

Baidu is making a Google Glass knockoff - Mitt
http://www.gizmag.com/baidu-eye-google-glass-clone/26909/

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eridius
> Anything that looks like it could be the next big thing attracts a crowd of
> copycats. Take, for example, Google Glass.

A much better example here would be the mythical Apple iWatch. Google's been
talking up Glass for a while now, so it's not surprising that someone else
would be interested in doing the same thing. But the iWatch? Pure rumor and
speculation, and yet we're already hearing that other companies such as
Samsung and Microsoft are seriously considering making a smartwatch in
response.

~~~
seferphier
if the mythical iWatch has a 10% probability to have the impact as iPhone and
iPod it is worth trying.

it is a much better strategy than waiting for Apple to release and copy them-
only to realize that Apple's iPad pricing is much lower than predicted.

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seferphier
There is a lot of hate on copying. There is nothing wrong with copying as long
as it is the right thing to do. If the world is moving to the direction of
Google glasses, it would be insane not to copy.

The question is whether copying is their long term strategy, which would mean
that they are constantly being reactive to the market. In some industries, a
wait and acquire approach is better like pharmaceutical industry since R&D is
so expensive. This does not seem to work well in high tech industries but
baidu (by being in china) is more insulated than other companies in the US or
Europe.

I hope that Google glass would be a lesson to all to put innovation to the
heart of their company's strategy.

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Rhapso
Yay! This is a good sign. It indicates a lot of things: that the HUD style
glasses have been deemed viable in a commercial sense, that availability of
the technology will be better then what Google has shown previously (Nexus(es)
I am looking at you) and even more importantly it will drive down costs on the
screens and bone-induction drivers to allow even more entrance to the market.
For the most part "clones" are a good sign and help the market grow by
increasing potential market size and decreasing costs of components.

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ultimoo
I heard about this from a friend earlier today.

However, while reading this, I found the concluding piece very interesting and
it quite changed the way I was thinking about Baidu.

I mean, if Glass is successful, everyone is going to clone it anyway like they
did it with smartphones, tablets, ultrabooks, and even gaming consoles. Baidu
is just doing it earlier.

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Achshar
Apparently everyone and their mother is making a Glass type product, or so the
rumors say. I have a feeling this is not like iPhone and smartphones.
Smartphones had a huge potential market, but this kind of product has a niche
market, at least until the use of product is clear to the mainstream.

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ernesth
Is the use of tablets clear to the "mainstream"? I still do not know precisely
what they're for but their market proved to be far from a niche.

~~~
Achshar
Tablets are simply post PC device. Mostly for media consumption/internet
browsing. Two very mainstream things. None of glass's uses are
obvious/popular.

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sidcool
So they are cloning everything that Google does. Clone a Larry Page, may be.

~~~
jkldotio
Near enough[1][2].

[1][http://www.vice.com/read/chinas-taking-over-the-world-
with-a...](http://www.vice.com/read/chinas-taking-over-the-world-with-a-
massive-genetic-engineering-program)

[2][http://io9.com/is-china-selectively-breeding-a-new-
generatio...](http://io9.com/is-china-selectively-breeding-a-new-generation-
of-geniu-455634018)

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danso
Interesting to see if the concept, in a social sense, will face more or less
of a backlash than Glass in the states...will a country that has purportedly
more government surveillance be more open to the idea of a device that
inevitably leads to surveillance on a personal scale?

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OGinparadise
_The report’s details only accentuate the slavish copying. Using your voice to
control the glasses and search the web? Check. Gesture control? Baidu totally
has that too._

To be a devil's advocate: how else are you going to control the glasses if not
by voice and gesture? Of course it remains to be seen how /if it copied as a
design but many companies have worked and are working on computerized glasses.
IIRC, Microsoft and Apple also filed patents. Microsoft filed them in 2011
according to [http://phandroid.com/2012/11/24/microsoft-patents-google-
pro...](http://phandroid.com/2012/11/24/microsoft-patents-google-project-
glass/)

