Google's Project Glass becomes clearer as fresh details emerge
More details of Google's upcoming augmented reality headset have been discovered in documents the company has filed to a US regulator.
The documents — filed by Google this week to the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) — provide a closer look at the heads up display, which Google is developing as part of Project Glass, and offer new suggestions as to how the search giant's device may work. Google filed the papers to the FCC so that the regulator could inspect the proposals being put forward and check they are safe.
A test report suggests that Google is considering a new technology to deliver sound to the person wearing the glasses that won't disturb they way they hear ambient sounds. The new technology would see traditional headphones replaced with a "vibrating element" that delivers sound to the wearer by sending vibrations to the ear via the skull.
The company filed a patent application last week to the US Patent & Trademark Office entitled 'Wearable Computing Device with Indirect Bone-Conduction Speaker'.
The FCC documents also suggest that data will be sent to the small screen display by 2.4GHz 802.11 b/g wi-fi or Bluetooth 4.0HS, using a radio unit manufactured by Broadcomm.
Elsewhere, the documents reveal the glasses will have the ability to store video files internally and be recharged by plugging a power connector into the computing unit, which is situated on the glasses' right arm.
The FCC first tested the glasses, known as model XEB, on 19 November, 2012.
Google previously promised that developers would start receiving Google Glasses in January 2013. Google held a hackathon in San Francisco last weekend and has another one scheduled this weekend in New York.
It also said it expected the first version of the eyewear, known as the Explorer Edition, to be on sale by the end of 2014.