Google exec Eric Schmidt says Glass isn't dead, it's being made ready for users

Back in January, Google put the kibosh on its controversial Glass Explorer program, and that got the tech world wondering if it was the end of Glass for good. Despite the rumors regarding the Glass shutdown, Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt says the headset is a long-term project, and was put under Tony Fadell’s oversight “to make it ready for users”.

Schmidt explains:

It is a big and very fundamental platform for Google. We ended the Explorer program and the press conflated this into us canceling the whole project, which isn’t true. Google is about taking risks and there’s nothing about adjusting Glass that suggests we’re ending it.

That’s like saying the self-driving car is a disappointment because it’s not driving me around now. These things take time.

Soon after the project was moved out of Google’s X labs, a few reports suggested that Tony Fadell wouldn’t launch the 2nd generation Google Glass headset without it being completely consumer-ready. If those rumors are true, that means there will be no Glass Explorer program this time around.

Back in December, we heard that the next-gen Google Glass headset, which is rumored to launch sometime this year, would see a complete redesign. Intel is rumored to supply the CPU, as opposed to the Texas Instruments processor in the current model. The new headset will supposedly feature much better battery life as well.

We’re not sure when the new Glass model will launch, but we do know that Google is doing all they can to get things right this time around.