Google's science-fiction-like virtual reality glasses will start shipping next year with a price tag of $1,500 -- but most buyers won't be able to get their hands on a pair just yet.

The under-development glasses, a stealth project hatched in the company's mysterious Google X lab, are still buggy, Google co-founder Sergey Brin said Wednesday at Google's I/O developer conference. Google also faces regulatory hurdles that prevent the glasses from being shipped anywhere but the United States.

So for now, only U.S.-based attendees of this week's I/O developers conference will be eligible to buy the "Google Glass Explorer Edition." Those who want the glasses can pre-order today and will get the gadget early next year.

Google made the glasses a focal point of I/O's opening day keynote.

A parachute team jumped out of a blimp wearing the glasses, then turned the spotlight over to a group of glasses-equipped BMX bikers who tore across the roof of San Francisco's Moscone Center. A rapeller finished the demo by scaling down the walls of the conference center.

The whole time, a livestream broadcast their point-of-view to attendees in the conference hall and on a Google+ hangout.

"This is pretty wild," Google cofounder Sergey Brin, wearing his own pair of Google glasses, told the standing-room-only crowd. "I've never seen that perspective before."

He later added: "I'm so glad all that worked. I wasn't really expecting it to."

The small "Project Glass" team explained how the project evolved over the past three years from a bunch of wires and computers connected to giant ski goggles to a slimmed-down form factor that weighs less than most sunglasses.

The glasses contain a powerful processor, multiple microphones, a small speaker, a camera, a number of wireless radios and a number of sensors, including gyroscopes that make the glasses "aware" of their location in the broader physical world.

But Brin and his team didn't show the crowd much of what the glasses are supposedly capable of. Though the first-person perspective was unique, even Brin admitted that it was "only part of what a computer can do."

If the glasses aren't ready to be sold, why go through such a spectacle to demonstrate them?

Brin said the crowd of developers gathered at I/O is among "the smartest and most creative in world," and the Project Glass team wants their input.

"You can help us think about new possibilities," Brin said. "We're a pretty small team, so there's only so much time to try various kinds of functionalities."

【新闻快讯】

谷歌在今日召开的Google IO大会上展示了其未来主义的、可连网的谷歌眼镜Google Glass。这款眼镜也被称为（Project Glass）的售价为1500美元，只面向今天参加了Google IO大会的开发员出售。开发员可以在大会期间预订Google Glass explorer edition（谷歌眼镜探索者版本），交货时间为明年初。

谷歌联合创始人希尔盖-布林（Sergey Brin）在大会上展示了谷歌眼镜，通过会场大屏幕，现场观众看到他借助谷歌眼镜与一家直升飞机上的朋友进行视频通话。随后机上人员从飞机上跳伞降落，机上人员也戴着谷歌眼睛。布林和现场观众一道从眼睛的实时视角看到了跳伞人员下坠以及降落伞打开的全过程。

在降落在一个建筑物屋顶之后，机上人员将一个小包裹交给了下一组人员，而后通过绳索下落到地面，再转交给骑自信车的最后一组传递人员。这时候布林宣布，这座建筑物就是大会会场Moscone West，而骑车人员马上就会进入会场。全程顿时响起掌声和欢呼声。

但布林同时表示：“我们是一个非常小的团队，我们只有有限的时间尝试不同的功能。”因此，谷歌眼睛还需要时间来进行更多的完善。

谷歌眼镜的右侧有一个小显示屏和一个摄像头，右侧镜脚带有触控板，右手轻触镜脚就可以拍摄照片和视频。显示屏上可以显示短信、邮件、照片、Google+信息以及天气等各种功能。谷歌眼镜可以将用户目的地所在的方向或好友发来的短信息显示在用户眼前。用户可以通过视频聊天与好友对话，还可以在四处走动时拍照甚至上网购物。