Skift Take

Straphangers in Manhattan already are griping about new smartphone connectivity in the subways. Just wait til Google Glasses arrive. By then, Google chairman Eric Schmidt will be less gabby and more on-message.

Google Inc. Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt has been playing with his company’s new combination glasses and mobile computer and said he finds the experience a little weird.

Talking out loud to control the Google Glasses via voice recognition is “the weirdest thing,” Schmidt said in a talk on Thursday at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

People will have to develop new etiquette to deal with such products that can record video surreptitiously and bring up information that only the wearer can see, Schmidt said.

“There are obviously places where Google Glasses are inappropriate,” he said.

Google is making the glasses available to software developers this year but has said they won’t be available more broadly until 2014.

Google has decided that it will pre-approve all apps offered to glasses users, unlike its more wide open market for Android phones and tablets.

“It’s so new, we decided to be more cautious,” Schmidt said. “It’s always easier to open it up more in the future.”

(Reporting by Aaron Pressman; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

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Photo credit: Google founder Sergey Brin poses for a portrait wearing Google Glass glasses during New York Fashion Week in this September 9, 2012, file photograph. Carlo Allegri / Reuters

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