Google picks winners of contest to buy ‘Glass’ smart eyewear

If you applied for a chance to purchase Google Glass, you may soon be getting contacted by the tech company.

The Silicon Valley giant said Tuesday it picked the winners of its “#IfIHadGlass” contest and will begin messaging them over the next few days to determine if they still want to purchase an early version of the smartglasses for $1,500.

Glass is a device Google unveiled last year that users wear on their heads like eyeglasses but the device has a video camera and a viewer. Users can live stream what they are viewing and have a video chat with other Glass wearers.

In February, Google launched the contest in which users had to write essays of 50 words or less on Google+ or Twitter explaining what they would do with Glass if they had the device. The company said at the time it would review each application and pick about 8,000 winners. Google did not say how many had won the right to buy the device.

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Among its winners, Google said it chose Max Wood, a firefighter from Georgia, who said he would improve fire safety by using Glass to make pre-fire planning maps, and Shannon Rooney, who said she would wear Glass as she toured Japan so her grandmother in the U.S. could see what she was seeing.

Other winners include Sarah Hill of Missouri, who said she would use Glass to show war memorials to veterans in hospitals; Hershel Taghap of Seattle, who said he would use Glass to show others what it’s like to be a line cook at a restaurant; and David Moriarty, who said he’d use Glass to improve doctor-patient interaction for clinical trials.

“It’s been inspiring for the team to see such an enthusiastic response to Glass,” Google said in a statement. “When you’re taking a moonshot this big, the encouragement and feedback along the way really helps a lot.”

Google hasn’t said when the winners will be able to purchase the device and receive it, but the company previously announced that winners will have to attend an event in San Francisco, Los Angeles or New York to receive the device. Google won’t pay for transportation costs.

The company has said it hopes to release Glass to the general public before the end of 2013, but for now, Google is focused on testing out the device among a limited number of users.

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