Google Glass Enterprise Edition 2 is all business

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GOOGLE GLASS IS COMING BACK for a second bite of the business cherry in the form of the Glass Enterprise Edition 2 smart specs.

Before we delve into the smart glasses, some brief background: Google Glass was an abject failure in the consumer world, with the specs being too expensive and limited. Furthermore, if you were an early-adopted and wore them out in public, you were likely branded a 'glasshole'.

But for enterprise and industrial applications, say surgery or engineering, Google Glass found a degree of popularity, which is probably why a second edition set has been created.

The Glass Enterprise Edition 2 comes with a new processor, USB-C connectivity, a boosted camera and a proper design tweak that fits the small screen into a proper spectacles frame.

It's not exactly a revolution in smart glasses design, but Google Glass project lead Jay Kothari noted that new bits, like the use of Qualcomm's Snapdragon X1 chip, will provide "significantly" more power and use its multi-core capabilities to power things like a new AI engine.

"This enables significant power savings, enhanced performance and support for computer vision and advanced machine learning capabilities," Kothari explained.

The smart glasses have also been made easier and faster to deploy, according to Kothari, as they are built upon Android and can play nice with Android-friendly APIs as well as Android Enterprise Mobile Device Management.

And that's about it. What we're looking at her is merely an upgrade, not a massive step forward in augmented reality enabling specs; Microsoft's HoloLens 2 is arguably more impressive.

But for businesses keen on making use of AR to say help training engineers in the field, the second-gen Google Glass glasses could be just what they are looking for.

Sadly, on the consumer side there's no word on Google reworking Glass to facilitate things like AR gaming. So for the time being folks interested in such wearables will need to stick to virtual reality headsets. µ