by: Jefferson Graham, USA Today

Communications app Snapchat has a new name, Snap Inc., and is getting into the fashion business.

Over the weekend, Snapchat, one of the most popular smartphone apps, reaching 100 million visitors daily, announced its first physical product, available later this year.

Spectacles are $129.99 glasses that can record up to 10 seconds of video, similar to Google Glass.

Brian Solis, an analyst with the Altimeter Group, says the two products are like “night and day” different.

Spectacles, which he predicts will be “on everyone’s Christmas list,” are “a pair of sunglasses with wifi, a camera and the ability to share memories,” he says.

Glass was the ill-fated attempt by the Google to get people wearing $1,500 computerized glasses in 2013 that could surf the Web and record images. Instead, the Glass project got poor reviews and heated response from neighbors, and was shelved by Google.

Unlike Google, Snap, the new name for the company, points out that a recording light goes on the glasses to alert people that they are being captured, in ten-second bites. The company describes Spectacles as “the best way to make memories … hands-free, with the simple tap of a button.” It has put up a website to announce the product,Spectacles.com, and says the video glasses will be “landing soon.” It hasn’t supplied ordering information.

The product transitions Snapchat–which started as a way to share disappearing photos–into a “lifestyle brand,” says Solis.

Spectacles will become, “whether in this iteration or the next iteration, wearable devices to connect to Snapchat and other social networks, a way to share your experiences hands free,” says Solis. […]