Intel is teaming up with Google to update Google Glass hardware in 2015
Intel will replace Texas Instruments in the new version of Google Glass, according to a Wall Street Journal source.
According to the report, the next Google Glass' iteration will be powered by Intel chips in spite of the processors by Texas Instruments that are currently in use. The next version of Google Glass is due out in 2015.
The partnership is largely due to the fact that Google Glass has not been able to make much headway in the consumer market.
About two-thirds of more than 1,700 people Glass Almanac surveyed online in July were not interested in Google Glass.
"It's a major coup for Google to get Intel, and this bodes well for them," Ronald Gruia, a research director at Frost & Sullivan, told the E-Commerce Times, "but it doesn't bode so well for Texas Instruments because they got replaced."
Juniper Research estimates the wearable computing device shipments will increase from 15 million units in 2013 to 150 million units by 2018. ABI Research forecast the figure to cross 450 million units during the same period.
Intel chips currently power Google servers, and the two companies are working to advance Google's Android and Chrome operating systems. Intel's Xeon chips have been used in Google's self-driving cars, and its Atom chips are used in the Nexus Player, a new Google streaming-media device.
Despite the emergence of programs like Glass for Work, the Journal report says that Google still views Glass as a consumer product and that over 300 employees are still plugging away on the device. It's unclear if the new Intel version of Google Glass will be the long-promised "consumer" release, which was initially scheduled for 2014.
