Slashdot Mirror
Google Heads Up Display Coming By the End of the Year
kodiaktau writes "Google is working to deliver a heads-up display allowing users access to email, maps and other tools through a wearable interface. According to the NY Times' sources, the device will be available later this year, and sell for prices comparable to smartphones. 'The people familiar with the Google glasses said they would be Android-based, and will include a small screen that will sit a few inches from someone’s eye. They will also have a 3G or 4G data connection and a number of sensors including motion and GPS. ... The glasses will have a low-resolution built-in camera that will be able to monitor the world in real time and overlay information about locations, surrounding buildings and friends who might be nearby, according to the Google employees. The glasses are not designed to be worn constantly — although Google expects some of the nerdiest users will wear them a lot — but will be more like smartphones, used when needed.'"
Blind people will be delighted to read this news, and can't wait to buy this new IPad^H^H^H^HGoogle glasses.
I will be plugged into the Google at all times. I will fear no evil for Google will be with me, and will guide me to safety. The Google provides divine inspiration, and is the light of the world. The Google protects. You should be plugged in to the Google. Otherwise you are a lesser bing. All hail the Google.
So now google is able to literally look through our eyes... great.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
And six months after Google releases it, Apple will invent it.
but I imagine they will be lining up to take the Google-glasses-induced automobile accident cases.
They will also have a 3G or 4G data connection and a number of sensors including [...] GPS.
Why wouldn't this just interface with the users smartphone to access data and GPS?
Required reading for internet skeptics
Here it is: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/685/locutus.jpg/
Can't wait to see people on the street wearing and using this, it will be too funny seeing them making gestures and talking to their goggles.
so now you can virtually walk round other peoples houses.
I need never leave the comfort of my panic room
who where what when now?
Ok, just make sure these new. "Connexis" glasses aren't made by a crazy robot factory bent on mind control....
At least they won't be advertised with the Applseed family...
Less than 20 years from science fiction to reality. Not bad.
As William Gibson said, "The future is already here, it's just not very evenly distributed."
I guess cell phones just weren't radiating close enough to our heads.
... connected to my smartphone. Perhaps even one without maximum privacy impact. Existing designs: terminally-incoherent.com blog
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
yup america is broke its all up for sale....ONLY the f35 they just cant make it work can they....
I hope it comes in sporty sunglaces. I have wanted to have this for cycling for quite some time. Just display a small map, directions, speed, cadance and hart rate.
This sounds very similar to a gadget I read about recently: The MOD Live from ReconInstruments. /me wants.
I can chat to friends on IRC and watch TV while at work!
Will it warn me away from shops and buildings of ill repute where I may catch nasty viruses?
I can imagine whole car-boot-sales being wiped off the face of the earth...
I don't see where they turn completely black when they sense danger.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Epilepsy, migraines _and_ much longer spent with microwaves next to my head? No doubt I'll still buy one. Maybe this will be the kicker that finally pushes 3D TV take up past the post?
I suppose then I won't be able to put off registering for a Google account any longer.
All I'll need to do next is get my "POOR IMPULSE CONTROL" forehead tattoo, a RadiKS deck, a couple of swords, and wait for the world governments to finally slide into micro franchises...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemon_(technothriller_series)
I've often wished for a HUD to allow me to read while walking around.
But why would this be an Android device of its own, rather than just an input/output device for my existing Android phone?
How about an image projected from the wrist watch rather than having spectacles for those who don't like/need them?
Yeah but does it work with my iPhone?
I'm actually quite interested in when these will be available as normal prescription glasses lenses. I think this is a lot of geeks wet dream. Heck you could even possibly replace the lenses themselves with a modified display that uses a camera and alters the image to your prescription. Given the imaging resolution would have to be high enough and it would have to have a fast enough response time. This is like the holy grail of all technology beyond being directly connected to your computer via your brain.
Honestly, just using a modified pair of prescription lenses would work... for now.
This should make texting & driving a lot more safer ... just add a full-size keyboard to the steering wheel, and all's good!
overlay information about locations, surrounding buildings and friends
.... and context-sensitive advertisements.
I wore glasses for 20 years. About three years ago, I had my vision corrected so I wouldn't need them anymore. Now Google's made me want to wear them again.
A HUD with contact lenses is a neat idea, That way when the app we have running on the HUD pops up with the an annoying commercial like Head-On we can't even turn it off by shutting our eyes.
So what about those of us who wear prescription glasses?
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
I'll reply to you.
Maybe if the Big Corps (Google and Apple) produce these types of glasses, hopefully in Sunglass Factor, then we can nudge the fashion sense along away from "Faces". I'm quite happy to have the phone in my pocket doing the computing - I just want the glasses to replace the monitor. And yes, if everyone is wearing them, they're "always on", You can go to a coffee shop and get your beverage, send an email/social post or three, without even changing your expression.
Here's to the Matrix Look!
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Sure, your concern is very real, but let's try our hand at sidestepping a marketing trap.
One of the most profound concepts of marketing is to try to convince people that "X Corp's Subset is the only desirable Subset of the overall Set of Products/Services."
So right now we're unnerved at both Google and Apple and maybe even Microsoft if they decide to issue one of these glasses. But it's the Set of AR glasses that I absolutely believe is (part of) the future of computing. So I think I'd trust a company like maybe Samsung, who isn't on my radar of Evil Companies (correct me if they need to be) just making an platform-agnostic set of hardware AR glasses with adaptors to all the phones.
So then for me the question becomes "knowing the very real data sales issues of Google and Apple, if it takes that kind of money to kick this into top gear, then social fashion progress (avoiding the laugh-at-the-nerd factor because "oh, it's okay NOW that *I* do it" might be the TRUE trade off that personal data. Then we just use the Linux mentality and go off the Google-Apple grid.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
You can go to a coffee shop and get your beverage, send an email/social post or three, without even changing your expression.
You'll still need to write the message, which means one of the following:
~A keyboard, which you'll either look at (defeating the point of the glasses, since you might as well have a phone) or keep in your pocket and use blind.
~Voice recognition
~Gaze direction or blink sensing.
So, that would mean you look like you're either wanking through your pockets, talking to yourself, blinking madly or making furtive glances everywhere (or all of the above...)
The Future is Here!
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
"The glasses are not designed to be worn constantly — although Google expects some of the nerdiest users will wear them a lot — but will be more like smartphones, used when needed.'"
Great, now there will be idiots driving AND wearing these. And at restaurants, theaters, and everywhere else cell phone users abusers currently annoy people.
Still, I would love to have one, or two.
Chording keyboards work great.
Some of us have had this technology for well over a decade. MIT Steve Mann(Now Prof at U of Toronto) and Thad Starner invented wearable computing and they have been using this tech for10+ years already. Many of their grad students as well as interested techies also have.
I had a 386 based belt PC, HUD and Handeykey chording keyboard back in 1997 I had a 5 hour run time using pc104 low power useage computer boards and a Nicad pack that was actually a bandolier of batteries designed to run a video light for a camera operator.
when my coat was on, you could only see the hud. Steve Mann made his into funky glasses.
https://www.google.com/webhp?rlz=1C1PRFA_enUS419US419&sourceid=chrome-instant&ix=sea&ie=UTF-8&ion=1#hl=en&rlz=1C1PRFA_enUS419US419&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q=wearable%20computing&pbx=1&oq=&aq=&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=&gs_upl=&fp=4bd463be09dc681c&ix=sea&ion=1&ix=sea&ion=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=4bd463be09dc681c&biw=1626&bih=777&ix=sea&ion=1
for more info into how google did not come up with this but built upon what others have been doing for a while.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Google has a nasty habit of dropping projects, including even such wonderful and heavily-advertised products as its Nexus One android phone. I'm more than a bit leery of developing products that rely on their work. These glasses sound like a fascinating toy but... from Google? Meh. When can I get one from a reliable company?
I was praying for a gadget like this since I started writing exams! Thank god google! No more studying!!
This is awesome, I've often thought of cool gadgets i'd like to make that would use a HUD. I'd might get one and adapt if tor use in other projects as well.
“Vegeta, what does the scouter say about his restaurant?”
“It’s over NINE THOUSAAAAAAAND!”
“WHAT?! NINE THOUSAND?!
Of course, it's "head up", not "heads up", a frequent error. Ironic that perhaps the warning "HEADS UP!" will be more appropriate when the wearer becomes so engrossed in the streaming content that they are walking into lamp posts, despite apparently looking right at them.
How many people wanna bet that they'll have ZERO accessibility utility and require people with near perfect sight to use? This is the ONE place where Google could actually beat Apple at something related to human interfaces (Apple is in a league of their own when it comes to accessibility right now), and I bet they won't even give it any thought, which is common of them.
Let us hope that someone out there actually reads this and thinks: Hey we could actually use this to help people see while at the same augmenting the abilities of people who already have perfect sight!
I am 95.2% disabled thanks to a congenital open angle glaucoma, and my iPhone 4S' 8MP camera as well as iOS' accessibility options have exceeded all my expectations to the point where now anything that's not Apple feels clunky and obsolete to me. My cell phone can literally see better than me, especially in the distance, and Apple makes that kind of use even more convenient with subtle changes to the way apps work such as by increasing the zoom cap in the Pictures app when accessibility Zoom is enabled, even if it's not active, because they actually KNOW that SOME people have a use case for this kind of thing, and yet this has absolutely no impact in the way normal people use their iPhones, most are completely oblivious to these details.
...to what M.T. Anderson envisioned in Feed.
After years of not using a signature, I am going to make one to say the following: Fuck Beta
Like this?
WHY was my first reaction that of total fear, being fed subliminal images by our data overlord?
That surprised me.
I immediately imagined after reading the title a wearable glasses type display which is displaying information in cyberpunk fashion and feeding subliminal images for brainwashing. Huh.
Pulsed Media Seedboxes
I'm happy to even just take out a normal keyboard and "type into thin air".
Anything to get the Science Fiction Future to arrive here now!
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Well it has been asked for many times before but this time, Slashdot will really have to rethink their Google and Microsoft icons
what Kopen is doing with Motorola: Golden-i
Get it right!
I wore glasses (thick ones) for 45 years until medical technology came to my rescue. I'm not going back. Sunglasses, maybe, but a headsup display at all times with your email and such?
You know, there are some things that should not be invented and this is one of them. You think people talking on their phones while driving are dangerous, wait until they're wearing these glasses! It will be bad enough on the sidewalk with idiots paying attention to the HUD and not where they're going, running into you... better than driving with them, though.
What's worse It's a completely unnecessary device. Doesn't your phone beep when you get a message?
However, this will probably go over big with the hipsters. Kind of like the Segway was so popular. It does have one good feature -- nopbody wearing these will EVER get laid, so their genes will no longer pollute the pool. And the ones who wear them driving (and they will, you know they will) may kill themselves, but unfortunately take an innocent or two with them.
Free Martian Whores!
Goggles from Google sounds nice. But all these displays strapped to the head, that projects an collimated image into the eye (the display will appear to float at infinity or at some distance from the eye) have a problem. They can induce motion sickness and head aches. The human brain is not used to part of the world to move with the head while other parts of the world stay fixed. We perceive in 3D with both stereoscopic vision and some amount of parallax. Our inner ear's idea of horizon and gravity should be in synch with the visual horizon. When they are out of synch, the body thinks throws an exception. Really, it throws up. In the evolutionary past, when these got out of synch it is probably because the animal ingested some poisonous substance. Throwing up is a decent defense against it. That is why motion sickness makes you throw up.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
...they do nothing!
Can someone explain how one could see what's displayed on these glasses? The display would be very near the eye, so the eye won't be able to focus to it without additional contact lenses. But if additional contact lenses were worn, then the person would become severely nearsighted!
Samsung uses foxconn manufacturing. Is that bad enough?
I've seen these before at CES this year for snowboarding www.reconinstruments.com at their booth in CES they mentioned support dirt sports too this year
Nothing says "Kick My Ass!" like a wearable HUD..
--- If the bible proves the existence of God, then Superman comics prove the existence of Superman.
It's about time.
According to the industry (http://www.glassescrafter.com/information/percentage-population-wears-glasses.html), over 60% of the American population wears eyeglasses. I'm guessing that the number is similar in other countries that Google would be targeting with this device. So, it would only really be usable by 40% of the target market?
Or at least that's what it sounds like people are gonna start looking like with this getup.
Personally, I think I'll wait for next-generation Cyberbrains a la Ghost in the Shell.
Gesture recognition ala Kinect is a natural for this
Almost as fashionable as in High School, but these give you cancer. I hope they hold a charge on 4G better than my EVO.
We've been hearing about flexible computing for some time now, so I wonder if there's some sort of wide bracelet that could incorporate a miniature or chording keyboard and a BT transceiver. Hopefully something a little more elegant than what Lando had...
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
Pros- A heads up display could convert a blank wall into a giant display screen, private or shared.
Cons - Traditionally, VR glasses resulted in motion sickness due to latency in the display.
We are one step closer to Neal Stephenson's vision of a gargoyle in Snow Crash. Interesting.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
This should just be a slight modification to the Gmail spam filters. Still, couldn't hurt to wear two pairs.
SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY
Dear Google, as you may recall some number of centuries ago the cover of boardwatch magazine sported Bill Gates in an impressive array of borg regalia. This single image galvanized an exceptionally negative impression of Microsoft spanning generations.
Heads up display = borg. Device recording your every move and sight uploaded to "the cloud" (AKA google servers) for analysis = borg.
You have been warned. Your "not evil" image is circling the drain perilously close to landing on the rotting apple lodged in its p-trap.
What does the scouter say about his power level?
It's over 9000!
But the science fiction future IS here! It's the 21st century. We have ovens that cook with radio waves, doors that open and close by themselves, Star Trek communicators, Star Trek padds, hospital readouts that make McCoy's sick bay look primitive, cybernetic implants, devices that can record TV shows, computers on our desk and even more, small enough to carry around, the internet, talking toys, singing greeting cards, drone aircraft that fly themselves, "smart bombs" that never miss their targets, lasers, flat screen TVs...
Now get off my lawn, kid.
Free Martian Whores!
Wasn't there a commercial from IBM in the mid '90s showing a guy jumping up and down in a courtyard full of birds yelling "buy, buy" and then talking on the phone to someone all using a HUD system? I don't recall if that was for IBM's voice control system or OS/2 but it sounds like we're finally there at a price many can now afford.
I think the big thing which held up the hacker community from doing this years ago was the lack of an inexpensive tiny LCDs with decent resolution.
BTW, the speech engine IBM put into OS/2 was derived from their client-server based system they originally used on AS400 servers and many clients. It worked like Siri in that the client grabbed the users speech and sent it to server to be picked apart and a command string was sent back to the client. Missing was the output speech engine on the client since it was more of a speech control system than a speech search engine. It was pretty decent once you used it for a time and it became trained on your speech patterns.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
The spread of GPS has caused many a driver to follow directions all-too-explicitly (through some strange, and often incompatible terrain). With Google Glasses, will people now follow Google Maps trails off cliffs?
Well, I can't say anything specific about Samsung off of the top of my head, but here's my general rule for determining if an organization is likely to engage in "evil" practices:
Are they "for profit"? Then the likelihood of them engaging in some evil practice is around 100%. Otherwise, probably slightly lower.
That may sound cynical and as if I am averse to capitalism, but by and large it's more that at least in the US corporations are required to maximize shareholder benefit, and often times the steps necessary to do that involve legal but ethically icky actions.
That said, I'm relatively OK with the idea of Google having information from when I would wear such a device, as long as I would also have complete access to the information they collect from me wearing such a thing.
First, because I would take it off if I were to do anything I wanted to keep private. And, even so, if there were even one other person present I would have to already assume that whatever was happening would have the potential to be made public anyway.
Second because I'm sure that really, if people want to violate my privacy there's pretty much no way I can 100% prevent it (just reduce the chance of a breech unless they're REALLY serious about it).
Third because I generally think that with the way things are going it's less about privacy and more about a level of anonymity. Only people who really care about me, personally, would have both the ability to look at my info AND cause me problems if they know it; people who just want to market to me don't care about me and I don't care about them - they just want my money. If someone were to use this information to stalk me or otherwise fuck with my life there are already ways to deal with that so I guess I just don't see it as that big a deal.
Fourth because I would be really interested in seeing the metrics of what I look at and do and just generally get more information about things in my surroundings. I find the whole idea fascinating, really - I zone out when in public a lot, in the sense that I'm usually living in my head and not paying much attention to things around me unless I'm actively engaged with them, so this would be neat to have just to see what I'm missing or whatever.
Fifth because I think that while Google would have a profit motive for this, they also have a lot of really bright folks working there and might come up with something really neat with that info. Though, that's probably the case also with open source projects, which I am also sure would pop up around this kind of hardware.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
Voice commands: "Open email."
"I'm afraid I can't do that..."
Good article.
Ubiquitous, easy to access computing. We keep heading that direction. Glasses and convenient input devices like bracelets (I hadn't thought of that, very clever) will be a fantastic summit. Eventually, the interface will evolve beyond even glasses into implants. 50 years til that?
This is an image of what I refer to when I say that privacy is gradually and inexorably evaporating. We'll have to revise our thinking so we can cope with our public lives being truly public, not just potentially so. These days we can pick our noses in our cars and expect de facto privacy, but as time goes on the chances that our nose pickings will end up recorded and available to the world increase. Where we go every day, conversations with our partners, even what we look at as we're walking down the street, these will all eventually be public knowledge. I'm thinking we won't be able to get by on outdated notions of right and wrong behavior and that we'll need a more mature ethics and sophisticated outlook.
What do you propose they use instead?
Dilbert RSS feed
I can't wait to pay yet another 70$ a month for yet another 3g/4g connection. It's time to invent the one-person, multi-device mobile subscription.
My
Word recognition from thoughts. There's already a proof of concept on patients with locked-in syndrome.
Dilbert RSS feed
http://www.microvision.com/wearable_displays/wearable_application_gallery.html
Man, you know you're getting old when something comes along and you tell yourself you will absolutely will not use "one of those things".
Discontinued after six months.
Sure, I'm no fan of Foxconn, but let's "separate out evils". The question at hand is a set of glasses without "Whitelisted Spyware" from the vendor, or Lock-In tricks, etc.
Then you can find TWO equally good glasses like that, then you can go looking at the moral side. But we need the category to exist first.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Nice reply. Here's some notes.
The fact that can't peel off anything nasty about Samsung off the top of your head either (contrast with Sony!) supports my first point - if all corps are "evil", some are "more evil than others" to borrow Animal Farm. Here it's about navigating precise brands of evil so that the user escapes relatively intact.
Meanwhile, if you want your own metrics, "install some clean software" such as something the FOSS crew would come up with. No need to rely on the "Evil" providers for a handout.
Meanwhile, Privacy is "correlated with" Anonymity. They're slightly different circles on a venn diagram. You can email me if you want to thrash that one out.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
the best automobile safety innovation since hands free.
you'll be able to read your SMSs and emails without taking your eyes off the road.