Google Glass seeks niche

AR has been a topic of interest, charm, and intrigue since Ivan Sutherland put stereoscopic floating wire-frame cubes in front of Bob Sproull’s eyes in 1968. Since then dozens, maybe even hundreds, of designs have been tried while the concept of AR expanded from a head-mounted display to head-up displays in fighter aircraft and high-end automobiles to smartphones and helmets.  But AR remained a research experiment mostly, with some exceptions in the military, and a few industrial systems for doing maintenance and training; consumers didn’t know much about it, or care. Then in 2013, Google introduced Glass and declared it