Snapchat reportedly working on 'smart' glasses like Google Glass

After changing the orthodox ways of chatting, video messaging application Snapchat is now reportedly working to give tough competition to Google with its own augmented reality (AR) “smart” glasses. According to a Tech Crunch report, Snapchat has hired developers from major augmented reality groups like Microsoft’s HoloLens, PTC’s (formerly Qualcomm’s) Vuforia and eye-tracking tech maker Eyefluence to make Snapchat’s pair of “smart” glasses. The company showed interest when Google launched Glass. Snapchat later bought Vergence Labs, which produced a pair of glasses equipped with an embedded camera for $15 million in March 2014. Snapchat soon bought Scan.me for $50 million, a QR code-scanning/creating technology that would later manifest itself it the company’s Snaptags feature. Snapchat has introduced some bold and stunning content features since the inception of its service. It attempted to revamp event marketing through its feature Stories, redefined journalism through Discover and changed the selfie clicking style through Lenses. Snapchat was in the news recently following reports that it had fallen victim to a phishing scam where in the company employees’ data had been compromised. Reportedly, a payroll department employee at the company emailed sensitive personal information about 700 current and former workers to someone pretending to be Chief Executive Evan Spiegel. A report stated that the hoaxer has received sensitive employee information such as W-2 tax form data, including name, Social Security number, wages, stock-option gains and benefits. Snapchat later clarified in a statement that neither was user data compromised nor were the company servers breached. With inputs from IANS