Google 'Project Glass' Replaces the Smartphone With Glasses

Having to hold your phone in front of your face is so 2011. What if you could slip on some Doc Brown-style glasses and have your texts, emails, music, weather, and more beamed directly to your field of vision?

That's the idea behind Google Project Glass, a concept device that puts your smartphone into a pair of slim glasses and projects its contents for some futuristic, voice-activated fun.

The effort, which is still in the planning stages, comes from Google X, a secret lab of future products in November.

"A group of us from Google[x] started Project Glass to build this kind of technology, one that helps you explore and share your world, putting you back in the moment," three Googlers wrote in a Wednesday Google+ post. "We're sharing this information now because we want to start a conversation and learn from your valuable input. So we took a few design photos to show what this technology could look like and created a video to demonstrate what it might enable you to do."

In that video (below), a Project Glass user looks down and various Google icons magically appear before him - calendar, Google+, the time, temperature, camera, chat, location, and more. Reminders pop up about meetings later that evening, and text messages come in as he's eating breakfast. He speaks a response and sends it off without ever putting down the egg and cheese.

Leaving the house, an alert notifies him of a subway disruption, so he switches to walking directions, which pop up arrows as he approaches a street on which he's supposed to turn. He passes a poster for an upcoming concert and asks his Project Glass device to remind him to buy tickets. Arriving at The Strand bookstore, he queries the location of his friend, and finds that he's 400 feet away. The duo hit up a food truck, where they check in and take photos without ever touching the Project Glass device.

Later, the user has a video chat with a friend and shows off his ukelele skills.

It does not appear that Project Glass is one of Google's elaborate , but it probably won't hit stores shelves anytime soon. Google+ users appeared to be enthusiastic about the feature ("I must get this as soon as possible," wrote one). What do you think? Let us know in the comments, and check out PCMag's Tech You Can Wear slideshow above.