Smart phone on your glasses

£1,000 device has been tipped to replace smartphone as the 'must have' Last week, a British newspaper journalist was invited to 'test-drive' the £1,000 device at Google's annual conference for developers, a meeting of 6,000 geeks and nerds who, agree that Glass is the future, a gadget that will replace the ubiquitous smartphone as a 'must-have' and morph into a multi-billion-pound industry.

The first mass-produced version of Glass could be on sale next Christmas. But the high-tech specs have already raised major privacy concerns amid fears that people will use them to surreptitiously take pictures and record videos.

On Thursday, Congressmen wrote to Google CEO Larry Page asking what steps were being taken to protect the privacy of non-users.

And Google said last night: 'We are thinking very carefully about how we design Glass. New technology always raises new issues.'

It is an app that allows the wearer to take a photo simply by winking which has raised the very real privacy concerns.

Google says it is impossible to video people secretly as there is a light in the glass prism that comes on when the device is filming.

Some casinos, restaurants and cinema chains have already announced they will ban the glasses.

Yet Seattle entrepreneur Mike Koss told me: 'People have this notion that when you are wearing Glass you are able to spy on people in the street without them knowing. But it isn't what I would choose if I wanted to secretly tape someone. Glass attracts far too much attention.'

Made from titanium and lightweight plastic, they are surprisingly light and comfortable. Only the stares of others remind you that you're wearing them.

And they are surprisingly simple to use, even for a technophobes. The device receives data through wi-fi independently or can be connected to a mobile phone via Bluetooth.

On the right-hand side of the frame is a plastic touch-pad. You 'wake up' Glass by lightly tapping it with your finger or by tilting your head back quickly. This opens up the home screen and the wearer then issues commands by saying 'OK Glass' and then 'Take a picture', 'Take a video', 'How do I get to .  .  ?'You scroll by swiping a finger along the frame. Googling anything, of course, works brilliantly.

They might be the latest in 'geek chic' but as a fashion statement, Glass still has a long way to go.

Designer Diane Von Furstenberg has been approached to make Glass more 'female-friendly'.

Google showcased other new products at its conference. Among them were the Street View Trekker Backpack, a backpack version of the all-seeing eye that sits atop the Street View car; and 'Google Plus Auto Awesome', software that automatically tweaks and improves photos.

Critics have argued that Glass could go the way of the Segway or the Sinclair C5 – over-hyped inventions that quickly fizzled out.