'Wearable Computing Will Be the Norm,' Says Google Glass Team

An anonymous reader writes "In an interview with Wired, Google's Steve Lee and Babak Parviz spoke about how they've come to use Project Glass in their lives, and where they expect the mobile computing industry to go in the near future. 'We've long thought the camera's important, but since we've started using this in public and with our family and friends and in real situations, not just hidden in the Google lab, we've truly seen the power of being hands-free. ... It's my expectation that in three to five years it will actually look unusual and awkward when we view someone holding an object in their hand and looking down at it. Wearable computing will become the norm.'"

Comments

already the norm

[roman_mir]

People with all the smart phones around, people with blue tooth headphones in their ears, it's already 'the norm', it's just it's not very convenient to have various electronic interfaces sticking out of your body, once the technology allows people to have all of this stuff on their bodies without the inconvenience of wires, weird gadgets that make you look like an Apocalypse Now character, then it will be part of daily life.

Re:already the norm

[Lumpy]

I find it convenient. If you buy a non crappy BT headset you don't even notice you are wearing it. I also find it convieient that I dont need the headset in the car and the car is a large speakerphone so everyone can join in on the call. Finally, my BT helmet completes the trifecta while I am on the motorcycle.

What is inconvenient, is that Car makers and helmet makers are too lazy to make a proper HUD system to show information in my line of sight.

Having a camera/webcam strapped to my head is not highly important in any way. I already have that in my secondary BT headset, a LooxCie camera/BT headset. It's actually quite worthless having a camera on my head all day long, unless I want to live cast boring as hell things... Which is what people do with these.

The biggest convenience is I can easily unplug by removing the headset and upgrades to newer tech at a whim. Silly people that want surgery to have their interface will always be using way out of date hardware.

Anyone using implants will be using tech that is at least 5 years out of date, the FDA approval of devices for implant will take at least that long. Let alone that the $199 premium headset will cost $999 plus $12,500 for insertion by a surgeon.

Re:already the norm

[Anonymous Coward]

All these 'smartphones' are computers and they are worn on people.

Uh, no. Nobody 'wears' a smartphone. They carry a smartphone, sure, but that's an entirely different word and meaning.

Watches are possible, but I haven't seen a single person wearing a watch in the past five years. I doubt pip boys are going to come into fashion, given that there's nothing that can be done on a watch-sized system that can't be done better on a smartphone.

Wearable computers simply aren't happening. What, your password is in your other pants? About the only rational possibility for them would be some sort of hilariously terrible glasses-equivalent. While that'd make DBZ geeks happy (WHAT DOES THE SCOUTER SAY?!?!?), such an interface would be a disaster from the usability - not to mention, sanity - standpoint.

Re:already the norm

[stg]

I am aware of 3 or 4 car models already with HUDs, including the Camaro. Honda Civic's in the last few years have a big digital speed display above the steering wheel. It is much easier to read and I am always bothered when driving another car with a regular speedometer...

I have also seen speed HUDs for skiers before with special glasses, aren't there any already for bikes?

Some things I want first

[houghi]

Self adjusting clothing, self closing shoes and a hoverboard.

It used to be that...

[bmo]

... when you saw someone standing alone and talking, sometimes even getting animated and agitated, you thought they were crazy.

Now you look and hope they're wearing a bluetooth headset before making a judgement.

Soon, with the further miniaturisation of wearable computing, you won't be able to tell the difference between a gesticulating drunken bum, and a drunken, gesticulating businessman.

--
BMO

Nokia was first with this idea

[xynopsis]

I once saw this concept videovideo at Nokia Research Centre in Helsinki more than 3 years ago. Too bad Nokia failed to capitalise it on time and now they are failing big time.

Re:Nokia was first with this idea

[roman_mir]

In commercials they always show these happy people who have nice houses, often on a beach, they have nice loans and other property, they have time to do nothing but laugh for some reason, their teeth are perfectly white and their clothing looks fresh and it's sunny.

Here is what they don't show.

Seriously though, all these ear buds and other types of earphones that go inside the ear - I can't use them. None of them, they fall out, I would like to be able to use them, but I think my ears are too small or something like like that, so to use one, I'd have to tape it to me. But then there is another problem, long ago I lived in very cold climate, I had a situation when I was stuck in the cold for too long, had some frostbite and since then my left ear had this problem - when I use the phone on the left side for more than a few minutes or have earphones on, it starts hurting and the pain is very strong and lasts for a while before it subsides. Whenever I see a commercial that shows people wearing earphones for too long (like blue tooth devices) I start having this phantom pains in my ear, it hurts even to look at that commercial :) So they are showing this nice looking chick, I am enjoying the view and all of a sudden they are showing the earpiece, crap.

Re:Nokia was first with this idea

[roman_mir]

A reseller has his own means of production, reseller is part of the distribution channel, do you think it is more efficient for every company that produces widgets (or whatever, food, energy, etc) to take care of all of the logistics and distribution channels, to set up their own stores, or can you understand that specialisation allows for best results (as long as this specialisation is something that market values)?

Clearly the market proves that having separate companies that handle logistics, delivery, shipping, handling, storage, etc., is better for the economy, it creates competition in all of these functions and creates economies of scale.

As to pure speculation - this is an important market function, it discovers true prices for things. What I mean is - when the gov't says: speculators are causing oil prices to go up, what they are not telling you is this:

1. Oil prices are not going up, it's inflation that destroys value of money, more fiat cash is chasing the same resources. In case of oil there is more production than ever and lowest consumption levels in 11 years, so it's not normal supply/demand curve at play.

2. Speculators keep prices LOWER than they would otherwise be. The alternative is that there are no speculators and instead somebody buys the oil as a long term investment and holds it and eventually prices go higher and higher because of it. Speculators are on BOTH sides of every futures deal, so they bet that prices will go down as well as betting that prices will go up. Speculators create a much more efficient market, where prices are much closer to what the market really believes they should be.

This means the following outcome: those who need to buy the oil will not get the WRONG signal about oil prices, they will KNOW what the prices are and will not make WRONG decisions based on WRONG oil prices at that very moment (the more speculation, the closer to the real prices the current prices are).

Second: the producers do not get the WRONG signals about consumption patterns, so it's possible to grow or slow down the production capacity.

In an economy it's important to have all the CORRECT signals about prices. With the wrong signals the resources in the economy get mis-allocated.

Now look at it from the perspective of money - interest rates are price for money, price of having savings or not saving and spending as quick as possible on consumables.

Artificially set by government low interest rates give market the WRONG signal that there are huge savings in the economy (this is normal supply / demand, if the supply levels are too high, it means the demand is much lower than what is produced).

With artificial wrong interest rates, with very low ones the economy prevents real savings from being accumulated.

With artificially wrong high interest rates, the economy creates too much savings and doesn't allow the people to enjoy some fruits of their labour.

Thus here lies a huge problem of government meddling with the economy by fixing prices, and interest rates are price for money, and misallocation of resources is what creates all of the economic failures, the asset bubbles that are created, the destruction of savings and thus destruction and driving away of the investment capital, which means reduction in production capacity, loss of productivity (and loss of jobs and also of tax revenues, by the way).

Here's hoping

[Compaqt]

they patent the heck out of it, share it with their Android partners, and kick Apple to the curb for violating the unstated rules of the tech patent game.

Don't forget about the end purpose of all that

[tftp]

Wearable computing will continue, since modern smartphones are pretty close to the desired ideal.

However many proponents of wearable computing are explicitly associating it to wearing headsets, Borg-like heads-up displays, cameras, GPS, implanted compasses, and whatnot. These, IMO, will not be popular just because there is no need for them. Even the heads-up display is a distraction for most people. A cell phone form factor is with us since the days of ancient clay tablets. It is something that we are well equipped to operate - we can take it, give it, leave it, look at it, and work with it. I can imagine a communicator from ST:TNG as well. But even those communicators, as shown, are pretty limited. They had no video, for example - and many an away team would benefit from that. They would be better off with a modern smartphone, actually, as long as it can communicate with the orbit.

At most I can imagine a heads-up display that is wirelessly linked to the smartphone in your pocket. That would have some use. Beyond that I don't see anything obvious; perhaps future developments give us other hardware that is worth wearing.

Also in all these cases we must remember that the battery technology is still not good enough. Replacing batteries in all these wearable gizmos is a hassle - and a visible expense.

Re:Don't forget about the end purpose of all that

[wild_quinine]

At most I can imagine a heads-up display that is wirelessly linked to the smartphone in your pocket. That would have some use. Beyond that I don't see anything obvious; perhaps future developments give us other hardware that is worth wearing.

Every year or two somebody comes up with something that "could replace the mouse". It never does. I'm not saying never will, but I don't see anything coming. Why? Because the mouse is pretty close to perfect. It allows for fine manipulation from the wrist and/or fingertips without fatigue - in fact the arm is almost at rest. Only the nipple, trackball, and touchpad have ever really come close, and I'd argue that most people consider them to be acceptable compromises.

Kinaesthetic peripherals such as the Kinect, the Wiimote, the Move, Gyroscopic mice, heck, even the Gloves of Love from Minority Report - none of them are never going to become ubiquitious input devices like the mouse, because none of them are better than the mouse for general purpose input, in these really fundamental ways. If you want fine motor movement, you generally don't want to get the whole arm involved.

All novel ways to interact with the world are up against similar issues. They can't all be directly compared to the mouse, but for genuinely novel ways of interacting with the world, consider these three questions: 'is it a hassle to use?', 'can you forget it is there?*', and eventually, 'do you look for it, when it is not there?'.

A lot of wearable computing devices won't even pass the first test - you're right about the batteries being a likely issue. Keeping five or six items charged is going to be a pain. But also consider fatigue, fineness of control, etc.

* under 'can you forget it is there?', consider also 'are you always looking for the thing you know exists, which would be simpler to use'... such as a mouse, or sometimes a keyboard. :)

Re:Don't forget about the end purpose of all that

[Lumpy]

Oddly, I wear a dead heads up display panel all day long every day, they are called GLASSES. it's just the projector display section is defective, but the image enhancement section still works.

Re:Don't forget about the end purpose of all that

[tftp]

As I vaguely made it known, I worked (not too far back) in the area of mobile industrial computing. UPS and FedEx are just a small part of the crowd that runs around with tablets, barcode scanners, RFID readers, and transmits all that over the radio direct into the mainframe.

Very few of those guys would want anything that is more sophisticated than a rugged UPS tablet. Why? Because it is rugged. You'd be amazed to learn what requirements - real, necessary requirements - shipping companies specify for these gadgets. They have to survive drop on concrete from the top of the truck. They have to be waterproof. They have to work at temperatures that burn your hands (happens in parked trucks.) There are tons of other requirements.

It does not help when you make the gadget even more complicated. Heads-up display... OK, but where does the customer sign? Oh, I need to punch this number in manually because the label is torn. Ah, I need to show some data to the customer. Eh, where is the barcode scanner in this thing? And so on.

What you propose is a viable system for a very specific purpose. I saw requirements for such systems (of course I cannot say where they came from.) But those are unique requirements; there are maybe less than 1,000 specialists on the whole planet that need such a unique setup to do their job better. Kinect is all nice and good until you have to use it in pitch dark, or under water, or in fog, or in a forest in wind, or crammed head first into an access hatch. You know, most people do not use these mobile gizmos when they are comfortably at home in their armchairs. One could easily hang from a rope while operating the wearable computer. In such cases the whole system is built around what fingers and what eyes and what else can the guy allocate to computing. Usually it isn't much. A firefighter, for example, will certainly benefit from a wearable computer that analyzes the situation all around him independently from fireman's own brain. But think of what level of ruggedness such a system will require!

Nevertheless, if you read SciFi then you certainly see such ideas like yours proposed here and there. They seem natural today. But technology develops nonlinearly. We periodically invent disruptive technology that changes everything overnight. It is likely that there will be disruptive developments in the field of wearable computing. The HUD, once you try it, is really a cumbersome device that is a bother to wear. It is also capable of hurting your vision if it is not perfectly fitting your particular eyesight. It certainly is capable of hurting your stereo vision - and that is bad because this processing is done in the brain, and the brain tends to learn new tricks. It has no switch for "Mode A" and "Mode B."

I don't want to say "no" to your proposal. It would be too easy. I would instead urge you to build such a system. Get yourself some Kopin HUD and play with it. Maybe you can take apart an old digital camera. Cut and polish your own prisms and mirrors. Build what you want, and show it to people. You may find more interest in the industry than you know what to do with. Or perhaps you get no interest. But that's the only way to find out. Just talking about it is not sufficient.

I'm looking ahead to...

[Lisias]

... see the implications on the professional life.

I want to see a manager blatantly lying to me when wearing one of those. :-)

Agree and Disagree

[whisper_jeff]

It's my expectation that in three to five years...

I agree with their view and disagree with it. I agree that wearable computers are the future but I disagree with their timeline - I believe "three to five years" is an enormously, overly aggressive timeframe.

First of all, project Glass is coming to market next year at a price of $1400 (iirc) and is only available for developers (currently - which I would imagine means the price is as low as possible to help get developers involved rather than to generate profits). This is already one year of their three-to-five timeframe eaten up. While I realize that price will come down as the tech gets better and once it's made available to the general public economies of scale will also help drive the price down, I believe there's still far too big a difference between "price the tech has to be sold at to make it a viable business" and "price most consumers are willing to pay". So, first of all, I believe the price is a significant barrier and it will take longer than three to five years to get the price into a realm where the average consumer feels comfortable paying for the tech.

Second, and more importantly, people have zero experience with the interface. Smartphones were set to explode because people a) understood phones and b) understood computers so the marriage of the two as a technology as easy to understand and required minimal learning to use. It was easy for the mass market to pick up and go. For something like project Glass, I cannot see the average person easily figuring out how to use it. Now, understand, this is absolutely independent of how easy it actually is to use - it might be the easiest, most intuitive thing in the world to use but people won't feel that it's easy to use because they've never used anything like it which will serve as a barrier to adoption. People intuitively knew how to use a phone and knew how to use a computer so selling them a phone that was a computer was easy. Selling them a set of glasses that is also a computer will not be an easy sell. Thus, there needs to be a significant amount of effort spent making that usage scenario _feel_ easy and intuitive to the average consumer before they will actually pick up the device and that will only happen over time. It will happen, eventually, but it will take time.

All in all, I agree that wearable computer devices will become the norm but I think that "three to five years" is an enormously optimistic timeframe. There will be early adopters and the like but it will take at least a decade, probably a bit longer, before it solidly penetrates the mass market and becomes "normal".

Advertising will kill it

[petes_PoV]

We know that any piece of personal technology that CAN support advertising WILL be used for that purpose - whether we want it to, or not. Imagine how intrusive it would be to be using the Google Glass technology to look at something and suddenly an ad. pops up trying to sell us something that looks like what we're looking at.

What's even worse will be the privacy issues. Not only will advertisers be able to track the users as they can now, with 3G, Wifi and BT triangulation, but they'll be able to infiltrate our state of mind by interpreting what or who we're looking at.

Re:Advertising will kill it

[Lumpy]

Not on any device I own. I have advertising blocked on everything. Heck I dont even watch LIVE TV. It's all recorded via MythTV and commercials stripped. I listen to podcasts and Sirius radio in the car, no ad's on my phones or PC.

If you just sit there and let them have control, they will blast ad's at you. Dont let them.

Because I really need more tracking

[antifoidulus]

I was just thinking to myself the other day, you know Google doesn't have QUITE enough information about me in their databases, wouldn't it be wonderful if they could track my every motion and everything I see too? Then my life would be complete.

"we've ... seen the power of being hands-free..."

[Cornwallis]

Funny, I see it as being handcuffed.

And I'm sure the gubmint will joyfully go along with that.

Well according to Bill Gates

[arcite]

We were all supposed to be using Tablet and stylus computing by now, that didn't quite work out now did it....

Just needs better input tech, like this...

[wisebabo]

If you haven't seen the Leap motion (and no I'm not in any way shape or form connected to the company, although I wish I were!) you should check it out.

It's a super-accurate (I think sub-millimeter), low latency 3D tracker with the ability to follow up to 10 fingers (or other objects like pencils) at once. All in a very small box (USB powered?) box that's expected to sell for $70 (this year). I don't know the volume in which it can track the objects but on the demos it appears to be pretty large, large enough that a belt mounted (or necklace version) would be sufficient.

Voice recognition is good and getting better but there are many time when a point and click(?) interface is still much more efficient. Like when you want to access one link out of many on a web page. Or control a complex virtual device that has many degrees of freedom. Humans have evolved to have hands of extraordinary flexibility and control; just look at the amount of our brain dedicated to them. So let's use them! (The reasons why this Leap device is so good as opposed to say "finger detection" using the Google glasses video-camera is because the resolution is much higher, it tracks in 3D and there might not be a problem with occlusion.)

Of course the Google glasses should be updated to have a stereo display (I think currently it's only in the right eye). That would allow truly interacting with items in 3D. (Of course, the above comments about people gesticulating in space would come to pass! I'm wondering if "I'm sorry your honor but I didn't mean to touch the young lady like that, I was turning the knobs on my virtual stereo receiver" would be a valid defense.)

This is the way that Google should be fighting Apple. Not by making incremental changes to Apple's tech (or so it appears to most people* and, apparently some judges) but by revolutionizing the field. If they're right, then in three to five years Apple may only control the remains of a vast but dying industry. Sounds like Microsoft before or IBM before it.

*look, prior to the iPhone, smartphones looked one way and then suddenly they (the successful ones that is) completely changed their basic appearance and interface (touchscreens using fingers not stylii, icons, slide to access, pinch zoom). Coincidence? Coming from companies with decades of experience in making hundreds of cellphone models? That's how most lay-persons (and at least some legal experts) might view it.

Re:News at eleven

[JWSmythe]

You ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive. You still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.

Re:Heh.

[Lumpy]

And two in his home.....

Dammit, I let the secret out, Oh well.

Will you please put some clothes on when you walk around in the living room. Us at the Cable company are grossed out.

And please move the bedroom cable box to the left a little and put the bottle of hand cream elsewhere, it has been blocking our view and we have been using it as a kind of torture device for the new employees.

Wonder if they've ever head of Marshall Brain?

[way2trivial]

http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
"At any given moment Manna had a list of things that it needed to do. There were orders coming in from the cash registers, so Manna directed employees to prepare those meals. There were also toilets to be scrubbed on a regular basis, floors to mop, tables to wipe, sidewalks to sweep, buns to defrost, inventory to rotate, windows to wash and so on. Manna kept track of the hundreds of tasks that needed to get done, and assigned each task to an employee one at a time.

Manna told employees what to do simply by talking to them. Employees each put on a headset when they punched in. Manna had a voice synthesizer, and with its synthesized voice Manna told everyone exactly what to do through their headsets. Constantly. Manna micro-managed minimum wage employees to create perfect performance."

Re:News at eleven

[AliasMarlowe]

Yeah, it's a shame that we still have no implanted clock which communicates the current time directly to our brain.

Uh, can we disable this thing for the end of June and the end of December? Being kicked in the head by a leap second might feel somewhat unpleasant...

Re:Not until it's invisible...

[John Hasler]

> Ever seen a man wearing an in-ear phone and not thought
> it looked silly?

No one wearing an Apple product ever looks silly. When iGlasses hit the market they will be incredibly cool. Google will rush to imitate them.

Re:News at eleven

[JWSmythe]

It could be worse..

If no one disturbs me, I wake up at the crack of noon +- 5 minutes. I get tired at about 4am, and to sleep at 4:30 to 5am. That's my circadian rhythm.

If I force myself to "normal" work day patterns, I'm screwed. First off, it takes several alarm clocks, and usually someone living with me to scream at me that the alarm has been going off for an hour. Alarm clocks that reset themselves after a few minutes are worthless to me. My phone has a very obnoxious alarm clock on it. I set 4 or more alarms, about 6 minutes apart, so if I hit snooze on one, they'll keep going off at irregular intervals.

Assuming I am awake, I'm not really. It's literally just the motions of it. I can shower, drive, and show up to work. I can't hold an intelligent conversation, and I work very slowly. Pretty much how most people would, if they were woken up at 3am and told to work. I take notes, because I won't remember what anyone tells me. Suddenly at noon, I'm wide awake. I can redesign networks in my head, and trouble shoot complex problems that have other people stumped. I don't take lunch until around 4pm, just because companies usually require it. Even then, it's food at my desk. I usually keep going until 8pm to 9pm, getting my assigned work done, plus some. 4 hours in zombie mode, and then 9 good work hours, where I do real work.

When I get home, I have to take sleeping pills to get to sleep. Without them, I won't get sleepy again til 4am. I have to change pills every couple weeks, because I build up a tolerance quickly. My bedside table ends up looking like an OTC pharmacy.

On this work schedule, add large amounts of ibuprofen and antacids. Waking up early leaves me with migraines all day, even after I pass the noon point where I'm actually awake. All the ibuprofen necessitates the antacids.

The only practical way for me to be on a 8am flight is to stay up all night. On my schedule, it's not so bad (read the link above). I'm tired, but not sleepy on the 5am drive to the airport. I breeze through ticketing and security, and fall asleep at the terminal. My 100 or so new temporary closest friends make plenty of noise when it's time to get on the plane. So to my seat, and I finish my nap for the duration of the flight. When noon hits, I'm ready to conquer the world, which hopefully coincides with me getting to my destination.

I'd trade sleep patterns with anyone else. It'd make my life so much easier.

I have had employers who live with it. They recognize I won't be heard from until noon, and everyone knows not to try unless a building is on fire. They learn to appreciate it the fact that I am around to make production changes all night, when customer usage is minimal, and babysit the whole network until the morning shift is alive. They also appreciate the fact that my work day is 16 hours long, and I only occasionally take an hour break to go grocery shopping and the like. :)

I'm writing this at 11am. I tried to move over to a normal day, by sleeping through the day yesterday, waking up at 6pm, going to sleep at 3am, and then I was wide awake at 6am. The migraine is in full swing right now, and I'll actually be awake in another hour.