Skip to main content

Heads up: This is what Google Glass 2 could look like

A patent filed by Google may give us a look at the company’s plans for the future of Google Glass. The picture shows an evolution of the familiar Glass design with some key changes, which could perhaps help the smart eyewear gain more acceptance outside of keen early adopters inside the tech community.

The design in the image isn’t named or confirmed as Google Glass 2, but it may be one of the models the company is experimenting with. The wraparound frame is still there, this time with two curved arms to hold it behind the wearer’s ears. The Glass prism is mounted above the left eye and attached to a more compact side unit, which doesn’t extend back along the frame.

Recommended Videos

The lopsided look of the original Glass didn’t endear it to the fashion conscious, and certainly made it very obvious to the world you were wearing Glass. This version does away with all the clutter, suggesting Google has found a way to stuff all the tech inside a smaller, less cumbersome unit.

Google Glass 2 Patent Prototype
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Google Glass started life as a highly desirable piece of wearable tech, but has slowly fallen from grace, to the point where developers are supposedly abandoning it, and potential buyers are put off by the negative press regarding privacy. If Google wants to reinvigorate interest in Glass, a new, sleeker design will be a good start.

The patent picture comes soon after it was reported that Intel may team up with Google for Glass 2, and provide one of its own processors to power the device. If so, Intel may then push the wearable towards the business world. Google, on the other hand, apparently remains committed to promoting Glass as a consumer product. If these rumor reports are accurate, the next version of Glass may arrive in 2015.

The question is, would this new design persuade you to embrace Glass?

Andy Boxall
Andy is a Senior Writer at Digital Trends, where he concentrates on mobile technology, a subject he has written about for…
Digital Trends’ Top Tech of CES 2023 Awards
Best of CES 2023 Awards Our Top Tech from the Show Feature

Let there be no doubt: CES isn’t just alive in 2023; it’s thriving. Take one glance at the taxi gridlock outside the Las Vegas Convention Center and it’s evident that two quiet COVID years didn’t kill the world’s desire for an overcrowded in-person tech extravaganza -- they just built up a ravenous demand.

From VR to AI, eVTOLs and QD-OLED, the acronyms were flying and fresh technologies populated every corner of the show floor, and even the parking lot. So naturally, we poked, prodded, and tried on everything we could. They weren’t all revolutionary. But they didn’t have to be. We’ve watched enough waves of “game-changing” technologies that never quite arrive to know that sometimes it’s the little tweaks that really count.

Read more
Digital Trends’ Tech For Change CES 2023 Awards
Digital Trends CES 2023 Tech For Change Award Winners Feature

CES is more than just a neon-drenched show-and-tell session for the world’s biggest tech manufacturers. More and more, it’s also a place where companies showcase innovations that could truly make the world a better place — and at CES 2023, this type of tech was on full display. We saw everything from accessibility-minded PS5 controllers to pedal-powered smart desks. But of all the amazing innovations on display this year, these three impressed us the most:

Samsung's Relumino Mode
Across the globe, roughly 300 million people suffer from moderate to severe vision loss, and generally speaking, most TVs don’t take that into account. So in an effort to make television more accessible and enjoyable for those millions of people suffering from impaired vision, Samsung is adding a new picture mode to many of its new TVs.
[CES 2023] Relumino Mode: Innovation for every need | Samsung
Relumino Mode, as it’s called, works by adding a bunch of different visual filters to the picture simultaneously. Outlines of people and objects on screen are highlighted, the contrast and brightness of the overall picture are cranked up, and extra sharpness is applied to everything. The resulting video would likely look strange to people with normal vision, but for folks with low vision, it should look clearer and closer to "normal" than it otherwise would.
Excitingly, since Relumino Mode is ultimately just a clever software trick, this technology could theoretically be pushed out via a software update and installed on millions of existing Samsung TVs -- not just new and recently purchased ones.

Read more
How does Garmin measure stress, and is it really accurate?
Garmin Vivomove Sport dial close up. Credits: Garmin official.

Garmin watches are known for their robust activity tracking, but that's not all these fitness watches can do. Over the years, the company has been adding wellness features to its lineup of watches. These new health-focused metrics allow people to analyze their fitness and identify outside factors affecting their performance. One such factor is stress, which is something Garmin watches actively measures.
But you may be wondering—exactly how does Garmin measure stress? In this article, we break down how Garmin measures stress and delve into the accuracy of this metric. Should you trust your stress score? Read on to find out.

Is Garmin's stress score accurate?

Read more