Google may have kicked off the augmented reality market with its Glass AR wearable all the way back in 2013, but success with the product category has proven elusive even after a whole decade. There was another one that came about early last year as reported by The Verge, called Project Iris, but it looks like it too has been put to sleep.
Insider reports that “Google has killed off a project to build a pair of augmented reality glasses it had been working on for several years”. This is none other than the aforementioned Project Iris, which the report notes to be a series of glasses-like wearables. That being said, descriptions of the project are not exactly consistent, as it was previously described to look like ski goggles, not unlike what the Apple Vision Pro ended up looking like.
Initially, Google intended to launch Project Iris as its own product, according to the report. And to do that, it’s parent Alphabet acquired a number of other companies to get the talent to do so, including Canadian smart glass maker North back in 2020. But the project ultimately changed direction a lot of times internally as company leaders kept changing the strategy for Project Iris. Ultimately, the internet search giant is now shelving the hardware part of its project. And in its stead, it is continuing down the software platform path, aiming for what is described as “Android for AR”.
Despite the cancellation though, the report cites two anonymous employees of Google who claim that the company may bring the project back one day. The company still has some employee teams “experimenting on AR technologies”. Though even if this is the case, it wouldn’t be surprising if it gets canned all over again.
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