Project Aura Aims to Reinvent Google Glass

Just weeks after Google and several other silicon valley mammoths agreed to a record 1 million settlement over an nearly 10-year old “no-poaching” pact among technology giants-a secret agreement not to recruit each others employees-Google is raiding the valley to recruit for its new Project Aura, Glass and Beyond, hiring a full-time recruiter, Jessica Bailow.

The new hires seem to be related with the Google’s job postings in May, which defined Google Glass division as “a world-class team focused on the cutting edge of hardware, software and industrial design”.

Google has brought in at least three employees from Amazon’s Lab126 to work on the new project and is still recruiting.

It’s unclear at this point what, exactly, Project Aura will look like, but the report describes it as “a much-needed re-branding to the tattered Glass image”. Tony Fadell is reportedly overseeing the project.

Project Aura will stay with Google rather than being a separate company under the new Alphabet holding company or being introduced into the Nest smart appliances business, according to a source that spoke with Business Insider.

That means we could see Google taking on Samsung and Apple with a whole host of new wearable devices.

The Aura group will aid Google in other projects as well including the VR-lite Cardboard group and Soli, a next “real world gestures” interface concept. Google acknowledged earlier in the year that the program was moved under Tony Fadell, who has been heading up the connected home division after selling Google his wildly successful Nest Labs.

Google said it was done selling the $1,500 version of Glass a few months back. Amir Frenke joined a month later as director of software development.

Meanwhile, Tina Cen, who left Amazon in August, now serves as the manager of technical program management at Project Aura. The e-commerce retailer launched its Fire smartphone previous year but received a poor welcome, thus it stopped producing its Fire Phone line-up.