Up until now it was considered that until the official release at the end of this year Google will be the only one introducing the futuristic Google Glass that gives augmented reality a whole new meaning. However now it seems like Google is going to get heated competition from its old time Chinese rival Baidu whose plans to introduce a Google Glass like device have become public.
The device by the Chinese search giant is reportedly called Baidu Eye, which can be wore on the head just like the Google Glass. Baidu is planning to launch its ‘open wearables program’ in which it will be licencing the tech to hardware manufactures whereas it plans to provide the software and cloud services itself. The Baidu Eye is expected to feature similar functions as Google Glass including face-recognition, photography as well as phone calls among other things.
The reports about the Baidu Eye device by different publications are pretty revealing. They also suggest that Google is collaborating with the chip maker Qualcomm to address the battery issues with the device, which is a big concern as the battery life of such devices is even less than a day. Although reports suggest lack of collaboration it is also revealed that Baidu is eyeing 12 hours of usage time with a single charge on Baidu Eye device. Baidu’s official Kaiser Kuo recently revealed to Mashable that the company is testing Baidu Eye project at a small scale before it could think of commercializing it. The device is currently being tested internally.
The Baidu Glass is expected to feature an ultra-small LCD screen, bone conduction for audio (also found on Google Glass), onboard camera, advanced voice recognition and image recognition capable of recognizing books, buildings, user gestures for navigation along with faces.
Baidu is not only targeting the wearble gadgets of the glasses category but the company also wants to make other types of wearbable gadgets including watches, headphones, necklaces and allow users to make apps for these devices which would be sold at the Baidu app marketplace.
[via]