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Google Buys North to Expand Glass Resources and Capability
July 05, 2020
Google latest acquisition is North, a wearables computing company that most recently was making smart glasses that seemed like a successor to Google Glass. Google SVP Rick Osterloh said :North’s smart glasses called "Focals," came the closest we've seen so far to smart glasses that looked like normal glasses.”
The Focals had problems with the laser-beam scanning (LBS) display. The laser stuck out of the temple and reflected off the glasses lens and into the pupil. The angles wouldn't work as a straight reflection, so a holographic coating was needed on the glasses lens to act as a tiled mirror, directing the laser light into the eye at the right angle. The effective sweet spot was incredibly small, so much so that Focals required every customer to show up to a physical store and have their head 3D scanned to allow a custom pair of glasses to be made for them. Even then, the display was tiny (North's marketing images, showing a lens-filling image, were not accurate) with only a 300x300 resolution and a 15-degree field of view.
The Focals were anywhere from $600 to $1,000, depending on color and prescription needs, and launched in 2019. By all accounts, the company was not doing well before Google bought it. After the January 2019 launch, Focals laid off 150 employees in February 2019, a substantial portion of the "over 400 people" it employed.
The acquisition of North is the latest in a burst of purchases from Google's hardware team. Google bought Fitbit in 2019 for $2.1 billion, its fifth-largest acquisition ever, and the purchase is still waiting for regulatory approval. In 2019, Google bought $40 million worth of technology and an R&D team from Fossil Group, a Wear OS smartwatch OEM. In 2018, Google closed a $1.1 billion deal with HTC, bringing the Pixel smartphone design team in-house.
July 05, 2020
Google latest acquisition is North, a wearables computing company that most recently was making smart glasses that seemed like a successor to Google Glass. Google SVP Rick Osterloh said :North’s smart glasses called "Focals," came the closest we've seen so far to smart glasses that looked like normal glasses.”
- First, the company didn't neglect the "glasses" part of "smart glasses" and provided the frames in a range of styles, sizes, and colors, with support for prescription lenses. The technology was noticeably less invasive, too. Google Glass's display surface was a transparent block distractingly placed in front of the users' face, but Focal's display surface was the glasses' lens itself. A laser projector poked out from the thicker-than-normal temple arms and fired into the lens, which has a special coating, allowing the projection to reflect light into the eye.
- All the computer components and the battery were smushed into the arms.
- The device worked a lot like a smartwatch, tethering to your phone for Internet and personal data.
- It not being a part of the Google or Apple ecosystem duopoly meant a host of app and ecosystem problems, but the glasses supported pop-up notifications, calendar viewing, weather, navigation, Uber, and some kind of messaging support.
- There was even Amazon Alexa support for voice commands. Like Google Glass, Focals aren't augmented reality; they're just a transparent display that shows flat imagery, more like a smartwatch for your face.
The Focals had problems with the laser-beam scanning (LBS) display. The laser stuck out of the temple and reflected off the glasses lens and into the pupil. The angles wouldn't work as a straight reflection, so a holographic coating was needed on the glasses lens to act as a tiled mirror, directing the laser light into the eye at the right angle. The effective sweet spot was incredibly small, so much so that Focals required every customer to show up to a physical store and have their head 3D scanned to allow a custom pair of glasses to be made for them. Even then, the display was tiny (North's marketing images, showing a lens-filling image, were not accurate) with only a 300x300 resolution and a 15-degree field of view.
The Focals were anywhere from $600 to $1,000, depending on color and prescription needs, and launched in 2019. By all accounts, the company was not doing well before Google bought it. After the January 2019 launch, Focals laid off 150 employees in February 2019, a substantial portion of the "over 400 people" it employed.
The acquisition of North is the latest in a burst of purchases from Google's hardware team. Google bought Fitbit in 2019 for $2.1 billion, its fifth-largest acquisition ever, and the purchase is still waiting for regulatory approval. In 2019, Google bought $40 million worth of technology and an R&D team from Fossil Group, a Wear OS smartwatch OEM. In 2018, Google closed a $1.1 billion deal with HTC, bringing the Pixel smartphone design team in-house.
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