Google's Glasses: The tech with specs appeal? I don't like wearing a wristwatch because it's uncomfortable. As the prime minister always says when being evasive or unintelligible, let’s be clear about this: I wear a wristwatch on most days but I find that doing so is uncomfortable. I would never wear a watch at home. I strap it on when I set off to a customer site and take …
for most existing frames.
That's the issue with them. I'd happily have a discreet clip on my glasses (which I wear anyway) to provide useful information in a convenient location.
Of course a couple of coloured LEDs would be sufficient to tell me about emails/sms/missed calls/incoming calls etc. Not sure I need much more most of the time. Either I'm using my hands (driving, cycling, whatever) or I can hold a phone/tablet for the detailed info.
>Of course a couple of coloured LEDs would be sufficient to tell me about emails/sms/missed calls/incoming calls etc
many phones do that with just one composite light- different colours / flashing patterns for different alerts.
And just three LEDs would allow the thing to act as a compass or GPS guide.
Still, I ain't getting one til it outlines motorcycles and jackets, informing me if they are my size > see icon.
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Missing the point, it has far more application outside of the consumer market than inside !
Medical, emergency services, customer service, engineering, advertising.....
http://successfulworkplace.com/2013/01/30/google-glass-will-change-the-face-of-the-enterprise/
Plus BMW were looking at AR for their technicians way back in 2007 (link in the article to a YouTube vid)
If Google manage this right with quality control over the application of it then it could fly. Vuzix are another company launching this to market.
I reckon this stuff will be pretty useless until Google figure out a way of ensuring Internet connectivity if FREELY available to us all, anywhere and everywhere.
If you think freely-available Internet connectivity is a stupid idea then I have another one for you, I'm going to call it Global Positioning.
Yes you don't wear a watch, but do you wear sunglasses?
I think this is where the distinction will be made, as long as they don't feel like you have a bowling ball strapped to your head, or give you significant eye strain as a result, I think this will be an interesting concept.
The glasses situation is a good point, will people requiring vision correction be required to wear contact lenses to use this?
The key to it's success as with most products will depend on it's benefit to cost ratio. If they try and pull the marketing must have and charge 3x price of a top end smartphone, I think it'll go the way of the early touchscreen devices, nice idea, but too expensive. Comparable to a top end SP or less (please, please, please! ;) ) and you may stand a chance of hitting the ground running.
I don't care what you say AD, or how much sense you usually make; your wrong about this one.
I wear glasses.
I don't like jewellery.
or wristwatches.
or wearing anything (except, reluctantly) other than my glasses - so I don't.*
I can't wait to get hold of one of these. I really can't. I want to step into my personal vision of the 'future' and if Google is obliging enough to provide it for me, well, TA Very Much!
So, if your only reasoning against 'em is "you don't like wearing stuff" I have a suggestion:
Don't wear a wristwatch, it seems you only do so as a fashion-accessory anyway (after all, I'm sure your phone has the time on it. Somewhere).
*other than clothes. Clearly. After all, I generally try to avoid getting arrested.
It's the same with shoes: as soon as I arrive at work, I have to take off my Oxfords as soon as possible. This nearly always goes unnoticed as long I wear very black socks. If I wear coloured-tipped socks, however, it gets a bit like that scene in Blake Edwards’ movie Skin Deep.
When this happens, I am forced to endure stupid remarks from stupid people, often in stupidly senior management positions for which stupidity is evidently mandatory in order to achieve their stupid promotion. Stupid.
Testify.
The most annoyingly stupid one I get is: "eew, smelly feet!" ... Er, I had my shoes on for about an hour this morning on my way in to work. You, on the other hand, have had yours strapped on for the last six hours. And you accuse me of having smelly feet?
Mind you, I now make a point of wearing the most lurid socks possible simply to noise these fuckers up, so I shouldn't complain.
...that the single most boring thing it is possible to listen to is someone talking about their personal dislikes. The only reason anybody tolerates it at all is if it gives them the chance to respond in kind.
Lets by honest, can you name one single person who gives a flying f*ck about whether or not you find wearing a watch irritates your wrist?
I don't wear glasses, but I can see the day coming... However, I would really consider it a feature to have an LED in the frame at one side, shining sideways into the lens, with a refractive prism ground into the lens to direct the light to your eye. Then you'd have an unobtrusive status lamp for (as John Robson says) email, SMS, voicemail, phone ringing, whatever. It'd be a USP for glasses over contacts, keeping you informed without being information overload.
I already hate the blinking of PC hardware especially blue ones (as human eye don't adjust as well to blue light as to the others). Macs have few leds at all for status one reason I so love the Apple design.
Same goes for the car, I had an Audi V8, you could turn of all instrumental lightning oh I loved that so much, The last to go off when turning the dimmer was the speedometer and rev. The last to come on when you turned it up was the lights between the benches.
A status light for each email I get straight into my eyes would be worse torture than the Chinese model of dripping cold water on you head one drop at a time, for a very long time.
You maybe dream about it, you maybe want it now, but I tell you when you get that blinker thing in your hand, it wont be long before you join a competition in how far your hand can throw away that blinker.
I see the benefit of being able to read a document while looking elsewhere too, but how often is that. As bad as you multi-task it would anyway be forbidden in traffic.
Not really much of a post, this one. It doesn't really say much more than 'I don't like wearing irritating stuff'.
Personally, I agree, but then I don't think Glass is intended to be worn around all day. It would seem pretty daft for that to be the idea behind it.
As someone else noted, I'd imagine that it's real use would be in situations. Medical personnel needing scans, pictures (which could be advanced to A&E ahead of them) or access to assistance on-the-spot whilst keeping hands free. Of course, this only works if it is capable of bringing up suitable amounts of information on the display without obscuring your view.
I agree I couldn't envision putting on anything like this all day. In the same way I don't hold up my Lumia 920 all day and walk around with Nokia City Lens on. I don't need it.
However, I'm a weirdo, I never feel a need to jump and pull out my phone the moment a text message or email arrives, and I don't always feel I HAVE to answer a ringing phone. The amount of friends and acquaintances over the years who've looked at me in absolute horror because I saw a message arrive and didn't respond to it, or didn't answer the phone because I was in the middle of a conversation, is pretty high. Imagine this thing being on all day and the expectation to leap to action every time someone sent you a message... It'd drive me nuts.
Anyway, I digress...the one question I have is - other than making me into a jump-to-it slave-boy, what is this thing actually for?
"...the one question I have is - other than making me into a jump-to-it slave-boy, what is this thing actually for?"
After one gets past the novelty factor, having the ability to have a heads up display might be useful in a number of situations, and you did mention earlier:
"As someone else noted, I'd imagine that it's real use would be in situations. Medical personnel needing scans, pictures (which could be advanced to A&E ahead of them) or access to assistance on-the-spot whilst keeping hands free."
Another use I can think of would be as a way of having repair manuals and other technical documentation handy when one either doesn't have the space for a bulky chunk of dead tree, or where said dead tree would get damaged by grease, oils, chemicals, etc. Having the ability to hold up a part, have the camera on the device take a picture of it and apply some sort of image matching algorithm to pull up specs or information might be useful as well.
From the looks of the GGs I can simply get prescription glasses in the frame and use ONE set. Since I switch glasses depending on what I do anyway (I.e an untinted one for painting, a self-coloring/tinting one for driving etc) I see little to no problem with that.
And as one wrote: Having such a kit to super-impose Calendar/Mail etc. in my field of vision would be nice. If done properly this thing would finally allow me to do away with the smartphone, linking to the tablet-pc I carry around even when it is closed/lying on the co-driver seat/packed in a attache case, giving me back the classic "lasts 14 days between recharges" featurephone.
I got to wear a pair for a bit back in the summer. First, they're extremely light. They sat lightly on the bridge of my nose, much like my regular glasses, and the electronics+battery package was sufficiently well-balanced that it didn't bother me or feel in danger of slipping off.
Second point, it doesn't really "superimpose" anything on your vision. It's more like if you look at the appropriate place, there's a screen there. Unobtrusive but convenient.
You know what ? I think you have found a nice market there ...
Does it also serve as a personal transportation device ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IT_%28South_Park;_The_Entity%29.jpeg
(Ok, so you dislike wearing watches... I enjoy posting offensive South Park memes. How do I become a regular ElReg contributor and get paid to speak about it ?)
If it was anybody but google, they'd sell me the glasses and keep the fuck out of my brain (maybe; can't be too sure anymore). Because it's google, they're going to charge me somewhere between $100-$500 for the hardware, tie what I'm looking at to the google+ account I'm obliged to have at work, and then pump ads I don't want straight into my eyeballs. No thanks.
The specs will be refined over time and won't be so cumbersome.
There was some research at Harvard where a student demonstrated using a camera projected a screen from his head and his hands could be used to move content around the screen and do signals (in much the same way sign language has developed) to bring up things like camera and zoom.
What they finally realised was that even with the most powerful projector in the world you can't go up against sunlight and hence the technology was useless.
Google glasses seem like a gimmick at the moment and they are. As is Siri from Apple.
However, one future generation of the smart device involves being able to see things within your vision not limited by phone form factor and being able to speak to your phone sort of like what Siri does today albeit much more advanced.
In the future, combining all these devices will allow a smart device to be hands free, voice activated and vision not limited by current form factors. You won't be looking down on your phone when using your car as you can see everything as an overlay through your glasses. You'll be able to talk to them like Siri to activate voice calls.
The last generation of smart phones used styluses. The current ones have touch and Siri-like.
The future ones will change things further.
If there is anything to be learnt, its to keep applications written for mobile devices small - otherwise rewrites for the next generation will be an even bigger chore!
It's yet one more uncomfortable thing to stick on my body that I'm going to hate wearing. Naturally, like you, I am intrigued by the idea, if not fooled by the outrageously fake concept videos.
"Naturally"? "like you"?
I don't see what's "naturally" appealing about this latest burst of gadget idiocy. (Yes, there are plausible beneficial AR applications in specific industries. That's not what we're talking about.)
I'm perfectly happy to wear glasses, wristwatch, necktie (indeed I think it's a shame I so rarely have an occasion to dig into my tie collection), and so on. But I wouldn't use Google Glass if you paid me to. Wearable displays like this have been kicking around at least since the first SIGGRAPH I attended, circa 1990, and I've never seen any non-industry-specific application for them that I thought was even slightly interesting.
Certainly many folks seem to be trembling in anticipation. Fine - they're welcome to whatever entertainment distracts them from the real world they seem to find so tiresome. But not everyone thinks this nonsense is exciting.
I'll agree that the concept videos are outrageously fake, though.
Your main argument is an aversion to 'accessorising' ?
How on earth would you have dealt with the birth of mobile phones.
"This concept/product is lame because they're too big for my pocket..."
Seeing as the tech hasn't even remotely come close to being commercialised; how could you expect their first revision to be something stylish, comfortable and seamlessly fit into a myriad of lifestyles? Do you think that apple would've had such an easy time if there hadn't been years and years of mobile phone growth and development? Not to mention the variance of companies who have contributed to the evolution and design.
Personally; Its way to early to criticize google glass considering the lack of exposure/impact that society has had to shape it. Once the idea is floated in a market; imagine the possibilities when other companies become involved in everything from the shape, design, size, weight and even style. Android is a perfect example of this symbiotic ideal, and shows what an idea can become.
In regards to cybernetics; how is technology to progress without stepping stones to make their way?
If we don't evolve and nurture ideas, they'll never develop and blossom to the point where they become part of life.
Besides that, how could you consider eye implants to be less invasive than a pair of glasses?
I was at the opticians yesterday, having my eyes tested. I didn't order new frames. Instead, I ordered new lenses to my prescription both for my existing titanium 'frameless' frames and for the Oakley M-Frames I wear when cycling. Next year, if I do the same thing (and I probably will), I'll order new lenses to my prescription for my Google Glass frames.
Nobody (except the sort of mindless, blinkered hack who writes for el Reg) imagines that you will wear Google Glass on top of, or as well as, or interchangeably with your prescription spectacles. Your Google Glass spectacles will be your prescription glasses, and you'll wear them all the time. Anything else would be simply stupid, and whatever Google are, they're not stupid...
... unlike all too many el Reg journalists, these days. Met any climate change deniers lately?
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