Google in PRODUCT RECALL for its Glass spy-goggles Google is gently recalling the first iteration of its Glass product by offering to swap out the snooping head-mounted camera with a new version of the hardware. The ad giant appears keen to have the original version of Glass returned to Mountain View, and - as an incentive to customers - Google is offering to swap it out for …
Presumably you can buy your own nice shades, and simply attach the Google Glass thingy to them. Hence the product replacement. Which makes sense, as it seems pretty silly to provide frames with it, for the large percentage of the population who are already wearing them.
I quite like the idea of Google Glass, it could do some useful things. Except that the screen looks really really small. So I can't imagine how much you can actually read in it. As someone who walks a lot, a sat-nav display would be useful, as would being able to change tracks on a music player while both hands are full. For things like calls and texts, I'm happy to put down what I'm doing, stop and take the phone out of my pocket. And trying to read emails looks like a recipe for walking into a lamppost.
One of the most useful things I can imagine would be for reading small text or signs. But given how poor my eyesight is, I'd imagine I'd need glasses to read the Google Glass screen, so might as well use them on the label in question. Although being able to point at train station departure board, and have some sort of OCR cleverness tell me which platform to go to and where it is would be lovely.
Does it have any sort of adjustment though? some people don't have perfect vision.
Going from a button and non-touch world back to a cumbersome UI is the biggest problem. Voice control and a small touchpad is a really terrible user interface for getting things done. It's okay for on the move, but using them on a crowded train and you're liable to get punched.
I wouldn't want to wear them all the time, but for going skiing I would go nuts for a pair of Oakleys with a plug in heads up display that reports my speed, location, highlights the location of other people I'm with on the mountain, outlines the piste boundaries, auto records my runs (but not the lift ride back), allow me to make and take calls without taking my gloves off (have you ever tried taking a call whilst skiing down a mountain? 1 second to notice a caller, 2 seconds to stop to a halt, 2 seconds to unzip and get the phone out of pocket, 1 second to decide whether to answer, 4 seconds to get gloves off in order to answer...)
Why would I answer the phone when I'm skiing?
You don't *have* to answer the phone, you know.
Er, I think some people have read this as "Take work call whilst skiing". I'm much more in the "Knowing what restaurant to ski to for lunch" sphere of phone calls whilst skiing. In fact, if it was work, I'd probably ignore it.
Sometimes when you are skiing, it can also be snowing. When it is snowing, the sky is white, the ground is white, the clouds (which you are in) are white. A big glowing red line in the HUD would delineate the piste from the off piste, and perhaps stop you accidentally skiing off a cliff in bad vis. Things that stop me killing myself I generally consider "useful" and not "part of the video game".
Similarly, if you're on a long piste, is that bloke in the black 1km downhill your mate, or just another person wearing black. Did they go left or right at the junction? Which restaurant were we skiing to again*?
Plus, skiing isn't necessarily sport, it's just spending some nice time in the mountains moving from place to place on skis. It's not all Ski Sunday grand slalom races y'know.
If you think Oakleys are stylish sunglasses, you are the one doing away with the style component. Oakleys are tough, the frames are titanium, the lenses are strengthened polycarbonate and are interchangeable for when even tough is not tough enough.
You buy Oakleys because you are fed up of snow blindness from the ineffective anti glare coating on the gas station glasses, and/or have sun burn from the gas station glasses filtering UV-A and not UV-B, and/or are fed up of having to replace them for the 5th time this trip because you took a minor spill.
Besides which, you would hope most of it can be put behind the mirror blue lenses.
You realize that titanium is a fairly poor choice for flexural strength and is only used in eye-ware for its 'stylish' marketing appeal? Even poor forgotten copper is superior to Ti and Ti alloys for flex resistance (bending) and there are a wide variety of better, cheaper and easier to manufacture materials for such applications than Ti. The point being that regardless of ones fashion sense, Oakley eye-ware is absolutely not technically advanced, on any front. They are 100% fashion accessories.
As far as the use of Ti goes, about 95% of consumer uses are completely for marketing purposes. Rare is the consumer product that actually benefits from any of the specific qualities of titanium, other than the fact you can make stuff out of it. In fact, Ti is almost always detrimental, or at the very least pointless, and adds only cost for the buyer.
I was poking a bit of fun at the whole Google Glass crowd, but honestly I could care less about the fashion choices of others. The technical aspects you cite though, that simply proves that form over function marketing is highly effective.
Titanium does have fairly high corrosion resistance, but what the fuck is wrong with your face that you need corrosion resistance like that? Your pores will never excrete anything that needs that kind of corrosion resistance and be alive at the same time.
There's really no such thing as 'strength to weight ratio' in applied materials. Every material has specific strengths and weaknesses that you use to select the most appropriate material for whatever you're making. Again, Ti and Ti alloys are absolutely not the best material, on any front, for most things. Including sunglasses.
To be fair to Google, they're only doing what every other manufacturer of anything does. The people who buy the current iteration of anything are the guinea pigs for the next generation of buyers. It doesn't matter if you're talking consumer tech or landscaping gravel, you are always the guinea pig.
Now, communicating the issues to the manufacturer in a way that decision makers for the next generation actually hear is an entirely different issue, but even then user feedback is crucial if you want to sell something (see: Surface Tablet for more info).
"To be fair to Google, they're only doing what every other manufacturer of anything does. The people who buy the current iteration of anything are the guinea pigs for the next generation of buyers. It doesn't matter if you're talking consumer tech or landscaping gravel, you are always the guinea pig."
Yes and usually the guinea pigs are expected to buy the next generation along with the great unwashed.
If Google are really doing this, it represents a major difference in the way desirable consumer tech is trialled.
Oh .. It's much worse than that.
The first group of beta testers (not sure if it is still happening) actually had to fly to a designated place and pay to be allowed to use them after "winning" some kind of competition.
Seriously though.. I can see many uses for these things. And I seem to be one of the few who realise that it is indeed possible to take them off your face at will.
I completely agree that Google's forthrightness in the matter is somewhat disturbing. Knowing in the back of your mind that the next generation of a product is going to be better is one thing, but being told upfront that you're new shiny is already being replaced is a significant shift in tone. It's a risky thing to do (see the post I originally responded to) and I can't see any advantage in it.
Google is still very new to retail though, so maybe they just don't understand how to present to the consumer. Their communications are famous for being the opposite of open or straightforward...
Google's bad taste in styling is something that we are doomed to have forced on us. Even if we don't purchase such things we will be trapped in the view from one of their 'explorers'. I wonder how many people have already had their privacy intruded on by some geek wearing them.
I bet that Google would not be happy with someone intruding on their privacy be it through someone wearing goo-hole glasses or through the lens of a normal camera.
Will never buy them. Would not buy anything like it regardless of who made it. They are tacky, more tacky than a watch that vibrates when you get a text message and has an intrusive camera on the wristband taking little snapshots of other people's lives.
Well I'm off to my hermit cabin up in the far reaches of the mountains to keep out of the view of these camera's built into watches and glasses....LOL
At the negativity these things bring out. Real hostility to what is after all just a smartphone on a glasses frame. And EVERYONE commenting here, I expect, has a smartphone.
Weird.
As for what Google are doing here - what's the problem? New iteration of a new product (just like every other company does) and Google are offering an upgrade (you know, like Apple do with iPhones, except they charge loads). Hardware changes so fast nowadays it's remotely surprising they have a new version out already.
I don't have a smartphone, barely a cellphone, but I'd be happy to get Glasses when the price drops to the expected smartphone parity. No phone to hold on to, no need to grab reading glasses and no tiny keyboard to tap on. Road directions in a head-up display (perfect for bicycling), hands-free access to phone and internet and the ability to install sun lenses. Great! Couple that with a screenless matchbox-sized Nexus 0 voice/data hub (TBA?) and it's a perfect solution. Glassholes? You think Bluetooth earpieces look stylish and people walking with their head down look smart?
I hope they address the most glaring deficiency of the original Glass so selfies will be easier for the narcissistic at heart. Think about it, if you have to take them off then you can't demonstrate how hip you are wearing your Glass. Maybe the new one will include a mirror.
I guess this will make the Gen 1 Glass a super duper collectable if most folks go for the swap.
I thought this was the reg? Why wouldnt you want a wearable heads-up display, connected to the vast knowledge of the web? Id have one implanted into my eye if i could. I thought this was a site for IT geeks and dreamers. Instead some of you are moaning about not having your picture taken, like shy tweens, or suspicous tribesmen. What is wrong with you?
Does the concept of Google Glass remind anyone of the Star Trek Next Gen episode where everyone got addicted to Wesley Crusher's "Game" where the user wore glasses and had to use their mind to get a disk to fly into a slot therefore receiving almost orgasmic levels of pleasure? So they're all writhing in various rooms totally addicted to this game? Could this happen to Glasshole users?
No? Ok carry on.
I'm going to get close and say 'OK Glass, Google Herp Derp images'
And then they'll be bombarded with images of themselves looking at the glasses. : )
Note, you can also say the latest FBI terror keywords and wait for the helicopters to arrive. But that would be mean, wouldn't it?
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