Confirmed: Google Glass arrives in 2013, and under $1,500

Possibly the "must-have" gadget for the 2013 holiday season. / Google

Regular people will be able to purchase Google Glass eyewear by the end of 2013 for less than $1,500, sources have confirmed to CNET.

Google originally targeted 2014 for a consumer release when it revealed Project Glass last year, but the time frame has seemingly sped up in recent months, what with developer hackathons in San Francisco and New York and this week's announcement that people looking to put Glass to creative use could go through an application process to preorder the augmented reality specs for $1,500.

The company also launched a new site promoting Glass that featured the below video of the new wearable tech in action.

The advancement of Google Glass also seems to coincide with recent rumors that the company is planning to open retail stores, presumably where consumers could get more familiar with products like Glass, and comfortable with the idea of wearing the funky rims on their face.

CNET has also been able to confirm that Glass will be able to connect via Bluetooth to both Android phones and the iPhone. Glass can pull down data from wifi or use the 3G or 4G feed from a connected phone, but it won't have its own cellular radio.

The Verge's Joshua Topolsky tried out Google Glass at the company's New York headquarters recently and reports that what is shown in the below promotional video is "nearly identical" to the actual user experience. In his review, he notes that the voice control on Glass isn't yet perfect and that slow data connections can quickly render the device useless.

Google says they plan to issue monthly updates to early users to refine the experience in the beginning.

This article originally appeared on CNET.

[hypnotoad72]

Make it illegal to drive while wearing those things.

We have enough trouble with every other technology that people can't be bothered to put down. (Since "time is money"...)

And "Google Car" that drives itself? Not when the human factor is involved, and from designing/engineering to the real life conditions most designers tend to forget about...

[divegeek]

The Google self-driving cars have logged over a million miles on real roads, with other real drivers, with plenty of the human factor involved, and done it without incident -- which is far better than the average human driver does.

[Scimajor]

Yes, don't fear the "Google Cars" fear the self driven cars. Computer driven cars, for example, are unlikely to have a subroutine called "dumba^% move because you can't wait 2 seconds" which is apparently a subroutine present in the brains of most human brains.

Seriously thought, Divegeek is correct. The Google cars have a far better driving record than most humans.

[SteveD088]

I can hardly wait to see dip$###s that prohibit photography after paying admission, like Biltmore Mansion, St. Paul's in London, etc., try to cope with this.

Now, can we drop the fraud of offering to link via Facebook or Google, only to be shunted to a site that creates an account here? If you insist on an account, say so up front and give up the bait-and-switch.

[hypnotoad72]

Since everything is being made wireless, just jam the bloody wifi signals...

Or send a simple flag that prevents the camera from being used - it can be programmed at the microchip level. They'll find a way to bypass certain amendments and get their way as well.

Hurry up and patent what is a very common and simple concept, folks. You'll get rich, but who said ethics is needed?

Oh, never post pics on Facebook or Instagram - they give themselves a royalty-free copy of your work. This means they can sell it to profit for themselves and you're SOL.

I'm sure there's a technicality in Google's image search that makes that feature unlawful, but Google - unlike content creators whose works their spiders and robots and other means to search will plunder through - will get away with it.

It's all good.