In an interview with BBC Radio 4 Google chairman Eric Schmidt has revealed that the public release of Google Glass is still about one year away.
Google is currently distributing the Explorer limited edition to winning developers at a cost of $1, 500 each. This programme will provide Google with valuable feedback from a total of 8000 users testing out the device, before making it available for consumers in about a year’s time.
This might be good news for some who fear privacy invasions, with Google Glass wearers capturing and sharing their various activities using the device’s technology. Google is coming under fire around this issue, more recently involving concerns from the Australian Privacy Commissioner.
Of this Schmidt comments that companies like Google “have a very important responsibility to keep your information safe but you have a responsibility as well, which is to understand what you’re doing, how you’re doing it, and behave appropriately and also keep everything up to date”.
Although in the hands of thousands of developers, Google will maintain control over the use of its innovative product by ensuring that those lucky individuals do not share it with others. The company has included some stringent instructions in its Google Glass terms of service in which it vows to deactivate any device that it determines is being used by someone other than the person it was awarded to.
Source: The Inquirer
