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STAR-ADVERTISER / FEB. 28, 2014
Google Inc. said in an email Tuesday that it could extend the one-day sale of its $1,500 Google Glass device, seen above.
Google Inc. said Tuesday it could extend the one-day sale of its $1,500 Google Glass device, depending on how many requests it receives.
Google originally said its wearable computers would be available only for a limited time Tuesday. But in an email Tuesday to the San Jose Mercury News, the Mountain View, Calif., search giant said, "The sale may go longer than a day; we just have to see how well everything works and how well we handle the demand."
Google said it still has no intention of revealing how many units it sells.
Google Glass allow its users to use voice and touch activation to access many of the same tools and toys enjoyed by smartphone, laptop and tablet users — except in a lighter, wearable package.
Until Tuesday, an estimated 10,000 units have only been in the hands of people hand-selected by Google, dubbed Explorers.
On its Google Plus account, the company wrote Tuesday, "Wow, what a morning! We’re happy to see so many new faces (and frames) in the Explorer community. Just a quick update that — ack — we just sold out of Cotton, (a color of Google Glass) so things are moving really fast."
While many are curious about the capabilities of Google Glass, some of the early adopters have reported angry confrontations over the wearable technology’s ability to surreptitiously record and shoot images and instantly upload them to the Internet.
Google has said it hopes to bring Google Glass to the mass consumer market sometime later this year. So it was unclear what Google was trying to accomplish by offering an unspecified number of units for a limited time — for a cool $1,500 each, not including tax.
But J.P. Gownder, vice president and principal analyst with the Forrester tech research firm, told the Mercury News that Tuesday’s sale will give Google prime market data on the demand for Google Glass.
