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Google’s next secret project has ‘disaster’ written all over it

Published Sep 17th, 2015 7:10PM EDT
Google Glass Amazon Fire Phone Engineers

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What happens when you hire engineers who designed a phone no one wanted to design the sequel to a digital headset that no one wanted? We’re amazingly about to find out.

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The Wall Street Journal reports that Google has hired “dozens” of former Amazon engineers who had worked on the Fire Phone, which was one of the biggest smartphone flops ever. And what will these engineers be doing? They’ll be working on a new version of Google Glass, of course!

And not just Glass 2: The Journal’s sources say the engineers are working under a division called Project Aura that will be working on all kinds of different wearable computers.

“Aura is run by Ivy Ross, who previously ran the Glass project,” the Journal explains. “Aura is working on the next incarnation of Glass, but the team is also developing other wearable technology, according to job descriptions on business-networking site LinkedIn.”

Google Glass was an amazing piece of technology that absolutely bombed in the real world because Google Glass users basically freaked out normal people. In fact, Glass users so thoroughly freaked out the normals that Google had to post a set of etiquette suggestions for Glass users that asked them, among other things, to not be “creepy or rude.”

At any rate, the idea of combining Google Glass and the Fire Phone would be like if Bluetooth earpiece manufacturers hired Segway engineers for help on making their devices cooler. It’s hard to see how this ends well.

Brad Reed
Brad Reed Staff Writer

Brad Reed has written about technology for over eight years at BGR.com and Network World. Prior to that, he wrote freelance stories for political publications such as AlterNet and the American Prospect. He has a Master's Degree in Business and Economics Journalism from Boston University.