Google Glass Gets It Right the Second Time

Google Glass is back, and this time it's not the ultimate example of overhyped wearable technology. Rather, its revival demonstrates how Silicon Valley's innovations can have applications that their creators might never have envisioned.

The first coming of Glass -- a computer in the shape of a pair of glasses -- was a disaster. It occurred at the height of the wearables boom in 2013, when some 318 startups emerged to push smartwatches, smart glasses, smart clothes and other such gadgetry, more than double the number a year earlier. Google pitched the product for a wide range of consumer uses -- whatever you could do with a smartphone, only look, no hands! Early reviewers were impressed that the thing actually worked, but the "explorers" who bought the gadget soon discovered that it was buggy and that they were unwelcome in public spaces because they might be surreptitiously recording everything around them. They went back to smartphones and Google appeared to lose interest, stopping software updates and killing the consumer website that advertised Glass.