A three-year-old Sydney-based company called Explore Engage recently challenged Google's Project Glass initiative; with its first TV demonstration of prototype smart glasses - or `augmented reality' glasses - which it has developed.

Created with a cost of $2 million, Explore Engage's `augmented reality' see-through glasses are essentially wearable computers in the form of camera-equipped glasses. The Australian company plans to complete the technology behind the recently-demonstrated prototype and mass produce the `smart' glasses by raising funds via Pozible crowd-funding site, as well as by seeking venture capital investment.

Explore Engage already specializes in augmented reality, as it has developed smartphone and tablet apps for Audi, Sony, NBN, Telstra, Angry Birds, Paramount, and Transformers 3. However, one of Explore Engage's early working apps for the `augmented reality' glasses is a version of Space Invaders.

Though the prototype `augmented reality' glasses developed by Explore Engage still connects to a smartphone through a wire, the company's chief technology officer Paul Kouppas said that such a connection enables the `smart' glasses to transfer processing and power requirements to the handset; thereby making the glasses lightweight as well as increasing their visual appeal.

About the prime-time mainstream worth of the Explore Engage `smart' glasses. Kouppas said that that milestone will still take a few years; and added that the first applications of the glasses will be industry-specific.