Google Glass go on sale in the UK for £1,000

Google Glass smartglasses are finally available in the UK for £1,000, two years after they were extravagantly launched by skydivers in the US.

The smartglasses have been praised by adherents who describe it as the evolution of wearable computing, while Google co-founder Sergey Brin has called them a way to "free your eyes", and described smartphones as "emasculating".

But they have also been the object of privacy objections, ridicule and even muggings in the US.

The devices, costing £1,000, are now available for purchase by anyone over 18 years old and with a UK credit card and address.

Google Glass consists of a pair of glasses with a small prism-based translucent screen-mounted above the right eye. It can take pictures or video from a front-facing camera, controlled by a voice command or a swipe on the right-hand armature, and is designed to display at-a-glance information on its screen which is visible only to the user. It runs a variant of Google’s Android mobile software, and relies on a smartphone for its data connectivity. Google says it offers about a day's battery life, or 45 minutes' continuous video recording.

“We know there’s a pent-up demand for Glass, from all over the world,” Ivy Ross, the new head of Glass, told the Guardian. “As we start to branch out we picked the UK first because we think it has a history of embracing technology, design and fashion, and I think there’s a resurgence happening in technology in the UK.”

A £1,000 prototype

Google says the smartglasses are still in "beta" – prototype –form, despite being openly on sale, and that it wants early adopters to buy and use them and report back problems and suggestions so it can shape the future of the product, which is expected to eventually cost about the same as the average smartphone. However that figure is itself a moving target, expected to fall from around $300 worldwide in 2014 to $260 by 2018 according to IDC.

Glass is available with prescription lenses, and there will soon be five swappable frames and eight sunglasses from the Belgian-born American fashion designer Diane von Fürstenberg. Users will be able to resell their Glass smartglasses, just like they could a mobile phone. Currently there are a number of older versions of Glass on sales on the UK eBay auction site, at prices close to £950, shipped from the US.

Since Glass's introduction, Google has made five hardware revisions and twelve software updates. The UK variant will come with better battery life than earlier models, as well as customisations to adapt its voice recognition to the varied British accent.

UK citizens can buy online and get it shipped directly to their door, but Google has also opened a trial and fitting “Basecamp" centre in King’s Cross in London.

Glass can run specialised Android apps called “Glassware”. Five new UK-specific apps will be available from launch, including the Guardian’s new app which sends breaking news alerts and a selection of other Guardian content to the smartglasses, as well as an apps from Star Chart, Shazam, Zombies Run and goal.com.

Designed with privacy in mind

Google Glass has come under fire from privacy advocates because it can record video without subjects being aware of it, and that any video will be routed through Google's servers. Some restaurants and bars have banned patrons from wearing them, as has a cinema chain. One woman had them stolen from her face after she began filming people in a US bar who then objected. The UK may ban Glass for drivers.

But Ross called these bans “small isolated incidents” and said Google was not overly worried about them. “In 1890 they banned Kodak cameras from parks when they first came out,” she observed. “Quite frankly Glass is more obvious than other recording technologies. There are brooches you can wear that record video, so I don’t think that’s something to fear. We’re listening, but we’re not worried about those concerns.”

Ross, who took over the job five weeks ago, insists that “Glass was designed with privacy in mind.”

She says: “we certainly developed it out of the gate – the prototype – with what we thought would address those issues, but we are also totally listening and learning from our beta program. When the screen goes on you can see it [as a bystander] for instance,” she explained.

“Any new technology always raises new issues and that’s one of the reasons we’re not saying it’s ready for prime time until we understand those issues.”

Ross puts some of the privacy worries down to misunderstanding of the technology:

“With some things we have found, where those concerns over privacy have cropped up in the US, when people actually try it, even legislators, and put it on their face a lot of those concerns go away.”

“The unknown is sometimes scarier than the known,” she said.

There are also fears that people with valuable technology on their face could be the target of muggings. While they can’t necessarily help users recover their gadget Ross explained that, “we have lock features, like a smartphone, and if you sign into MyGlass you can remotely wipe it and return it to the factory condition to remove everything.”

'Every consumer has an occupation'

Debate has raged over whether Glass and smartglasses like it have any viable real-world use cases for consumers, or are more interesting to businesses where workers need hands-free access to information. Virgin Airlines has trialled them at Heathrow Airport for staff welcoming its Upper Class passengers, while surgeons have used the video relay capability to show themselves carrying out operations for teaching purposes.

Ross thinks both businesses and consumers will be interested in Glass in the long run.

“What you’re seeing now is that the people in businesses that acquired them are coming up with all these amazing use cases for it, but the same thing is happening with consumers – artists, mums, dads, school teachers, scientists – they’re doing amazing things with it too,” said Ross.

“We designed it with the consumer in mind, but every consumer has an occupation. Like a doctor could use it in his practice with certain modifications and at home. When we come out and do our true broader launch it will be for the consumer,” she said.

Whether Glass will ever become a mass-market product, and smartglasses take off, is still unclear. Google is hedging its bets, however, with its new Android Wear and smartwatch initiative which is expected to be shown off at Google’s I/O developer conference in San Francisco later this week.