Google Glass Explorer Dev Kits are being delivered to developers – and following suit are the first unboxing videos that show the device’s great production quality.
Last year at Google’s I/O conference, the web behemoth offered an exclusive look into its vision of the future of head-mounted devices: Google Glass. The augmented reality glasses created lots of buzz when Google released an interesting video of the technology in action. Interested developers could sign-up for the Google Glass ‘Explorer’ program at the conference, offering them early access to the high-tech glasses. Participation in the program didn’t come for free though – the development kit comes at a hefty price of $1,500.
It seems that Ben was spot on with his prediction more than 9 months ago about the number of pre-orders taken for Google Glass at I/O 2012:
“There’s no official word on how many pre-orders were placed. There were around 6000 people in attendance at Google I/O and pre-orders were open to US-based atendees only which probably cuts that number down to 4500. My best guess for how many pre-orders were placed is around 2000,” he wrote in an article in July of 2012.
As reported by Engadget, Google now says that “around 2,000” developers pre-ordered Google Glass through the ‘Explorer’ program. 8,000 additional pre-orders came through Google’s #ifihadglass campaign which ran from February 20th to February 28th, 2013.
Google Glass Glass Unboxing
Google Glass uses a small prism to display information to the wearer in a non-intrusive way, overlaying their view of reality and accepting speech commands for easy control of the device. Developers will be able to program apps for the glasses, so early participation of the developer crowd is one of Google’s main goals. The company has announced that the production of the first dev kit units has finished a few days ago and the first developers have now received their devices.
One of them is Dan McLaughlin, who has uploaded his Google Glass unboxing video to Youtube. And, like a true Google Glass wearer would do, he took his unboxing video through Google Glass itself!
According to his video, Google Glass comes in a very sophisticated package with great industrial design and high production value. Included in the sleek bag are the device itself, a charger, a carrying bag, extra nose-pads as well as a shaded and a clear version of the lens glasses. The video quality offered by the 720p camera is pretty good; his comments through the microphone are also easily understandable.
Unfortunately, sound farther away from the device isn’t recorded quite as well. You can hear this in an interview taken through Google Glass, which was done by Robert Scoble – who was pre-order number 107 at Google’s I/O 2012 conference.
Google says that Glass is shipping out in waves and that they’ll notify pre-orderers as they become available.
If you want to find out more about Google Glass, check out our extensive article, ‘Everything we know about Google Glass‘.
Is Google Glass the future of human-computer interaction or just a technology for nerds? Leave us a comment with your opinion!