(Photo: Road to VR)

A friend of Betabeat's recently tried on Project Glass, Google's hotly anticipated alternate reality glasses product, but was dismayed to find that because he had to take of his glasses in order to use the prototype, it was difficult to see when actually using it.

Special versions, we reasoned, would have to be constructed in order to appease our four-eyed friends: either prototypes that can be placed overtop a user's glasses, or ones that can incorporate prescription lenses.

A snap posted to the Road to Virtual Reality blog appears to have our answer: the photo, taken of a man in NYC donning a pair of Google Glasses, shows that the unit has prescription lenses, meaning that us four eyes won't be left out of the augmented reality trend. Hurrah!

Now the Google X team just needs to come up with a prototype that doesn't look like a nerd attacked your face.

Mr. Starner (cs.uoregon.edu)

In this month's MIT Technology Review, journalist Farhad Manjoo got a chance to talk with a technology lead for Google's Project Glass, Thad Starner. An associate professor at the Georgia Institute for Technology, Mr. Starner has been experimenting with wearable technologies since the mid-90s, and was tapped by Google to advise them on issues surrounding Project Glass, the company's attempt to commercialize computerized glasses.

Ever the skeptical journalist, Mr. Manjoo went into the meeting expecting to find the glasses polarizing and detrimental to social interaction. Also: dorky and vaguely creepy. Instead, Mr. Starner successfully convinced him that Google's glasses will actually amplify social interaction, stripping it of those awkward phone-checking asides and lulls in conversation when we go to respond to a text. In short, Google glasses could be a socially awkward person's best friend. Sign us up!

"One of the coolest things is that this makes me more socially graceful," Mr. Starner told Mr. Manjoo.

Mr. Manjoo continued:

Starner argues that a heads-up display will actually tether you more firmly to real-life social interactions. He says the video's augmented-­reality visualizations—images that are tied to real-world sights, like direction bubbles that pop up on the sidewalk, showing you how to get to your friend's house—are all meant to be relevant to what you're doing at any given point and thus won't seem like distracting interruptions.

Imagine being able to conjure up topics of conversation when you're socially frozen at a party, or coming up with the answer to a question you didn't know in the middle of an important interview. For the socially stunted among us, augmented reality glasses seem like a fresh new hope: Never again will we pause in the middle of conversation, awkwardly casting about for something to say.

That is, if Project Glass ever gets off the ground and into affordable territory. Mr. Starner said that the device he wore in the interview with Mr. Manjoo, which is not a Project Glass prototype and instead is his own design, costs $3,000. That's more than a new Macbook Pro, though Mr. Starner did say that the device had replaced every gadget he owns except for his Android phone.

Then again, maybe it's a good thing that Google glasses have yet to hit the market and be deemed in vogue. Can you imagine a bunch of people standing around in a bar watching YouTube  videos on their own displays? Worst party ever.

The glasses. (Google+)

It's well-known that all Googlers are brainiacs, but the Google X team represents the cream of the crop: some of the most elite programmers and thinkers in the company are handpicked for Google X, which is tasked with some of the most innovative projects Google outputs. The most recent manifestation of Google X's collective brilliance? Project Glass, Google's attempt at augmented reality glasses.

Last month, we reported that the Terminator-style glasses would soon bring the future to your face, but today, Google officially announced the project on Google+, complete with a video demonstrating how the high tech specs work.

In the video, a dude goes about a typical day--making coffee, eating a sandwich, catching the subway--all with the help of his Google glasses. When he looks outside, the glasses display the weather. When he looks at the subway, they tell him that 6 train service is suspended. When someone pings him, he responds to their message simply by speaking. (Hip New York spots like Strand and the MUD truck also get a shout out.)

The glasses are so intensely futuristic that we have a hard time wrapping our heads around them. They remind us of Sixth Sense, an augmented reality program demo'd at TED in 2009. That project was far from being ready to market to the consumer, but Google seems a bit closer to making augmented reality an actual reality.

"A group of us from Google[x] started Project Glass to build this kind of technology, one that helps you explore and share your world, putting you back in the moment," reads the Google+ post. "We’re sharing this information now because we want to start a conversation and learn from your valuable input. So we took a few design photos to show what this technology could look like and created a video to demonstrate what it might enable you to do."

Technology is moving so damn fast these days! Next we'll all be destroying the New York Times with our faces. As esteemed Betabeat reporter Nitasha Tiku lamented, "I seriously want to smash my iPad every time I hear about these glasses."

Tony Stark would approve.

If you've never heard of Google X, a secret lair hidden away in some undisclosed Bay Area location, you're in good company. Many Google employees haven't either.

The future-facing lab makes Google's 80/20 model for fostering innovation sound like child's play. Rather than devoting part of the week to somewhat far-fetched ideas, the New York Times reports, Google X is "tackling a list of 100 shoot-for-the-stars ideas."

That "stars" part is somewhat literal. One of the projects its developing is a space elevator, "a longtime fantasy of Google’s founders and other Silicon Valley entrepreneurs" that images space travel along a cable tied to Earth.

In the same vein as Xerox PARC, which at work on the PC back when those words probably sounded as kooky as "space elevator," Google X is chasing big dreams. Some of the ideas, which are still in the conceptual stage, are connecting household objects to the Internet, so that a lightbulb could be turned off remotely as well as a fleet of robots for your home and office.

Some of these ideas are actually monetizable: for example, a version of that lightbulb, synched to Android devices, might be out before the end of the year. It's unclear whether Google's driverless cars emerged out of Google X, but Google is currently considering manufacturing them as well, reports the Times.

In an attempt not to rattle shareholders, Google spokesman Jill Hazelbaker emphasized to the paper that the amount Google spends on these ideas isn't anything to freak out about:

“While the possibilities are incredibly exciting, please do keep in mind that the sums involved are very small by comparison to the investments we make in our core businesses.”

I dunno, guys. Spending on space elevators and a robot working class sounds more sensible to us than trying beat Facebook at social. Stick to what you're good at.