Google Glass Team Re-Branded as Project Aura, Not Ara

Project Aura is Google’s new Glass team name. This time around Google is looking mostly at business rather than focusing on consumers.

The Project Aura team has been hiring straight from Amazon’s Lab126. Software developers, engineers and even project managers are being swooped over to Google’s side – It is unknown at the moment if there were cookies involved or not.

Regardless, Google capitalized on Amazon’s phase 1 of laying off staff members. Due to their Fire smartphone failure, Amazon fired more than a dozen engineers.

Ivy Ross will be in charge of Project Aura. However, she still reports to Google’s head of connected-home business Nest Tony Fadell. There hasn’t been any significant change in the hierarchy that comprises the Glass team. Ross previously ran the project.

While Project Aura is working hard on the new iteration of the Glass, the team is also meddling with other kinds of wearable technology. This is according to job descriptions found on LinkedIn.

One software development manager that worked on Lab126, and later on joined Project Aura in August of 2015, described the project simply as Glass and Beyond. He also noted on his LinkedIn profile that the team is developing cool wearables.

Dimitry Svetlov, the manager in this case, didn’t quickly reply to a message seeking answers on LinkedIn, the Wall Street Journal adds.

Unfortunately for Google, their first try at selling the Glass failed, miserably. Partly do to the whole NSA scandal and because it featured a more than hefty price. Their first iteration of Glass retailed at $1,500.

People across the US were seeing Google’s Glass as a devilish thing that someone can use to record them in public places without nobody noticing.

Google couldn’t handle the backlash. They stopped selling the Glass in January and the company’s execs confirmed that their device was clearly not ready for consumers.

Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman at Google, noted earlier this year that the big G won’t give up trying to develop and market the Glass because they see this kind of technology as having a huge potential.

It’s a new market that doesn’t yet have a standard of quality imposed.

In the last couple of months, Google has been spreading Glass 2.0 to select few companies in the energy, health care and manufacturing industries.

Project Aura won’t have a consumer release this year, and rumors have it that they probably won’t have it ready even for 2016. What we do know is that it’s going to be released sometimes in the near future.

Will you give it another go when the time comes? Do you think people will forever hate the Glass?

Image Source: 1, 2

Bio
Latest Posts

Roxanne Briean

I am a geek, a gamer and a writer. I have always been fascinated with the online community. At the moment I work as a full-time writer and study interior design. When I'm not scouring the net in search of interesting new gadgets and software I spend my time in MOBAs or drawing.