Google may have taken Glass back to the labs in order to take on the likes of Microsoft and Oculus for future face space, but that hasn't put Sony off of releasing its clunky 'clever' specs.
The Sony SmartEyeglass system is up for pre-order now– £620 in the UK, $840 in the US – and is scheduled to ship on 10 March.
SmartEyeglass packs in a gyroscope, an accelerometer, an ambient light sensor and a built in 3MP camera. It also features a fairly uninspiring 419 x 138 green monochrome display for AR heads-up action.
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Battery life is pretty abysmal, just 150 minutes and, unlike Google Glass, this isn't an all-in-one setup – a separate controller needs to be attached by a wire, which is pretty naff.
The SmartEyeglass SDK was released back in September 2014, so hopefully developers would have knocked up some nifty apps by now. Sony also revealed SmartEyeglass Attach, that will work with any existing glasses, at CES 2015.
Non-profit organisation, AugmentedReality.org, recently published a report predicting shipments of smartglasses will hit 1 billion around 2020, surpassing the expected shipments of mobile phones by 2025.
Looking at (and through) Sony's latest attempt, we've a feeling that the design needs a thorough reworking if that is forecast is to ever ring true.
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By Paul Lamkin
Wareable Media Group co-CEO Paul launched Wareable with James Stables in 2014, after working for a variety of the UK's biggest and best consumer tech publications including Pocket-lint, Forbes, Electric Pig, Tech Digest, What Laptop, T3 and has been a judge for the TechRadar Awards.
Prior to founding Wareable, and subsequently The Ambient, he was the senior editor of MSN Tech and has written for a range of publications.