New Google Glass Frames Markedly Less Jarring Than the Original

Google are very cunning. They have a plan for you and I. They know that we have been ruining our eyesight for years by reading Buzzfeed lists in tiny font on our phones. They know that non-prescription glasses are the trademark of the much-maligned hipster. So they've done the inevitable and finally released a range of new Google Glass styles which, though no Ray Bans or Warby Parkers, are at least vaguely wearable, and can actually help you see.

What are the new options? There are four titanium frame styles with slick names (Bold, Curve, Split and Thin), five colours, clear lenses and shades in two tints. We also have a lookbook full of languidly beautiful girls and boys wearing these things like it's completely natural. Wear prescription Google Glass down to the cafe, wear them on your bike, wear them to the opera — no one's going to laugh at you. Hopefully. Another insidious advantage of prescription Google Glass? We will be less jarred by the sight of smart-glasses on the face of someone who we know wears glasses anyway — at least, this is the fervent hope of Glass product director Steve Lee.

So what's the price tag? The $225 prescription is small fry on top of the $1500 entry fee for accessing the Explorer program. It takes a specially trained optometrist to fit the prescription, and currently qualified optometries can only be found in LA, San Francisco and New York. Limitations exist for prescriptions beyond a certain range (+4 and -4). Once you add the complexity of bifocals and trifocals to the mix, prescription Google Glass has some way to go. Public availability is slated for late 2014, when Glass will finally become a customisable lifestyle tool.

What's annoying is knowing that by 2020 or sooner, Google Glass won't look nearly so clunky; you probably won't even know someone's got a computer hidden in their lenses. Meanwhile, we who favour Dame Edna cat-eye vintage frames purloined from street stalls and optometrists' back rooms will have to wait a bit longer for our perfect Glass moment.

Via Dezeen.