Google will stop selling its Internet-connected eyewear to consumers until the company can develop a more polished and affordable version that's less likely to be viewed as a freakish device.
The sales moratorium on the nearly 2-year-old "Explorer" edition of Google Glass goes into effect Jan. 19. The decision announced Thursday coincides with Glass' spin-off from the secretive Google X lab where it was invented.
Glass will now operate in a division run by veteran marketing executive Ivy Ross. She will report to Tony Fadell, who runs the smart-appliance maker Nest Labs that Google bought for $3.2 billion last year.
Glass is a hands-free device featuring a thumbnail-sized screen above the wearer's right eye. It cost $1,500 and raised privacy concerns for its potential to secretly take pictures and videos.
Apple and Google aren't giving consumers a genuine choice of mobile web browsers, a British watchdog said Friday in a report that recommends they face an investigation under new U.K. digital rules taking effect next year.
The Competition and Markets Authority took aim at Apple, saying the iPhone maker's tactics hold back innovation by stopping rivals from giving users new features like faster webpage loading. Apple does this by restricting progressive web apps, which don't need to be downloaded from an app store and aren't subject to app store commissions, the report said.
"This technology is not able to fully take off on iOS devices," the watchdog said in a provisional report on its investigation into mobile browsers that it opened after an initial study concluded that Apple and Google effectively have a chokehold on "mobile ecosystems."
The CMA's report also found that Apple and Google manipulate the choices given to mobile phone users to make their own browsers "the clearest or easiest option."
And it said that the a revenue-sharing deal between the two U.S. Big Tech companies "significantly reduces their financial incentives" to compete in mobile browsers on Apple's iOS operating system for iPhones.
Both companies said they will "engage constructively" with the CMA.
Apple said it disagreed with the findings and said it was concerned that the recommendations would undermine user privacy and security.
Google said the openness of its Android mobile operating system "has helped to expand choice, reduce prices and democratize access to smartphones and apps" and that it's "committed to open platforms that empower consumers."
It's the latest move by regulators on both sides of the Atlantic to crack down on the... Read More
