Project Glass is a research and development program by Google to develop an augmented reality head-mounted display (HMD). The product (Google Glass Explorer Edition) will be available to United States Google I/O developers for $1,500, shipping early in 2013.

The intended purpose of Project Glass products would be the hands free displaying of information currently available to most smartphone users,and allowing for interaction with the Internet via natural language voice commands, in a manner which has been compared to the iPhone feature Siri. The operating system software used in the glasses will be Google's Android.

Project Glass is part of the Google X Lab at the company, which has worked on other futuristic technologies, such as a self-driving car. The project was announced on Google+ by Babak Parviz, an electrical engineer who has also worked on putting displays into contact lenses; Steve Lee, a project manager and "geolocation specialist"; and Sebastian Thrun, who developed Udacity as well as worked on the self-driving car project.

 

Google co-founder Sergey Brin wears his much-rumored Google Glass during an hour-long interview on The Gavin Newsom Show. After demonstrating how the glasses work, he and his wife, Anne Wojcicki—co-founder of 23andMe—discuss gene mapping for preventative healthcare, and Sergey’s role with Google X, the search company’s special research division.

Watch the full interview this Friday, June 1, on Current TV.

The Gavin Newsom Show airs Fridays at 11p ET / 8p PT.