back to article Return of the Glassholes? Relax: Huawei's 'smart specs' aren't Google Glass 2.0

Don't panic, the Glassholes aren't returning. We think. On Monday, in a long and rambling presentation which overran by an hour – Huawei's Richard Yu unveiled its first "Smart Glasses" to an audience of over 3,000. But they aren't what you think. google glass Now your boss can tear you a new Glasshole: Google's techno-specs …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Ey, sexy lady"

    I was left speechless reading that, and usually I'd add some crap just to drop the tone further, but that was perfection.... BRAVO el reg, well played!

    (Seriously proud and loud hand clapping)

  2. 0laf Silver badge
    Megaphone

    I can see the use of having an inbuilt feed of read only pertinant notifications in my glasses. Message notices, sat nav directions etc. I can also foresee me walking into lamp posts or crashing a car because of it.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      But do you want to wear glasses?

      I think instinctively, living creatures do not want to needlessly attach foreign bodies to their head, especially eyeballs.

      1. Joe W Silver badge

        Do I have a choice? Inserting foreign objects into your eyes is even more unnatural.

      2. Kubla Cant

        Wearing them wrong

        I think instinctively, living creatures do not want to needlessly attach foreign bodies to their head, especially eyeballs.

        One of the annoyances of my glasses is that they slip down your nose. I never knew I was supposed to connect them to my eyeballs. I can see that might make them more secure.

        The Huawei smart glasses in the picture seem to be sunglasses. Do they include a radar detector to stop you walking into things indoors?

        1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

          Re: Wearing them wrong

          Do they include a radar detector to stop you walking into things indoors?

          They're Smart glasses, so presumably they have a head-up display which will show "You are in a small room at the end of a corridor. There is a wall in front of you." in such circumstances.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Wearing them wrong

            "You are in a small room at the end of a corridor. There is a wall in front of you."

            Unfortunately, if the glasses are dark enough, followed by...

            It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

            1. 's water music

              Re: Wearing them wrong - sunglasses too dark

              They look a lot like Joo Janta 200s. If they turn dark, start worrying

            2. Anonymous Custard Silver badge
              Trollface

              Re: Wearing them wrong

              And if it starts going on about pale bulbous eyes, either find a trapdoor to go through (in a barrel if there's a handy one about) or a hobbit to sacrifice...

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Wearing them wrong

            Shades of Colossal Cave? Pin thoroughly intended.

        2. M.V. Lipvig Silver badge

          Re: Wearing them wrong

          I would LOVE to have a radar/laser detector built into my glasses, and have the lenses display the radar beams as a point of colored light indicating the direction the beam was coming in from as well as a strength meter. It would make cop dodging so much easier on the highways. Unfortunately, probably won't live to see that one happen.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "But do you want to wear glasses?"

        Yes - I'm with John Hegley on this one "I look after my glasses, 'cos my glassess look after me"

        1. 0laf Silver badge
          Boffin

          "But do you want to wear glasses?"

          I wear them anyway. Have never been able to wear contacts and the idea of laser surgery isn't for me. So if I'm wearing Gregories anyway the idea of them being a bit more useful isn't all bad.

          I can understand that a non-speccy may not want to wear specs.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            "I can understand that a non-speccy may not want to wear specs."

            Clearly companies don't want to understand that as it gets in the way of them selling overpriced items. But, without the people who don't need to wear them, the market is extremely small. So, I guess it's the age old question of how to sell ice to Eskimos again, as we just went through this 5 years ago. Definition of insanity?

      4. DiViDeD

        I don't know though

        "...needlessly attach foreign bodies to their head, especially eyeballs"

        I always find that a couple of eyeballs, perhaps on the ears or jauntily clipped into the hair, always adds a certain 'je ne sais what the fsck??' to an ensemble.

  3. Adrian 4

    I never understood why the google glasses were so disliked.

    There are many other ways of secretly filming people (including cameras in glasses) yet they're never mentioned. Google glass, on the other hand, was more about augmented reality than recording.

    Just media attention, I guess.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "I never understood why the google glasses were so disliked."

      People disliked (or were told they should dislike) google glasses because they thought it enabled the wearers to spy on them. Huawei glasses are completely different as they don't provide any ability of the the wearers to spy on people ... the spying on people functionality will be reserved for the Chinese securirty services.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Google Glass was never an AR device, no more than the Apple watch is.

      Augmented Reality is about directly altering how one perceives things in the real world. Google Glass never did that, it just positioned a small screen in the corner of your vision.

  4. Anonymous Custard Silver badge
    Trollface

    In, out and shake it all about...

    how intrusive it was to insert a camera into the private physical space enjoyed by "friends and lovers".

    I'm pretty sure there are many sites around the web where you can find such videos, if that's what floats your boat...

    1. DiViDeD

      Re: In, out and shake it all about...

      Oh, those things have been around for a while.

      there's a pair here

  5. Spanners
    Flame

    Glassholes were not a real problem.

    Real problems included, the high price and astoundingly stupid comments that convinced Google that "now is not the time".

    It has been the time for affordable AR glasses for years but the media hostility has stalled it for now and some years to come. When we get article titles like this, it pushes them further away. Instead, we have to use a phone or tablet for the purpose or just not bother.

    1. ma1010

      Re: Glassholes were not a real problem.

      I agree that affordable AR glasses could be a good idea. The problem with Google Glasses was not, I think, the HUD; it was the camera that was a bridge too far. People don't like being videoed all that much, especially when they don't know it's being done. As the article mentions, "how intrusive it was to insert a camera into the private physical space enjoyed by 'friends and lovers.'" I think that's what got the "Glasshole" moniker going.

      I also remember a man who wore his prescription Google glasses to a theater and got accosted by a federal agent because someone thought he was videoing the movie illegally (he wasn't).

      Just leave the camera out of it, and I think it's a good idea.

  6. Alistair
    Windows

    My reality is twisted enough

    What with a full time job, three kids, a wife, a dog, three cats and a bird, full time hobbies and the drama lamas that live in my neighbourhood. I need no augmentation of my reality.

    So, Korean Kool Kriminal glasses with headphones and a notification sync. Nope, not for me thanks. (and I wear eyegoggles for reading after 30+ years of staring at tiny fonts on my screen anyway)

  7. Stevie

    Bah!

    Here's a design plan for smart glasses that are actually worthwhile:

    Flexible lenses in a frame, lenses that can be configured to any desired focal length while retaining the astigmatic correction of the prescription, controlled by a touch-sensitive "slider" in the arms.

    I'm fucking sick of these fixed- focal length stone-age "progressive lenses" that are almost right for nearly everything some of the time.

    I want a prescription where, at will, I can use the whole lens for reading or looking at stuff, not just some of my visual field. Slide a finger along the arm (right in my case, but configurable please for southpaws) and I can read stuff in the underground without tipping my head so far back everyone gets to see up my nose, or watch TV while slumped in a recliner without perching the glasses on the tip of my nose.

    A quick double-tap on the arm to revert to default progressive trifocal.

    Smart glasses with an actual, real-world application.

    1. OssianScotland

      Re: Bah!

      Oh yes, PLEASE.

      I hate my varifocals only slightly less than bifocals, but the alternative (multiple pairs) is even worse.

  8. MRC1980

    Glassholes

    I just wanted to be able to say:

    "OK Google" Subtitles and have speech and text translated in real time without having to push buttons or hold a phone up.

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