Amazon Hires Google Glass Founder Babak Parviz

Tom Jowitt,

Amazon signals its growing hardware intentions by hiring the founder of the Google Glass project

Babak Parviz, credited with starting Google Glass, has jumped ship from Google and is to join the e-commerce giant Amazon, it has been revealed.

The move is highly significant, because Parviz was a director and founder of Google Glass and the Google X project.

The Google X project is a semi secret lab at Google responsible for developing self-driving cars, glucose-monitoring contact lenses and  Google Glass, among other projects.

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The news broke at the weekend when Parviz updated his Google Plus profile. He somewhat cryptically updated his status with a picture of the Amazon logo, and captioned it “Super excited!”

But a quick check of the About section of his profile confirmed his move to the e-commerce giant.

“I dig making (really) small things, new computing and communication tools, high-tech with social impact, and biotech and usually hang out in the Silicon Valley or Seattle,” he wrote. “Having worked at companies ranging from tiny start-ups to huge corporations and universities in Europe and the US, I have found each one to be fun in its own unique way.”

“I founded and led a few efforts at Google (among them, Google Glass and Google Contact Lenses are public so far 🙂 prior to moving to Amazon and work on a few other things now…” he wrote.

Parviz’s move to Amazon is also noteworthy because it clearly signals the hardware intentions of the e-commerce giant. Thus it may not be surprising to see Amazon introduce some form of wearable tech in the future, to join its range of tablets, set-top TV boxes, and of course, its recently launched ‘3D’ handset, the much-trumpeted Fire Phone.

Wearable Tech

Earlier this month, Amazon launched a dedicated store for wearable technology that already features more than 100 devices.

That store includes activity trackers, smartwatches, smart glasses, heart rate and blood pressure monitors and wearable cameras, as well as the more unusual items including wireless charging trousers.

Of course there is no official word on what Parviz will be doing at Amazon, but his work around the human eye could potential result in a wearable Amazon television streaming device.

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