While Kurzweil and Google have moon shot ambitions for the future of Glass, it will enter a mode of incremental improvements over the next half decade. Smartphones over the last five years have become far more capable, powerful and popular each year, following the cadence of Moore’s law, but there has been no quantum leap.

Over the next few years, Glass also faces a tougher adoption curve than smartphones, which are more essential for users than the wearable accessory. However, Google’s brain needs to have a better understanding of natural language, which is part of Kurzweil’s mandate. […]