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Google

Google Glass is not only a product that still exists inside Google, but today, Google is announcing a new version of Google Glass, called "Google Glass Enterprise Edition 2." It has a new design, new specs, and a $999 price tag. We can't believe it either.

Google has a blog post detailing the new product, and Google.com/glass has been resurrected with all sorts of details on the new face computer. The new Google Glass has a thicker, bulkier design, which probably helps to fit a larger 820mAh battery compared to the original's 570mAh. Given that Glass is now an enterprise-focused product, it makes sense that Google is promoting a design with built-in safety glasses, although a more traditional frameless style is still available.

Google was even nice enough to provide a mostly full spec sheet. Glass Enterprise 2 is powered by the "Qualcomm Snapdragon XR1 platform," which contains a quad-core 1.7Ghz CPU built on a 10nm manufacturing process. Google calls this a "significantly more powerful multicore CPU (central processing unit)" than the old Intel Atom SoC in the first Enterprise Edition of Google Glass. The company says, "This enables significant power savings, enhanced performance, and support for computer vision and advanced machine-learning capabilities."

Besides the new SoC, there are 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, an 8MP camera, USB-C, and Bluetooth 5. The display is listed as a "640x360 Optical Display Module," which sounds identical to the original Google Glass display component. The OS is only Android 8.0 Oreo, not the latest Android 9 Pie release.

This is the third major version of Google Glass. The first consumer version was powered by an IT OMAP SoC and didn't fold up. Google never made a big deal about the first "Enterprise Edition" of Google Glass, which switched to an Intel Atom SoC and included the ability to fold, just like a real pair of glasses.

The Glass team has ping-ponged around Google for years, starting at Google X, graduating to a standalone division inside Google in 2015, and resetting its vision a month later under Nest CEO Tony Fadell. Today, a Google blog post says "the Glass team has moved from X to Google." So apparently Glass went back to Google X, maybe after Tony Fadell left the company?

Google VR/AR lead Clay Bavor has claimed ownership of Google Glass on Twitter, so now it seems the same group that brings you ARCore and Google Daydream VR goggles will be in charge of Google Glass.

As an enterprise product, Glass is not available to consumers and, last we checked, didn't come with general-purpose software. You'd need to have a company buy a large quantity of Glass devices and develop custom software that would work on them.

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