Google Goggles: Wait, did I miss something?

So today Google officially announced a skunkworks project called Project Glass. Great! Cool! Augmented reality glasses, I’m happy to start conceiving and imagining uses for new technology.

But then I see this click-bait* article, and suddenly the facts have changed:

It could be a year before Google eyewear reaches stores…

Uh, what? Where does anyone say that? I’m not clear there’s working hardware yet, forget the rest of the product development that would go into seeing this become reality. It could be a year, it could be five, this might never become reality. While there are photos that were released as part of the project’s Google+ page, I don’t think anyone has stated whether this is working hardware, a non-functional design prototype, or just a simulated mock-up.

The New York Times, speculates as well:

If you venture into a coffee shop in the coming months and see someone with a pair of futuristic glasses that look like a prop from “Star Trek,” don’t worry. It’s probably just a Google employee testing the company’s new augmented-reality glasses.

I don’t think Google has announced public testing, but there’s the NYT floating the idea twice in their article. They don’t cite a source, and they don’t even mention that this fact comes from Google. It certainly isn’t mentioned on the Google+ page.

Most companies (including Google) are pretty secretive about their future plans. I tend to suspect FUD more than anything else, when I see these kind of early concept level announcements. If anything, I would expect Apple and Facebook to ignore today’s announcement. Some of the tech successes from being first to market**, but from giving consumers more than just over-hyped tech demos disguised as products. If Google were to innovate and create a truly great product in this space, Apple and Facebook would have reason to be afraid. But if history is any guide, it’ll be the later product refinement that really makes the market.

* mentioning Google, Apple, and Facebook in the same article defines click-bait. Yes this blog entry qualifies.

** Google wasn’t the first web search engine, or even the second. They just delivered a much better set of results.