It has been over a year since Google Glass was first made available to testers, and, while other companies have made smart glasses, Glass is still the top-selling and most easily recognized model. Last Thursday, however, Lenovo unveiled its smart glass. As Lenovo is currently the world’s biggest seller of PCs, it seems reasonable to expect that its smart glass could prove to be some serious competition for Glass.
Lenovo’s device looks a lot like Glass, except that it has a separate battery pack that attaches down by the user’s neck. The pack helps to increase the device’s battery life which could give it an edge over glass, as one of the most common complaints about it is its short battery life.
Lenovo’s purpose in unveiling the glass isn’t just to compete with Google. The company is looking to attract companies to partner with them on an initiative to make the Internet of Things better connected. Lenovo’s platform, NBD, which stands for New Bench in Chinese, is a system for connected devices that they are hoping to encourage other companies to produce devices on. As Lenovo’s Senior Vice President, Chen Ludong, put it, “Right now there are too many kinds of devices you can develop for the Internet of Things. It’s too rich. Not one company can do it all.”
If Lenovo succeeds in promoting NBD, it could solve the main issue with the growth of the Internet of Things, which is compatibility. The Internet of Things, which refers to the “object around us, be it smartphones, fridges, toasters or thermostats [that] are connected to the Internet,” is expanding rapidly, but without much uniformity in how the devices connect or what they are compatible with. Therefore, if companies began producing most (or all) of these smart devices on a platform like NBD, the Internet of Things would be much more consistent, making it easier for customers to use any and all smart devices.
By MaryElizabeth Koepele
Story via bbc.com
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