Slashdot Mirror


Google Glass: Future of Movies Or Monkey Cam 2.0?

theodp writes "When it comes to Google's futuristic Glass goggles, people seem to fall into two camps. On the one hand, you have people like NY Times Arts critic Mike Hale, who goes gaga over how fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg put Google glasses on models who walked in her recent Fashion Week show, enabling them to capture video from their point of view as they walked the runway. 'For a preview of how we all may be making movies in a few years,' Hale breathlessly writes, 'take a look at DVF Through Glass .' On the other hand, you have folks like NY Times commenter JokerDanny, who says he's seen this Google Glass movie before. 'David Letterman used to call this Monkey-Cam,' quips JD, referring to the mid-1980's Late Night bits in which Letterman mounted a camera on Zippy the Chimp, enabling the monkey to capture video from his point of view as he roamed the studio. Thanks to the magic of YouTube Doubler, here's a head-to-head comparison of POV video shot by Zippy in 1986 — the year Larry Page and Sergey Brin celebrated their 13th birthdays — to that taken by a DVF model in 2012."

21 of 77 comments (clear)

  1. Neither by Andrio · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's not either, but it is going to be one of those things from sci-fi that'll end up everywhere in our lives (like cellphones).

    In a decade or two, they'll cell them in drugstores like prepaid phones.

    --
    The Internet King? I wonder if he could provide faster nudity.
  2. Jackass cam 1.0 by Grayhand · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's like cheap video cams brought filmmaking to the masses Google Glasses will mean anyone can act like an idiot and provide a first person view of the disaster. There's already been some intensely cool helmet cam videos but that's because it's mostly pros or semi pros using them. Like with cheap video cameras we didn't see a rash of Citizen Kanes we saw mostly films that shouldn't have been made. We're likely to see something closer to Strange Days. It'll be guys getting laid and failed attempts to jump between buildings where you'll watch the POV all the way to the ground. I'd like to think people would sick of it after the first hundred bicycle riders face planting into walls but morbid curiosity never seems to die.

    1. Re:Jackass cam 1.0 by fustakrakich · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Still, it makes it easier to keep an eye on the cops.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    2. Re:Jackass cam 1.0 by dumcob · · Score: 2

      Well...Eric Schmidt has already said if a cop is interested in you, must be doing something you shouldn't be doing. So I can't see why that would be required.

  3. Pogue: Potential no other machine has ever had by theodp · · Score: 4, Interesting
  4. WSJ: The glasses were ultimately disappointing by theodp · · Score: 3, Interesting
    1. Re:WSJ: The glasses were ultimately disappointing by Nerdfest · · Score: 3, Insightful

      WSJ and Forbes both seem to have a bit of a hate on for Google these days though, so I'd take their comments with a grain of salt. I think they're right in the 'they need the killer app' comment though ... something to make them something that everyone wants.

  5. I'm in the happy camp! by kiriath · · Score: 4, Interesting

    In my opinion, Google Glass is one of the absolute most awesome new pieces of tech to come about in years. I look forward to this technology with great anticipation.

    I find myself not getting too excited about tech recently, this is the only thing that has even remotely piqued my curiosity and I'm hooked.

    I think it is something to get excited about.

  6. Both were boring by honestmonkey · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I didn't make it through the doubled-up video, but both were kind of boring. I guess I was wondering how they felt, being trained to show off for an audience like that, but then you can't feel too sorry for models. The chimp looked like it was having fun, though.

    --
    Everything you know is wrong, Just forget the words and sing along.
    1. Re:Both were boring by drkim · · Score: 4, Funny

      Watching the fashion cam made me wonder how the hell people walk like that and not get seasick.

      Oh, the runway models get seasick.

      There's just nothing left to throw up.

  7. Not just a camera. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    It would be one thing if the Glasses were simply a camera, but it's more than that. It will be the first mass market wearable computer. Overlays will provide notifications in the form of navigation prompts, restuarant reviews, contact information, descriptions of art, and much more.

    1. Re:Not just a camera. by citizenr · · Score: 2

      It would be one thing if the Glasses were simply a camera, but it's more than that. It will be the first mass market wearable computer. Overlays will provide notifications in the form of navigation prompts, restuarant reviews, contact information, descriptions of art, and much more.

      There is no overlay - there is only small rectangular display inside. No head tracking, no eye tracking, no augmented reality.

      --
      Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
    2. Re:Not just a camera. by ByteSlicer · · Score: 2

      navigation prompts, restuarant reviews, contact information, descriptions of art, and much more

      While it has the potential to do all this, its primary function will be to research what we look at, and serve ads to match.
      If you think the billboards and neons are bad already, just wait until you put on one of these...

  8. Microsoft Monocle by theodp · · Score: 2

    Microsoft's answer to Google Glass, as modeled by Count Homer.

  9. In other words... by SuperKendall · · Score: 2

    Overlays will provide notifications in the form of navigation prompts, restuarant reviews, contact information, descriptions of art, and much more.

    In other words, things you could have done with your smartphone instead of wearing annoying glasses all the time.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:In other words... by foniksonik · · Score: 2

      How many times have you bothered to scan a QR code?

      Now imagine it happening with a double blink.

      Those cool magazine covers with augmented reality codes... Also double blink.

      Want to take a photo. Just look at the scene and blink one eye.

      Just a few examples.

      --
      A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
  10. The future by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I think Google Glasses are more of a short-term gimmick and proof-of-concept than anything else. But one of the guys Google just hired (away from our university, as a matter of fact) is Babak Parviz - who's been working towards what could probably be called "Google Contacts".

    The tech's nowhere near ready; but I think the idea of an unobtrusive HUD on a contact lens would be far more likely to garner widespread adoption than Glasses ever will.

    On a side note - all this focus on the "camera" functionality is mostly missing the point. What's cool about the concept isn't the ability to take portable movies - we can already do that. It's the information right in front of your eyeballs that's the future.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
    1. Re:The future by Daetrin · · Score: 2

      Presumably this is like the contacts in Vernor Vinge's "Rainbows End". My thought on the matter is that i'd much rather have the glasses. Glasses that beam the image into my eye rather than displaying it on something in front of me would be fine, but i don't want contacts.

      Because i can just image the first time they get hacked and they load up, say for example, goatsecx, and refuse to turn off. And you probably can't even close your eyes to shut it out because they're under your eyelids. (I presume the contacts will be designed to stop displaying when your eyes are closed, but that of course will be overridden by the hack.) So such technology will inevitable result in people trying to claw their eyes/and or contacts out of their heads.

      --
      This Space Intentionally Left Blank
    2. Re:The future by wurp · · Score: 2, Interesting

      By the time we're doing that, we'll be stimulating memories directly and expanding your imagination with DirectX48 at 120fps, while giving the answer to any question you briefly consider instantly in full multimedia a la Google+Wolfram Alpha+Wikipedia+Mathematica.

      And the future *I* want involves my enhanced, uploaded mind occupying a few metric tons of atomically precise computronium distributed across the solar system, with continuous incremental backup a few light years away.

      (Of course, from my point of view that computronium is an utterly immersive universe in which I am the dashing hero.)

  11. Ask yourself by SuperKendall · · Score: 2

    If you strap a camera to your head that's what you would see walking as well.

    The brain is an amazing thing because it sure does NOT look like that to us as we are walking...

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley