Signs of Life: Google Looking for Glass Engineers

When news hit last month that Google was shutting down its current Glass team and moving the project to Nest’s Tony Fadell, it seemed as though it might be a while before we hear anything else about the underwhelming wearable – if ever again. But new job postings for Glass engineers were spotted and posted by Google+ user David Carr (via 9to5Google). Might we see the refreshed Glass sooner rather than later?

The jobs listed include software engineers for the Android Glass Development Kit and connectivity, a prototype engineer, the lead enterprise engineer, and more:

In short, it looks like Fadell is looking to put together an entirely brand new team to really revamp Glass. Despite the years of work that went into the previous iteration of Glass, this is a good move on Fadell’s part. The Explorer edition may have some fans, but for the most part, Glass was a flop. It failed to really catch on with the public, and inspired the creation of the term “Glassholes.” That’s not ideal.

Google isn’t quite up to par with Apple in terms of its design chops. But there’s no question that Fadell is – he was one of the main guys behind the original iPod’s design, after all. That design language has informed nearly every Apple product to come after it. Nest Labs’ lineup of products are also really beautiful objects, which is part of what led Google to acquire the company early last year. Can you think of any other thermostat or smoke detector that has such a pleasant and iconic look? Probably not.

As such, it’s nice to know that Fadell has wasted no time in bringing his design skills to bear on Glass. In its previous incarnation, Glass left me and many others cold. There’s no telling what Fadell will do with the device now that it’s under his control – but it’ll probably be a damn sight better than what came before.

[Source: Google+ via 9to5Google]