Google Goggles. Apple Fiddles.

'Heads up' glasses have been around for awhile. Ask any kid who ever read a Commando comic or has seen Terminator. Fighter pilots use them with strong visual displays reducing the need to look down into a cockpit.


Now Google have ventured into the make-believe with Google glasses or Google Goggles as they're known. Not only that, it marks a venture for Google out of search, into manufacture, the preserve of companies like Apple.


Apple is the largest company in the world - 600 billion usd market cap - and this is possibly its biggest threat. Laugh you may, but when a network with the power of Google, enters device manufacture, be afraid. Very afraid.

'Mashable' reports a Google source indicating their availability in 2012 as being "unlikely" but the fact is, that similar glasses already exist at retail and therefore they may not be as far fetched as they seem. The Epson range, not so different, already retails at 699 dollars and look more like surgical glasses than fashion wear, but it's a start.


The thinking is that these will have the same functionality of your smartphone and with augmented reality, bring a lot more. So it's a smartphone replacement strategy too in glasses form. As in IPhone.


Voice commands send messages; photos taken literally on the move, are shared instantly; locations via maps with directions on hand; location of friends through geo-location services; music player with video....and so on. 


Indeed, think about gaming live with the glasses on or to augment skills at work (a mechanic looking into an engine for example, can identify things better). So the applications are limitless in one sense.


Of course, Apple are the kingmakers with devices like this. They have the manufacturer edge and the trust in the brands they create but, and it's a big but, they don't have the social network - or even the network. That gives Google a massive advantage.


So why reveal all so early? Remember Steve Jobs sworn to secrecy obsession before every launch?


Google say they wanted to go early to gather feedback. I don't buy that.


Wired (what has happened to that magazine?) indicated that "it was a project rather than a reality" and Mashable "it's still more of a concept than actual project!". So I think this is publicity and perhaps a sign of intent to Apple that Google intend to enter the device space.


Yep, I agree, right now they look awful and it's highly unlikely that in their present format, you'll ever see them. Or the streets will be full of people smiling and talking to themselves.


However, there's a big play here in the form of augmented reality in a new device and glasses, is one new way to deliver content. 


Imagine if this level of technology and content was embedded into your car windscreen on demand, for example? Better than any smartphone.


It's really a 'heads up' on new content delivery systems. Better than any Iphone and Apples foray into content (Apps, itunes) is device driven. Think about it. You have itunes because you had to because you have an Iphone. It started with the delivery system.


Something which other brands like Nokia, LG and others should be concerned about, if they're not already. 


That's what Amazon's Kindle Fire is all about. Starts with Ebooks (their killer app) and now Movies. Shortly telephony.


And that's what the original browser wars (Netscape V Internet Explorer) were about.

If you own the delivery system, you control the content.
If Google own the delivery system using content they already control, this could be world domination. 


And that's no exaggeration.