Google Glasses to include bone conduction technology

Google recently submitted FCC filings for their upcoming Google Glasses. The pair includes 2.4GHz 802.11 b/g WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0, but they also include bone conduction technology, meaning that you can listen to audio without having pesky earbuds or headphones. Vibrations that travel through bones near your ears allow you to listen to music, while still hearing what goes on around you.

In the FCC application, there’s a paragraph referencing to an “integral vibrating element that provides audio to the user via contact with the user’s head.” Of course, just a few days earlier, Google filed for a patent dealing with a bone-conduction earpiece for glasses, meaning that there could very will be a connection between the patent and the FFC filing.

Bone conduction technology isn’t anything new by any means, but we haven’t really seen a breakthrough in the technology, and it hasn’t become that popular yet. If Google Glasses does, in fact, include bone conduction technology, we finally might see it fly into the mainstream quicker than it would otherwise.

We first saw glimpses of Google’s “Project Glass” earlier last year, as well as at Google I/O over the summer, where the company demonstrated the new technology to developers and press. Developers will be able to get their hands on a pair in a couple of months at a price of $1,500, while regular consumers are said to be able buy a pair sometime within a year from when devs get theirs.

[via Business Insider]