Google says it will stop taking orders for its iconic Google Glass next week, and is closing its “Explorer” software dev program. The BBC reports that Google says responsibility for the project is being moved out of the Google X division and into the consumer products division (with Nest) under Tony Fadell.
At first glance, this might look like the welcome end of Google Glass. (There was a distinct paucity of them last week on the show floor at CES, where one might have expected them to be thick on the ground.) But there is that development deal with Luxottica, and news just yesterday of a Glass app with the big British retailer Tesco. And moving Glass out of the experimental group and into the product group may actually be a harbinger of a larger future for Glass, not a smaller one — and a future as an actual commercial product with an actual distribution channel.
That said, there’s still no word about the actual general commercial availability of Glass. At this moment, it remains an experimental product with limited use cases that you won’t be able to buy.
