back to article Sony's super-frumpy SmartEyeglass goggles are $840 Google Glasses

Do you like Google Glass, but wish the $1,500 headset was more cumbersome, less discreet, and a little easier on the wallet? Well, Sony has just the thing for you (and perhaps only you). The Japanese electronics giant has announced an augmented reality headset that will ship in March. Dubbed SmartEyeglass, the nerdy-looking …

  1. Dave 126 Silver badge
    Terminator

    For those who don't click through the Sony link:

    -The display looks like the Terminator's point of view, but simpler and in green.

    1. LaeMing

      Re: For those who don't click through the Sony link:

      4. Any attempt to arrest a senior SONY employee results in shutdown.

      1. DropBear

        Re: For those who don't click through the Sony link:

        4. Any attempt to arrest a senior SONY employee results in shutdown.

        That's acceptable, but do they have an app for calculating ricochet shots off surrounding hard surfaces...?

  2. Gannettt

    When the phone is in your pocket, nobody can tell whether you have a top-of-the-range iPhone or a cheapo Chinese Android; with these wearables, any potential robber will be able top pick out their marks with ease.

    Perhaps the pint is to make them fugly, so that they aren't desirable to the criminals.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Joke

      But you can't also show off your latest mobe. If you "wear" it on your nose, like in the Apple patent, you can show everybody you just got the latest mobe, and put it square in their faces!

  3. Ted 3
    Joke

    The start of a whole new device ecosystem

    "The Sony unit will be equipped with a wearable controller the user carries".

    This can only mean one thing: the Sony Smart Wig!

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/22/sony_smart_wig_patent/

  4. Haku

    Futuristic retro?

    They look like the bastard love child of 1950's cat eye glasses and some swimming goggles.

    1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: Futuristic retro?

      Ah, eat your heart out Joe 90

    2. DropBear
      Boffin

      Re: Futuristic retro?

      I'm holding out for the Steampunk Goggle version...

  5. DiViDeD

    Just HOW did Apple win a patent?

    Sorry, got a bit distracted by Apple getting a patent for what appears to be just a ripoff of Cardboard. Is having the phone slide in from the side enough to preclude prior art?

    Or is it because the Apple version will be constructed using brown envelopes of used bills left lying around the USPTO?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Just HOW did Apple win a patent?

      Does no one bother to ever read the dates on patents in Reg articles before whining about Apple? Filed Sept 30, 2008. When did Google introduce Cardboard? Yeah, thought so.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Just HOW did Apple win a patent?

        The sad thing in my eyes is that Apple can now stop the affordable VR market in its tracks while producing nothing of their own in the field. Software on the Cardboard was just starting to take off too.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Just HOW did Apple win a patent?

          When has Apple EVER sued to stop others from violating a patent they weren't using? Every time someone comes up with this worry, I ask this question, and no one has EVER come up with a single example of Apple doing this.

  6. The FunkeyGibbon

    Wow

    That video made wearables look about as cool as herpes...

  7. therealmav

    Ring ring

    Hello Sony. This is the NHS. Can we gave our glasses back please.

  8. John Robson Silver badge

    Apple's design people need to think

    They've omitted the left hand glasses arm, which wouldn't have obscured anything else in the image, but left in the right hand arm, which runs across the main point of the inv^H^H^H patent.

  9. CaptSmeg

    pinchVR ?

    Hmmm, not sure where this patent leaves the pinchVR guys. It kinda looks like their planned product.

    https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/pinch-vr-smartphone-virtual-reality-are-one

  10. stu 4

    Poor Sony

    It's like a 70s rock band who keep on bringing new stuff out in the hope of recapturing the glory days - but have left all their talent in the past.

    It was only 15 years ago that Sony were leading the world with tech innovation - I've still got a house full of it - stuff like the Vaio picturebook, and later the quirky but tiny (by the then standards) UX180 PC, and what about the UX50 handheld - amazingly ahead of it's time.

    Then there wasGlasstron VR specs done right with great optics, and the combined tiny PC and video camera combined, etc. They were on a roll.

    But by 2003 or so, there were already signs they'd lost it - the first to deliver solid state 'mp3' players - BADGED as 'mp3 compatible' but actually atrac players - and you had to convert all your mp3 to atrac via sonys crap software...

    There started the demise of sony..

    They continued the memory stick nonsense, totally lost the consumer audio market, stopped innovating with PCs, and even managed to start installing boot-kits.

    Only a company truly and completely broken could have let a product like these glasses get to production - the video is so utterly utterly terrible it's hard to watch. How bad can management be when not one can stand up on seeing that and say 'you're joking right - that is the worse piece of shit in my life'

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Re: Poor Sony

      Sony are no longer guilty of the sins you have highlighted.

      These days they make some of the best Android phones (very good battery, microSD card support), some very good cameras, televisions, and their PS4 console is more fit-for-purpose than its competition. They still release some well polished and innovative products.

      Sony aren't the only company to pull out of the PC market. The home audio market has also changed shape, with docks and networked systems supplanting traditional hi-fi separates. Sony still make some dedicated audio players, and some good balanced armature / hybrid earphones.

      >Only a company truly and completely broken could have let a product like these glasses get to production

      The video was aimed at developers, and the goggles are largely intended for environments where eye protection is more important than fashion - i.e workshops and sports. This is a far more sensible approach than Google's desperate attempts to make their Glass product acceptable in social settings.

  11. ThatGuy

    OMG

    How did this product get all the way from paper to production without anyone at Sony saying anything about how god awful they look. I really want to know. If anyone at Sony is reading, please can you enlighten me?

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Re: OMG

      As developer units, they are effectively a form of prototype - looks aren't crucial. Sony can't be arsed to deal with the social backlash that Google's Glass has generated, so are pitching these differently. The applications they used as examples are just that- the idea is to see what developers come up with.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: OMG

      I don't get your point -- all our Dilbert-like single male engineers thought they looked cool and possibly attractive to the opposite sex.

    3. jai

      Re: OMG

      Are you suggesting that M$'s Hologlass looks so much cooler? or, in fact, Googles Glasses, which are smaller, but still godawful?

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Self-made news

    "users of the headset were dubbed "Glassholes.""

    Rather El Reg dubbing them "Glassholes" and reporting about it...

  13. AbeSapian

    To Make This a Usful Product

    Up the battery life to 16 hours and make the lenses programmable to one's prescription.

  14. wayward4now

    Nah....

    Not for $800. Nope. Next.

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