Admittedly, if they do have the hardware nailed, then these would be cool.
But head mounted displays made by Google haven't been available for years. This is coming from the company who are massively pioneering self driving cars. Those were around before google became involved but since then Google has arguably made much more progress than anyone else (At least to the extent where there cars are most tested and have garnered the most publicity).
Sure, but this makes your point into a circular argument.
In your first comment you indicate that the fact that these glasses have been spotted shows that Google is able to make progress.
Now you're saying that the reason that progress has probably been made on the glasses is because they're made by Google.
I do agree with you that they are probably pouring a lot more resources into this than others have. I just don't think that sighting of the glasses in public indicate anything about what progress they've made.
Yes, similar hardware already exists. What about the software and services? Google has an OS, voice recognition, navigation, etc., already coded. Most importantly, it has the brand recognition so it can seriously attempt to make this technology mainstream. Look at all the media coverage it's already gotten.
Of course, we have no clue if they've managed to mess up or not because we haven't really seen anything yet, but Google really looks like they have a chance at this. Imagine if these became popular and there was an app store!
Media coverage doesn't mean anything. Look at the media coverage Google Wave got.
As for an App store, yes - they might follow the Android model and make these things somewhat open. Equally likely is that they might make them as open as Google+ or Siri - which is very much what the videos seemed to be illustrating.
I still think media coverage counts for something here. Without media attention, most people might not hear about this device. Of course, if the product sucks, then simply knowing it exists won't save it. It's easy to get something noticed if it is from Google, but that's not going to guarantee quality.
> As for an App store, yes - they might follow the Android model and make these things somewhat open
I hope that they do keep it open. The really interesting apps for this type of device are probably going to be third party apps. A closed ecosystem is one of the biggest mistakes that Google could do on the software side. There are all sorts of niche or unexpected things you could do with this hardware if it was popular, given the right apps.
Right now it's too early to tell exactly what this project will amount to, but I really hope Google makes some serious security considerations when/if they open access to an app store.