Google Glass, while still a prototype that only a select few can actually use, will eventually be put on store shelves for you, your mom, and the whole world to buy. Now in order for that to happen, manufacturing needs to be simplified and components need to be commoditized. No one is going to spend $999 on a head mounted web browser that dies after 12 hours, trust me on this. With that in mind, I’d like to share “OmniGlass”, which comes from OmniVision, one of the largest suppliers of camera sensors that go into smartphones and tablets.

OmniGlass is essentially a Google Glass clone, sans software. Companies give OmniVision money, and in exchange they’ll get a 720p heads-up display and a 4 megapixel camera. Now again, I can’t stress this enough, it’s going to be up to the companies to write the software to make OmniGlass shine. You can put Windows 98 on Apple’s highest end laptop, for example, but no one will want to use it. It’s all about the software, and OmniGlass will be no different.

Circling back to Google, when are they actually going to let you buy Glass? Rumor has it it’s a product for the second half of 2014, which is a bit funny, since there are also rumors saying Samsung will release their own Glass clone during the first half. It shouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out which one will be worth buying and which one will be mocked.