Google isn’t giving up on its oft-criticised eyewear device, the Google Glass, according to the internet search giant’s chairman Eric Schmidt.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Schmidt asserted that the technology would not be scrapped, despite the January decision to stop selling the first version of the product and the shut down of the Explorer programme.
“It is a big and very fundamental platform for Google,” Schmidt said.
“We ended the Explorer programme and the press conflated this into us cancelling the whole project, which isn’t true. Google is about taking risks and there’s nothing about adjusting Glass that suggests we’re ending it.”
Schmidt also said that criticism of the Glass is akin to giving up on the development of a self-driving car. “These things take time,” he said.
Glass has been accused of invading people’s privacy because wearers can quietly record video and take photos.
Negative headlines involving the product have included the arrest of a man at an Ohio cinema for alleged pirating of the film, and charges being brought against a Californian woman for driving while wearing Google Glass, which were later dropped.
Google Glass image via Shutterstock
