Google Glass may help firms save $1bn by making employees `more efficient`

Washington – Google’s hi-tech wearable computing device, Google Glass is expected to help employees become ‘more efficient’; in turn letting their firms save big dollars per year, research firm Gartner has revealed.

Gartner forecasts that Google Glass and other ‘smartglasses’ will help make employees more efficient, and ultimately add up more than one billion dollars to the company profits from 2017.

The firm’s principal research director Tuong Nguyen explained that smartglasses will be particularly useful for workers who need to use both hands to complete a complex task, such as conducting surgery or fixing a car, CNN reports.

The report said that workers in far-flung places, like an offshore oil platform, are likely to derive the greatest benefit as experts will be able to provide advice and instructions to their colleagues remotely, saving travel time and money.

White-collar workers, like insurance agents could use smartglasses to video a damaged property and simultaneously check on the costs of replacement items using a visual search.

However, a London-based entrepreneur working on developing an app for Google Glass, Kenny Stoltz differs in view as she said that smartglasses aren’t ready for heavy-duty corporate work quite yet as they are not particularly rugged or secure.

The hi-tech device has been embroiled in a lot of privacy issues since inception and the search giant is still working on the problems before its public roll out in the next year.