This is Sony’s answer to Google Glass

While Google seems to have boxed Glass up in a dark, musty corner of Larry Page’s attic, at least for now, Sony is pressing forward with a pair smart glasses (henceforth “SmartEyeglass”) on display at CES. The SmartEyeglass Developer Edition, due out in March, feels like a more robust pair of 3D glasses. The display — available only as a slightly-transparent green hue — is projected in front of both eyes. There was no weird overlap, and I could close either eye without any jarring effects. Navigating the menu and controlling the device happens via a small handheld remote, which looked like a small hockey puck with a couple of buttons and a “bite” missing for your thumb to rest.

But while the Developer Edition is consumer-facing, Sony’s SmartEyeglass Attach! prototype is more interesting — and more directly comparable to Google Glass. As the name suggests, it’s meant to “attach” to regular glasses (the demo here came pre-attached to Sony’s specs). The display, instead of taking up the whole screen, is displayed just outside of your right eye’s peripheral — but unlike the Developer Edition, it displayed full color. The demo we saw was a pre-taped video designed to align with an accompanying TV feed — it’d show map navigations and count steps, for example, while the on-screen avatar ran and biked across nature.

Sony isn’t promising when or even if such a wearable will come out, but Weird Sony concepts are a hallmark of CES, and nonetheless, they’re fun to try out.