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Google has halted sales of its controversial Glass wearable computer - but promises new versions are coming. 

The troubled product has failed to fire the public's imagination, with wearers dubbed 'glassholes' and even many Google employees abandoning them.

The company insists it is still committed to launching the smart glasses as a consumer product, but will stop producing Glass in its present form, according to the BBC. 

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Goggle's Glass is expected to get a total makeover, and will switch chip suppliers to Intel

Google told the BBC it will focus on 'future versions of Glass'.

The Explorer programme, gave software developers the chance to buy Glass for $1,500 (£990), and was launched in the United States in 2013, and the UK last summer. 

From next week, the search firm will stop taking orders for the product but it says it will continue to support companies that are using Glass.

The firm had already been thought to be developing a new version with chips made by Intel to go on sale later this year.  

The Glass team is also expected to now move out of the Google X division which engages in 'blue sky' research, and become a separate undertaking, under its current manager Ivy Ross.

She and the Glass team will report to Tony Fadell, the chief executive of the home automation business Nest, acquired by Google a year ago, the BBC says.

He said the project had 'broken ground and allowed us to learn what's important to consumers and enterprises alike' and he was excited to be working with the team 'to integrate those learnings into future products'.

Google says it is committed to working on the future of the product, but gave no timescale for the launch of an improved product. 

'It's hard to believe that Glass started as little more than a scuba mask attached to a laptop,' the Glass team said in a post on Google+. 

'We kept on it, and when it started to come together, we began the Glass Explorer Program as a kind of "open beta" to hear what people had to say.' 

'Glass was in its infancy, and you took those very first steps and taught us how to walk. 

'Well, we still have some work to do, but now we're ready to put on our big kid shoes and learn how to run.'

Where's the Glass? Sergey Brin was spotted without Google's specs at a Silicon Valley red-carpet event last yeat. Since they were unveiled, he has rarely been seen without them.

'Since we first met, interest in wearables has exploded and today it's one of the most exciting areas in technology.

'As we look to the road ahead, we realize that we've outgrown the lab and so we're officially "graduating" from Google[x] to be our own team here at Google. We're thrilled to be moving even more from concept to reality.

'As part of this transition, we're closing the Explorer Program so we can focus on what's coming next.'

 In the meantime, we're continuing to build for the future, and you'll start to see future versions of Glass when they're ready. (For now, no peeking.) 

According to the report, Glass will switch from its dead Texas Instruments chip to a processor built by Intel and will get a full hardware refresh.

Recently it emerged that the consumer version, which Google promised would go on sale this year, has now been delayed until 2015 - raising questions over its future.

Late last year, of 16 Glass app makers contacted by Reuters, nine said that they had stopped work on their projects or abandoned them, mostly because of the lack of customers or limitations of the device. Three more have switched to developing for business, leaving behind consumer projects.

However, plenty of larger developers remain with Glass. 

The nearly 100 apps on the official web site include Facebook and OpenTable, although one major player recently defected: Twitter.

Google founder Sergey Brin (L) and designer Diane von Furstenberg sit and watch the rehearsal for her Spring/Summer 2013 collection show during New York Fashion Week, where new Google Glass frameswere launched in a bid to make them more appealing.

'If there was 200 million Google Glasses sold, it would be a different perspective,' said Tom Frencel, the Chief Executive of Little Guy Games, which put development of a Glass game on hold this year and is looking at other platforms, including the Facebook Inc-owned virtual-reality goggles Oculus Rift.

'There's no market at this point,'

Several key Google employees instrumental to developing Glass have left the company in the last six months, including lead developer Babak Parviz, electrical engineering chief Adrian Wong, and Ossama Alami, director of developer relations.

And a Glass funding consortium created by Google Ventures and two of Silicon Valley's biggest venture capitalists, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Andreessen Horowitz, quietly deleted its website, routing users to the main Glass site.

Google insists it is committed to Glass, with hundreds of engineers and executives working on it, as well as new fashionista boss Ivy Ross, a former Calvin Klein executive.  

'We are completely energized and as energized as ever about the opportunity that wearables and Glass in particular represent,' said Glass Head of Business Operations Chris O'Neill.

'We are as committed as ever to a consumer launch. 

'That is going to take time and we are not going to launch this product until it's absolutely ready,' O'Neill said.

SEE how Google Glass actually FEELS to use

After an initial burst of enthusiasm, signs that consumers are giving up on Glass have been building.Some developers recently have felt unsupported by investorsand, at times, Google itself.

Brin had predicted a launch this year, but 2015 is now the most likely date, a person familiar with the matter said. 

After an initial burst of enthusiasm, signs that consumers are giving up on Glass have been building.

Some developers recently have felt unsupported by investors and, at times, Google itself.

The Glass Collective, the funding consortium co-run by Google Ventures, invested in only three or four small start-ups by the beginning of this year, a person familiar with the statistics said.

A Google Ventures spokeswoman declined to comment on the number of investments and said the Web site was closed for simplicity. 'We just found it's easier for entrepreneurs to come to us directly,' she said.

The lack of a launch date has given some developers the impression that Google still treats Glass as an experiment.

THE RISE OF THE GLASSHOLE

 Google dubbed the first set of several thousand Glass users as 'Explorers.' 

But as the Explorers hit the streets, they drew stares and jokes. 

Some people viewed the device, capable of surreptitious video recording, as an obnoxious privacy intrusion, deriding the once-proud Explorers as 'Glassholes.'

'It looks super nerdy,' said Shevetank Shah, a Washington, DC-based consultant, whose Google Glass now gathers dust in a drawer. 'I'm a card carrying nerd, but this was one card too many.'

Glass now sells on eBay for as little as half list price.

'It's not a big enough platform to play on seriously,' said Matthew Milan, founder of Toronto-based software firm Normative Design, which put on hold a Glass app for logging exercise and biking.

Mobile game company Glu Mobile, known for its popular 'Kim Kardashian: Hollywood' title, was one of the first to launch a game on Glass. Spellista, a puzzler released a year ago, is still available, but Glu has discontinued work on it, a spokesman for the company said.

Another developer, Sean McCracken, won $10,000 in a contest last year for creating an aliens-themed video game for Glass, Psyclops, but Google never put it on the official hub for Glass apps, making it tougher to find. 

He has quit working on updates.

Still, there are some enthusiastic developers. Cycling and running app Strava finds Glass well-suited for its users, who want real-time data on their workouts, said David Lorsch, vice president of business development. 

And entrepreneur Jake Steinerman said it is ideal for his company, DriveSafe, which detects if people are falling asleep at the wheel.

In April, Google launched the Glass at Work program to help make the device useful for specific industries, such as healthcare and manufacturing. 

So far the effort has resulted in apps that are being tested or used at companies such as Boeing and Yum Brands' Taco Bell.

Google is selling Glass in bulk to some businesses, offering two-for-one discounts.