the secret lab which developed Glass, did recently wear them to the beach, his timing is not auspicious as many developers and early Glass users are losing interest in the much-hyped, $1,500 (£959) test version of Google Glass.
The spectacles comprise a camera, processor and stamp-sized computer screen mounted to the edge of eyeglass frames in order to show users information on the lenses. Glass may have some specialised uses in the workplace but its prospects of becoming a consumer hit in the near future are slim according to many developers and Google has pushed back the roll out to the mass market.
Of 16 Glass app makers contacted by a news agency, nine said that they had stopped work on their projects or abandoned them, mostly because of the lack of customers or limitations of the device. Three more have switched to developing for business, leaving behind consumer projects.
Plenty of larger developers remain with Glass. Among the 100 apps available are Facebook, but Twitter recently defected. ‘If there was 200 million Google Glasses sold, it would be a different perspective. There’s no market at this point,’ said Tom Frencel, the Chief Executive of Little Guy Games, which put development of a Glass game on hold this year and is looking at other platforms, including the Facebook-owned virtual-reality goggles Oculus Rift.
