Google Glass Launch: Will Have An API, Won’t Have Ads

Though an exact date is still unknown, Google Glass is still in progress toward a developer launch in the first half of this year.

Babak Parviz, who founded Project Glass at Google, opened up a bit about what developers can expect with the first version of Google’s wearable computing device in recent interview with IEEE Spectrum. Here are some highlights:

• Google Glass will launch with an API allowing developers to build additional services onto the product.
• Parviz says Google is working on including phone functionality into Glass, and also mentions e-mail and calendar features.
• Google is still working on the business issues related to Glass, but Parviz says the company has “no plans for advertising on this device.” (Almost every Google product was launched without advertising, and eventually had them added later. I’d expect the same with Glass.)
• Users can interact with Glass via a small touchpad on the device. Google has experimented with interactions via voice commands and head gestures.

Parviz also says that Google Now, the company’s mobile search/assistance feature, could be “very compelling” as part of Google Glass.

The interview includes more detail about functionality than I’ve seen to date, but Google is still staying quiet about what opportunities, if any, will be available to marketers — whether it be mobile advertising, mobile search, deals, coupons, or something else. Parviz tells IEEE Spectrum that the feature set “is still in flux.”

Google announced the product last summer at its I/O developer conference, and said it would ship in the first half of 2013. The company offered pre-sales to developers at $1,500 a pop. It hasn’t said how many orders were taken, but anecdotal evidence suggests that it’s between 2,000-3,000.