Remember Google’s Glass Project? The everyday wearable glasses that display GPS directions, call logs and other nifty information on the lens? Well now it appears Google has enriched these frames with sound by way of ingenious bone conduction technology.
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According to The Verge, Google has lodged filings to the FCC which reveal Glass will contain a “vibrating element” delivering audio “via contact with the user’s head.” We can’t be certain, but that description is synonymous with the technology used in bone conduction technology.
Bone conduction technology doesn’t deliver sound by probing your ears with headphones. Instead speakers cuddle your cheekbones and gently vibrate sound directly into your skull. It’s a safer delivery method as listeners can still hear the outside world and, although not new technology, it fits Google’s project like a Glass slipper.
Adding substance to this notion is a previously filed Google patent for a “wearable computing device” with bone-conduction speakers.
There are a few details in the filings that vary from what was announced last year. They appear to have 802.11 b/g/n WiFi (however, one of the filings details 802.11 b/g) and the current Bluetooth 4.0 low energy tech. Another incongruity involves the tech used to charge them with mentions of a USB charger and another listing a “barrel” connector.
Following its Google I/O unveiling, Google’s Glass was promised to willing developers who had $1,500 by early 2013.
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