Glass moves out of Google X to under Nest CEO Tony Fadell
Google Glass is growing up. Reports from Fortune and the Wall Street Journal indicate that Google is planning to take its wearable face computer out of the experimental Google X unit. Instead Glass will be its own division, and Google Glass head Ivy Ross will report to Nest CEO Tony Fadell.
Tony Fadell is famous for contributing to the birth of the iPod at Apple. He landed at Google after the company bought Nest, his smart home startup, in 2014 for $3.2 billion.
In the short few years that Google Glass has been available, it’s clearly been a kind of beta test. Google has called its beta testers “explorers,” and with a $1500 price tag, Glass has generally been too expensive and experimental for mass consumption.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Google is planning to stop selling Glass on January 19, 2015, which likely means the entire Explorer program is winding down.
Recently, worries about the platform’s future have led a few major developers, like Twitter, to abandon their Glass apps. Google says that a future version of Glass is on its way in 2015.
Google X is overseen by Google co-founder Sergey Brin, and its offices, according to a 2013 article in Businessweek, are not on the main Google campus. Ivy Ross took over Google Glass in May after doing marketing work for consumer brands brands like Mattel and Disney.
I’ve asked Google for comment and will update when it gets back to me.
Image copyright Jakub Mosur.
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