Intel already struck partnerships with several consumer goods companies last year to develop smart wearable products, including eyewear brand Oakley, owned by Luxottica, watchmaker Fossil, and US fashion brand Opening Ceremony.
While the latter devices have focused on specific uses – extreme sports for example – Autographer and Memoto are more about capturing scenes from everyday life, as are the photography features in Google's Glass augmented eyewear.
Mr Paolucci has also been talking about handing out intelligent eyewear (Google Glass-type accessories) that would allow visitors to explore the chapel in 3D.Another plan is to limit the number of visitors.
Engineers at the Japanese-owned Sharp Laboratories of Europe, in Oxford, England, use the same technique in a recently developed 3D liquid-crystal display (LCD).The trouble with the stereoptikon, and with many contemporary 3D displays, is that they call for special eyewear.
One may therefore ask: could provision of free eyewear promote development?
Indeed, by the end of his tour of duty, Babbage had probably tried on more pairs of glasses than Elton John, a pop star renowned for his eclectic and extensive collection of eyewear.
None of this comes cheap: Google is charging developers the princely sum of $1,500 to get their hands on its eyewear.
Adding to the company's presence in Beijing and Hong Kong, it will make Luxottica the leading high-end eyewear retailer in China.At a time when many obituaries are being written for corporate Italy as the country's firms struggle to cope with low-cost competition from Asia Luxottica is one Italian company that is thriving in the global marketplace.
Google has already had fashion models show off its specs on a catwalk in New York.It won't be the only company working hard to make smart eyewear sexy.
Google wants its Glass smart specs to be a new mass-computing platform and this week said Luxottica, a seller of high-end eyewear, would help it make them look nicer.
Not only is no special eyewear needed, but also the images do not distort when observers move.
