Google drops Glass for Aura, brings Amazon experts in

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt was reported as saying earlier this year that the company was not giving up on Glass because wearable technology is a potentially big new market.

According to reports from Business Insider and the Wall Street Journal, Google has specifically targeted consumer electronics experts from Amazon’s Lab126 for the project, which will stay as a part of Google and not become a standalone wing of the new Alphabet holding company.

With the team and new initiative only just being formed – which will still work under the Google brand for now, not as part of another Alphabet offshoot – it is unlikely we’ll see a successor to Google Glass anytime soon.

Google stopped selling the initial $1,500 version of Glass to consumers in January following waning interest, criticism over its price and privacy concerns.

“Google is about taking risks and there’s nothing about adjusting Glass that suggests we’re ending it”. It is not yet determined if Project Aura will integrate virtual reality like the Cardboard and Facebook’s Oculus. New hire Dmitry Svetlov may have spilled the beans after mentioning on his LinkedIn bio that other “cool wearables” were also in the works. Amir Frenke joined in June as a director of software development.

Headed-up by Nest CEO Tony Fadell, and run by Ivy Ross, the project will be an attempt to turn the experimental but ultimately failed Google Glass project into something with a genuine commercial future. And Google recently posted several job openings for the Aura team, including a program manager for category development, an industrial designer and a UX designer.