Google, Luxottica In Strategic Partnership To Develop Smart Eyewear For Glass

(RTTNews) - Search engine giant Google, Inc. (GOOG) has Monday entered into a strategic partnership with Italian eyewear company Luxottica Group SpA (LUX) to develop innovative wearable smart eye devices for Google Glass. However, details about the new products will be disclosed at a later stage.

Google Glass is a wearable computer with an optical head-mounted display that is being developed by Google. It displays information in a smartphone-like hands-free format that can communicate with the Internet via natural language voice commands.

The companies are looking to take advantage of both a technology push and a consumer pull for wearable technology products and applications to come out with a new generation of revolutionary devices.

"We are thrilled to announce our partnership with Google, and are proud to be once again setting the pace in the eyewear industry, as we have been, with more than 50 years of excellence," Luxottica CEO Andrea Guerra said in a statement.

Luxottica Group is a leader in the design, manufacture, distribution and sales of premium, luxury and sports eyewear. Luxottica is the owner of the two popular proprietary Ray-Ban and Oakley sunglass brands.

The deal will see the two companies collaborate to design, develop and distribute a new breed of web-connected eyewear for Google Glass. The companies noted that the first collection generated by this partnership will combine high-end technology with avant-garde design to offer the best in style, quality and performance.

The far reaching strategic partnership will combine the cutting edge technology expertise of Google with Luxottica's fashion designers and eyewear professionals in order to produce eyewear products with high-fashion, lifestyle and innovative technology.

"Luxottica has built an impressive history over the last 50 years designing, manufacturing and distributing some of the most successful and well-known brands in eyewear today. We are thrilled to be partnering with them as we look to push Glass and the broader industry forward into the emerging smart eyewear market," said Google Vice President and head of Google X Astro Teller.

GOOG closed Monday's regular trading session at $1,157.93, down $25.11 or 2.12% on a volume of 3.04 million shares, while LUX closed at $53.86, up $0.99 or 1.87% on a volume of 88,078 shares.