Vergence Targets Google Project Glass With Social Sunglasses

Vergence Labs will ship its own potential competitor to Google Glass just in time for the holidays, at a price of $299.

The Vergence "Social Electric Eyewear HD" will debut, however, as something a bit less than theaugmented-reality eyeglasses that Google debutedlast week. Google co-founder Sergey Brin was photographed wearing a prototype, although it's unclear how functional the glasses were.

Vergence announced its plans on Kickstarter, where consumers can play venture capitalist and fund an idea to completion. On the site, Vergence said that the Eyewear HD will cost $299, and will be available on Dec. 21, 2012.

However, the Kickstarter pitch downplays the augmented-reality angle that the Vergence team promoted earlier via its development videos. Now, the glasses are being positioned as "computing enabled eyewear": social video sharing, electric-powered sunglasses.

Vergence promises that the glasses will include chromatic shifting conductive glass technology that will turn the "sunglasses" feature on and off at the touch of a button. In the center of the glasses will be a small camera lens, which will allow users to record video of first-person experiences like skateboarding or merely what he or she is seeing, like the early iterations of Justin.tv.

Vergence plans to use the video as a platform for future iterations, as a sort-of virtual memory.

"Imagine the imagery covering the entire peripheral of your vision and quite literally 'experiencing' the version of reality as recorded in the past by yourself or by others," the pitch reads. "Imagine the ability for instant memory recall. Now. You need imagine no more - we've already begun prototyping this technology and are working very quickly towards a fully immersive visor display that is both futuristic and sleek with beautiful contours, allowing you to see 3D Stereo Films, 3D virtual worlds, and 3D first person point of view videos as captured from other people's points of view. We've even begun prototyping our Think-to-Click interface technology, are working towards eye tracking software that also calculates inter-pupillary distance in order to determine the 3D point you are gazing at, and are exploring working with a very cool software team who are experts in building 'minority-report-like' gestural interfaces."

Previously, Vergence showed off a plan to use the goggles as facial-identification technology to ID Facebook friends; the company claims that the photo at the upper left of this story is "an actual snapshot of real-time identity recognition running as seen through our early stage prototyped immersive display reality-platform," according to the company.

Vergence also claims that the team is working on a virtual-reality helmet to replay these virtual experiences, via a website, YouGen.tv.

Vergence, run by chief science officer Jon Rodriguez and Disney vet Erick Miller, is only seeking $50,000 for the project. Vergence is part of the Stanford StartX accelerator program.