© 2025 New Hampshire Public Radio

Persons with disabilities who need assistance accessing NHPR's FCC public files, please contact us at publicfile@nhpr.org.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Support community focused, fact driven journalism as a Leadership Circle Member today.

How Factory Workers Are Using Once-Dead Google Glass

There was a time when Google Glass was deemed the future — one in which people might walk the streets wearing a glass tab over one eye to display information beamed from their smartphones. But after criticism and safety concerns, the idea was killed as a consumer project.

Instead Alphabet, Google’s parent company, secretly began marketing the product to be used by factory workers. Here & Now‘s Lisa Mullins speaks with Steven Levy (@StevenLevy), editor of Backchannel, about the resurrection of Glass.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Google Glasses displayed in San Francisco in 2013. (Jeff Chiu/AP)
/
Google Glasses displayed in San Francisco in 2013. (Jeff Chiu/AP)

You make NHPR possible.

NHPR is nonprofit and independent. We rely on readers like you to support the local, national, and international coverage on this website. Your support makes this news available to everyone.

Give today. A monthly donation of $5 makes a real difference.