Google Goggles: Heads Up Display (HUD) Reality Augmenting Smart-Glasses May Be Available This Year

Deep in Google's top secret X offices at an undisclosed location the internet company is working on several secret projects including robots and space elevators, but one project may soon be on the market and available for consumers. Google Goggles, as they're being called by the media though Google has yet to release their newest product's name, may be coming to stores as soon as Christmas 2012. The reality augmenting glasses will have GPS, cameras constantly photographing the wearer's surroundings, internet connection and an LCD lens that projects images, information and, of course, Google Ads specially tailored to the user, according to widely circulating rumors.

According to the New York Times, who source Google employees familiar with the project, the futuristic smart-glasses will be on sale sometime this year and will cost around the price of a current smartphone, putting them in the $250-$600 price range. Bilton's sources say that the Google Goggles will have either 3G or 4G capability.

The NY Times article published Thursday, Feb, 22, Nick Bilton imagines a future in which throngs of people in thick-framed sunglasses lurching down the streets, cocking and twisting their heads like extras in a zombie movie. Bilton is referencing the Heads Up Display (HUD) which is streamed on the inside of the lens and mainly controlled by tilting your head, which according to sources inside Google is easy to adapt to and does not look completely ridiculous in public.

In his article Bilton interviews William Brinkman, graduate director of the computer science and software engineering department at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, who argues that people using the new smart-glasses will look very strange to onlookers...You obviously won't see what they can from behind the glasses. As a result, you will see bizarre body language as people duck or dodge around virtual things.

Earlier this month 9to5google.com leaked the information that the glasses will look like Oakley Thumps, high-tech sunglasses that double as wireless headphones. So basically Google is betting that people want something on their face that's as slick and futuristic as their smartphones are. According to the anonymous source the glasses will have several buttons on the side.

According to the anonymous tip, the glasses have a tiny camera in the front (with a flash) to gather information and aid in augmented-reality applications (this is where the future starts to get intense). Apparently the HUD display is just on one lens on the side, and isn't transparent. It also won't be able to project 3D images.

The display will, however, provide up-to-date information based on the wearer's preferences, location and Google's database of information. This means that the glasses will most likely connect to the Internet and have built-in GPS, and possibly connect directly with your smartphone.