Through a Glass digitally

Sometime in the first few months of 2013, people wearing strange-looking glasses will start to roam America’s streets. They will not be extras from the latest Terminator movie, but rather software developers and others who have been allowed to buy prototypes of a new product, dubbed Project Glass. The brainchild of Google, Glass looks like a rather bizarre pair of glasses, but is in fact a mini display screen mounted in a flexible frame that also incorporates a camera, a microphone and a computer.

This gizmo, which lets users see e-mails and other stuff on its screen and take photos and record videos using its camera, is the most ambitious initiative to date in the emerging field of wearable computing. The notion that people should be able to wear computers rather than carry them around in pockets or bags is not new: digital headsets that connect to mobile phones, wristbands that monitor pulse rates and other such gadgets have been around for a while. And novel, wireless-connected watches are being developed by young firms such as Pebble Technology and Meta Watch (Google has already filed a patent for a wristwatch design).

But in 2013 smart glasses that are voice- and touch-controlled will grab the headlines. Their development is being spurred by several technological trends, including the rapid miniaturisation of batteries, displays and sensors, the proliferation of superfast wireless connections and advances in “augmented reality” systems, which enable digital data to be overlaid elegantly on real-world images. None of this comes cheap: Google is charging developers the princely sum of $1,500 to get their hands on its eyewear. But the price is likely to fall by the time Glass goes on general sale, which the tech giant hopes will happen within a year of the prototype’s release.

Visionaries predict smart specs will be a big hit

Some visionaries predict smart specs will be a big hit. People will no longer need to pull out their phones to check e-mail or take photos; instead, they will be able to see and gather all sorts of data in the blink of an eye. That prospect sounds enticing. But the year ahead will also be marked by heated debates about the social impact of Glass and similar products, including their implications for public safety—should people be allowed to use smart glasses while driving, for instance?—and for privacy.

Tech firms will also have to convince people that their gizmos won’t make them look like freaks. “There’s this social aspect to adoption that’s always hard to predict,” says Tom Martin, a wearable-computing expert at Virginia Tech. Google has already had fashion models show off its specs on a catwalk in New York.

It won’t be the only company working hard to make smart eyewear sexy. Others are also eyeing the prospect of a big new market. Japan’s Olympus, for example, has unveiled its own digital goggles and Apple, which has a knack for designing stylish gadgets, has filed several patents that suggest it may be toying with the idea of an iGlass. Prepare for the rise of glass warfare.

Martin Giles: west-coast technology editor, The Economist