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Tech Watch: Google Working On High-Tech Glasses?

SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) – Google is rumored to have a new product in the works, glasses that would work with "augmented reality" apps.

CNET Editor-at-Large Brian Cooley said the high-tech glasses would provide real-time information to users.

"Think of what fighter pilots have when we see the footage from inside those military jets, where they're looking out of the cockpit and seeing the world, but there's all this moving, live video information displayed on the screen in front of them. That's usually a visor they're wearing," said Cooley. "That's augmented reality. You're seeing the real world, but there are overlays being projected on it. The idea is that these glasses would have that kind of technology in them for getting around the everyday world."

CNET Editor-at-Large Brian Cooley:

Cooley said the glasses make sense because of how much Google has invested in location-based information.

"Think about their maps, awareness of where your friends are in your social networks, the real-time information like navigation. They could flow that information into these glasses and you could be walking down the street, let's say in a new city where you don't know where you are," he said. "You could have it set up where it could be showing an icon on every restaurant on a corner or every coffee shop. It could give you walking directions right in the glasses or even driving directions, meaning your glasses become your automotive navigation system, not what's in the dashboard."

Cooley said that this could be the next big category for technology devices following a wave of new tablets and smartphones in recent years.

You can hear Brian Cooley's Tech Watch report Tuesdays and Thursdays at 1:50 P.M. on KCBS All News 740AM and 106.9FM.

(Copyright 2012 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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