Google Glass patent shows split hardware, 'normal' form-factor

Choose whatever reason you like — it looked weird, got too much attention, or just plain didn't catch on — Google Glass is pretty much dead and buried. Version one is, at least. Showing they may not be done with wearables just yet, a new patent has surfaced which might show the direction Google is headed with Glass. Though it hasn't changed much, the core hardware is being split up; likely a response to those who weren't comfortable with a head-mounted camera ready to shoot.

The patent — which we'll caution is just that, not some prototype version of Glass 2.0 — shows Google taking the screen prism and pushing it to the left eye, while the camera assembly remains over the right eye.

Two things can be gleaned from this; you can likely remove one of the pieces (camera or prism), and may even be able to switch their orientation to suit your needs/comfort level.

In addition to the prism and camera assemblies, Google has some frames to go along with it that appear to fold up just like a regular pair of glasses.

To my mind, this smacks of an enterprise device in the making. the patent still shows everything we found interesting about Glass, but also lets businesses customize their hardware based on needs. Take airlines, for instance; gate agents could have both the camera and prism for identifying passengers or boarding pass info, while flight deck crews would simply have a prism for seeing that info fed to their headsets.

Glass, now seated under Tony Fadell at Nest (Google's hardware branch, more or less), may have ended their very public beta run by crashing into the ground, but it seems they've learned a thing or two in the process, and may be ready to implement that knowledge.

Source: USPTO

Via: 9to5Google