Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Not Even Investors Know What Google Glass Is For

Posted by timothy on from the no-wireless-less-space-than-a-nomad-lame dept.

bdking writes "Google says it plans to ship its Google Glass Explorer Edition by the end of April to developers and consumers who paid $1,500 to test the computer-enabled eyewear, with vague plans for a general release (at a lower price) by year's end. But what will you really be able to do with Google Glass, beyond having information presented before your eyes? Even investors who are set to spend millions funding apps development for Google Glass have no clue. Is Google Glass being overhyped as a 'transformational' device?" I bet every real estate agent in the world would like one of these hooked up to a database of houses for sale, so they could instantly scan all the relevant information.

61 of 496 comments (clear)

  1. If it really knew where it was... by Animats · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If the thing had good enough heading and position information, it could overlay detailed information on the real world. But it's not that good. It's just a smartphone display.

    Also, I'll bet that driving with it will be prohibited after the first few hundred accidents.

    1. Re:If it really knew where it was... by swanzilla · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If the thing had good enough heading and position information, it could overlay detailed information on the real world. But it's not that good. It's just a smartphone display.

      Too bad smartphones don't ship with GPS receivers, accelerometers, gyroscopes...

      --
      0 = 1 + e^(Alt something)
    2. Re:If it really knew where it was... by alexborges · · Score: 5, Informative

      Ok let me explain:

      It is not a phone, it has (or shouldnt or will evolve to) no comunications capabilities beyond connecting to your already existing phone. It is a display, a voice gatherer and an api for your phone.

      Its posibilities, if my assumptions are right, are endless and i do think that, done right, it could be a game changer. However, I also think nobody copies shit better than apple. If this works, you can be sure the iEyeEye (ay ay ay), will be simpler, stupider and more loved.

      --
      NO SIG
    3. Re:If it really knew where it was... by h4rr4r · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Driving is when I want augmented reality the most. Give me a GPS overlay with directions and when it gets dark/foggy/rainy give me vision in other spectrum. Display my current speed and the legal limit where I am, basically I want a damn HUD.

    4. Re:If it really knew where it was... by afidel · · Score: 2, Informative

      Then buy a Cadillac, several models have a HUD with turn by turn directions, speed, current audio selection, and optionally IR.

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
    5. Re:If it really knew where it was... by CastrTroy · · Score: 2

      There's already laws about driving while distracted. It's just that for most people "distracted" is something that is hard to define. So they have to come up with very specific laws about what exact kinds of distractions you aren't allowed to do. Personally I never felt that safe driving while talking one the phone. And it's not that I'm a bad driver, I just realize how distracted I get when I'm on the phone.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    6. Re:If it really knew where it was... by h4rr4r · · Score: 5, Funny

      I am not 80 nor a rapper, so I am not sure I am allowed to. I would not want to either, since I am not 80 or a rapper.

    7. Re:If it really knew where it was... by tibit · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Not an accelerometer -- that doesn't have anything to do with heading. For wearable heading you have two options: a full 6 degree-of-freedom inertial platform, or a magnetometer. Well, there's a third option - phase-differential GPS, but that only works outdoors, with no tall buildings around, and it would be the most expensive to develop as they'd need it done custom as none of the off-the-shelf "tiny" modules support anything like it. You really need to feed input from two antennas, separated by a known distance, to the receiver, and compare the phase of the incoming signals to determine which way the baseline is pointing. For wearable heading, a magnetometer is pretty much "it". Oh, and it tends to have problems when you're on the boundary to large steel structures. In a high rise building, you'd be OK when inside, but would face lower accuracy near the walls and when going in/out of the building. And so on.

      --
      A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
    8. Re:If it really knew where it was... by tibit · · Score: 2

      If it has a camera, it'd be quite doable to "compare" the image it sees to Google Street View imagery from the vicinity, and use that to determine not only your heading, but pretty much solve the full 6 degree of freedom head position/orientation combo.

      --
      A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
    9. Re:If it really knew where it was... by HeckRuler · · Score: 2

      And sadly it will beat out the stylish black iPatch for pirates. It's not open source, but nobody pays.

    10. Re:If it really knew where it was... by CanHasDIY · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Who's gonna buy the 1st-generation device if it doesn't have those things?

      The crapload of developers who already dropped $1,500 on one, for starters.

      --
      An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
    11. Re:If it really knew where it was... by tibit · · Score: 5, Informative

      I don't know what kind of an idiot you are, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that our visual system does not support texting and driving. As in, you know, the central vision is the only thing with decent resolution -- the only thing that in fact support conscious processing of imagery that has meanings that have to be decoded. That's why you constantly relocate your central vision while you read. If it has meaning that has to be picked up, the central vision must get to it. So, in order to look at a cell phone you're moving the central vision smack onto the cellphone's display. The cellphone's display is likely to be in a location where the peripheral vision -- the realtime, absent-of-meaning parallel-processing vision of ours -- will not be targeted at the windows and windshield. Thus you make yourself effectively blind for the purposes of driving. That's why texting and driving is so bad -- when you text, you're a blind person driving the car. It's that easy. Things are perhaps a bit more acceptable if you have a tactile keyboard on your phone and know how to use it without looking at the phone *at all*, but you're still redirecting your conscious attention to processing of the text you're writing, and that's bad in and of itself as I'll explain in the last two paragraphs.

      As for talking on the cellphone while driving: well, most people, in the U.S. at least, have to hold their cell in their head, or support it with the shoulder, etc. Again it doesn't take a genius to figure out that you're altering your posture sufficiently so that your external field of view becomes crippled, and you're unable to execute head saccades. Saccades are the fast motions of the eye that redirect the gaze to a new point of interest. When a saccade is large enough, it gets executed in tandem by your neck muscles and your eye muscles. If it's even larger, your entire body participates in the motion -- and it's pretty damn cool that all those stacked motion stages can still execute a saccade that ends up at most a couple of visual degrees away from the intended target. All this goes to hell when you have a cellphone to deal with -- either between your head and your shoulder, or between your head and your hand. Again -- you're making yourself partially blind in the areas of peripheral vision that would normally elicit a shift of visual attention.

      Oh, so what about the hands-free sets? Again, it doesn't take a rocket scientist. You've got an extra thing on your head to worry about if you wear a headset. Any sort of an out-of-normal situation (slipping headset, change of settings, etc) will for a moment monopolize your conscious attention. If you're using the car hands-free set, those are the worst. The audio quality is worse, so more of your conscious attention needs to be redirected to what was an automated task: decoding the meaning of words. The worse the audio quality, the more conscious processing is required to deal with a task that in normal conditions is purely automatic once you're around age 5. I don't think I need to convince you that depriving yourself of serial conscious processing is good while driving. The conscious attention is a serial resource -- it can only do one thing at a time. Yes, arguably driving depends a lot on sub-conscious processing -- since this is the only kind of processing we have available that's fast and real time -- that's why you can't drive a bicycle just knowing the physics of it, your conscious processing is way too slow.

      But, in spite of most driving being done by the hugely parallel sub-conscious processing, you do need to do some ahead-planning to cope with changing weather and road conditions. If you completely redirect your conscious attention at the phone conversation, you may end up rear-ending someone -- for a simple reason. The conscious processing is used to keep the driving model up-to-date so that your learned sub-conscious "reflexes" keep you driving at a correct speed, in the correct lane, at a correct distance from the car(s) ahead of you. Once there

      --
      A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
    12. Re:If it really knew where it was... by Sulphur · · Score: 3, Funny

      If the thing had good enough heading and position information, it could overlay detailed information on the real world. But it's not that good. It's just a smartphone display.

      Also, I'll bet that driving with it will be prohibited after the first few hundred accidents.

      There will be talk of prohibiting porn.

    13. Re:If it really knew where it was... by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 2

      OK, but who's going to buy the next five?

      I don't know what Google Glass is really for either, except possibly furthering the universal surveillance of everything in the universe by another unwelcome step -- or not, because even people who normally don't think about or ignore this kind of privacy issue still tend to react with hostility when the creepiness is overt.

      --
      If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
    14. Re:If it really knew where it was... by JWSmythe · · Score: 3, Funny

          You keep your dick in your pocket? I stopped doing that because it was uncomfortable rubbing against my keys and wallet.

          A dick mounted video recorder though... That's a brilliant idea. Patent it before Google does.

      --
      Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
    15. Re:If it really knew where it was... by Joe+Tie. · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I think there's going to be a large chunk of people impulse buying it based on what they simply think it can do. The public perception of glass was in large part created way before the actual reality of it was demonstrated. A lot of those people will have enough money that they'll have no problem buying it without doing any real research first. That said, I'm sure there's a fair amount of people who'll buy it because they actually do want some of the features it offers. God knows I've seen enough facebook feeds with people snapping pictures of mundane things to know there's a market for making that easier for them.

      --
      Everything will be taken away from you.
    16. Re:If it really knew where it was... by tibit · · Score: 2

      Yep -- they were driving on an "empty road". The conscious brain was monopolized by the conversation or texting and didn't even have a chance to notice the person on the road. Part of the problem is that our learned driving doesn't normally include obstacle avoidance -- we have no reflexes to avoid a person on the road, thus without the conscious attention paid to it, we just don't.

      It's interesting: obstacle avoidance is not something you do every day, so you never learn it enough to get your automatic brain to take over. Alas, this is something one could learn in a simulator, and would need to stay current on. Then you could be distracted and would swerve past humans just fine -- although it'd require way more training to make such swerves properly avoid other traffic. Again, you'd need to train in a simulator and would need to experience a large and controlled number of on-the-road situations. In normal driving, we rely on our conscious attention to do all the planning - how to fit in between other cars, what speed changes to execute, etc. We could relegate all of that to our parallel, real-time pre-conscious processing part of the brain, but it's impossible to do merely sitting in a car on a road. It'd cost way too much in junked cars :/

      Also remember that the fast, pre-conscious part of the brain lacks any reasoning capabilities -- it cannot infer, it cannot bring up memories, etc. It doesn't make sense of anything, it just follows what matches best the situations it has experienced so far. It sure can do what appears to be "logical" processing (say boolean operations work if you learn them) -- but it cannot apply reasoning of any sort. So, unfortunately, any maneuvers thus executed would not necessarily make any sense, nor would the necessarily give you any longer-term advantage. They might be OK to avoid a bunch of cars/obstacles this very second, just to be rolled over by a truck that was a couple hundred feet back but had no way to brake in time -- that's something you'd figure out quickly if you looked in the rearview mirror and let your conscious attention figure it out. You'd need to train (and re-train) for this very situation in order to have it available as an automatic skill -- you see where this goes, there's an exponential explosions of possible scenarios, rather quickly it's impossible to train for anything more since in real life it will surely occur with some other modifying conditions that will make the learned responses obsolete.

      Things such as lane maintenance and following distance maintenance are being re-trained constantly whenever you drive and pay attention -- the conscious/attentive brain is tuning the behavior of the preconscious. If you consistently drive without paying attention, your automated actions slowly get detuned.

      There is also the observation that people are thoroughly confused when they slam on the brake but accelerate instead. They were not paying attention, the automation in the brain did the "slam the brake" reaction, but it missed the brake and slammed accelerator instead. The conscious attention, once it gets to it, still has to reconcile the presupposed model of the situation (foot on the brake) with what's really going on (WTF am I going faster?). For some reason we don't understand yet, it takes long to do such reconciliations -- it gets worse the farther out the old model is with relation to reality. When you're sufficiently confused, things take long enough that when it happens to a fighter jet pilot, they'll end up underground before they figure it out. Even for commercial jet pilots it can be deadly. That's most likely what killed everyone onboard AF447, and that's what almost, almost did in China Airlines flight 006.

      --
      A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
  2. I know what it's for. by Gerafin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    One word: advertising. Right in front of your eyes is the most prime advertising space I can imaine.

    1. Re:I know what it's for. by Zeromous · · Score: 2

      Indeed, screw Minority Report, this is so much better, since the ad venue stays with the user.

      You don't need to maintain venues anymore, advertising becomes cheaper and super effective.

      This is about learning your habits and ensuring you see only relevent ads. Anything else is a money loser for google in the long term.

      --
      ---Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A START
    2. Re:I know what it's for. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Google has made it clear that making Glass minimally distracting is a major design goal. Showing advertising on it doesn't mesh well with that. Obviously advertising is Google's main business and it's reasonable to assume Glass feeds into that somehow, but I suspect it's for data collection, not display of ads.

    3. Re:I know what it's for. by sinij · · Score: 3, Insightful

      >>>One word: advertising. Right in front of your eyes.

      I really don't think masses will tolerate always-on advertising in a classical banner-video format in the visual field space. Plus liability that would come when people start claiming accidents on distraction.

      Advertising will have to be done via shaping your information feed and not by distracting or grabbing your attention.

    4. Re:I know what it's for. by alen · · Score: 2

      so why would people spend $1000 on a device to view ads?

    5. Re:I know what it's for. by bhagwad · · Score: 2

      What do you mean? Are you "distracted" by the ads in google search?

      I'm not. And no one else I know is.

    6. Re:I know what it's for. by tlhIngan · · Score: 3, Interesting

      One word: advertising. Right in front of your eyes is the most prime advertising space I can imaine.

      Bzzt. Wrong target.

      Advertising yes, but not to the user. The user is merely a tool to capture the goings on and identities of everyone else. Couple with GPS and other sensors and facial recognition, Google would now have a more complete picture of you.

      So if a Glass user catches you walking out of a bar, you can find new Google ads for bars, ladies and other things around that area when you surf the web.

      So yes, advertising, but it's putting more effective advertising in front of more people. Glass users will be few, but they'll be able to collect more information about more people than ever before.

      Heck, if a Glass user catches you walking out of a porn store, Google can then prompt you if you want to turn off safe search the next time you visit it.

    7. Re:I know what it's for. by Opportunist · · Score: 2

      Why do you think that it would be YOU to decide that? Just 'cause you're wearing them?

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  3. Head mounted smart phone by BitZtream · · Score: 2, Informative

    This is nothing more than a head mounted smartphone, with less features.

    It'll probably take a bit of time in the hands of some crazy members of the public before we see any really innovative things out of this.

    Personally, I don't see the big deal, its really just a head mounted smarth phone. Just a slightly different form factor, but due to its single display, a bad one unless you like headaches. But ... thats usually said a lot just before something groundbreaking happens :)

    --
    Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
  4. Re:Rather than using a laptop or even a smart phon by Zeromous · · Score: 2

    I suppose Real Estate agents might like google glass for providing scripted open houses for prospective buyers.

    Also...to collect data on what they thought of each room, how long they spent there etc etc etc.

      Data+Analytics is the lynch pin of effective sales.

    --
    ---Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A START
  5. Like the iPad? by Phasma+Felis · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is gonna be like when we all scoffed about the iPad's potential market, isn't it?

    1. Re:Like the iPad? by mtb_ogre · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Apple was able to tell people all the cool things they could do with an iPad.

      Google: "You tell us what it's good for!"

      When the inventor can't easily explain what the best uses for their invention are, it's a safe bet there really aren't any.

    2. Re:Like the iPad? by BoberFett · · Score: 2

      Wait, I thought the best thing about the iPad was all the innovative apps. That means the public - not Apple - told us what the iPad was for.

    3. Re:Like the iPad? by bhagwad · · Score: 2

      You forget that we can use this to turn the tables on the government and spy on it instead. I for one will always wear this when interacting with a government official or the police.

      The dawn of the truly transparent state.

    4. Re:Like the iPad? by geekoid · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "When the inventor can't easily explain what the best uses for their invention are, "
      how naive.

      In the hardware industry, the best application seldom come from the company that developed it. Best game seldom come the the console makers, then best application for the iPad didn't come from Apple, and so on.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    5. Re:Like the iPad? by squiggleslash · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Honestly, I didn't feel after the Stevenote like I knew what the iPad was for any more than I felt I knew what Google Glasses was for after watching the video they produced. In fact, in many ways they're similar: devices that duplicate the functionality of an existing object (a laptop/netbook vs a smartphone) using a radically different user interface.

      And just as I felt "Yeah, but the iPad's going to feel like crap the moment someone actually tries to do any serious writing or whatever on it", I felt "Yeah, Google Glasses is going to be a hell of a lot less interesting when it's being used in a cubicle at work for seven and a half hours a day, rather than when I skydive out of a plane and quickly take a picture and share it with seven friends using Google+"

      The iPad comparison does seem apt. It appears, at any rate, to be a crappy way of doing the things it's advertised as being for compared to the existing tools for the job, but it may be slick enough, and its UI friendly enough, that it doesn't matter what it appears to be.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  6. This is a toy for geeks having nerdgasms by DavidinAla · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There will be a few real-world uses for Glass that are positive and cost-effective. For the vast majority, this device is a non-starter at any price, IMO. If you want to walk around pretending you're in a sci-fi movie, yeah, it's probably great if you're a 14-year-old, but most people aren't going to have a use for this AND they're not going to want to be seen wearing it AND it's not going to be socially acceptable. Once again, this is technology desperately in search of a problem to solve to justify its existence.

    1. Re:This is a toy for geeks having nerdgasms by FrankSchwab · · Score: 4, Insightful

      In a previous life, I spent a lot of time hang gliding. Competition and Cross-Country pilots have to hang multiple instruments on their control bars - variometers, GPS's, radios - to maximize their performance. This is a problem area, as the $1000 worth of instruments are in an easily damaged location which also reduces performance due to air drag.

      Google Glass would be a huge advancement here - stick your $200 cell phone where it gets good reception and is protected, use it for GPS, mapping, and communications functions, add a small cheap variometer interfaced to your phone. You'll have far better information, your instruments will be cheaper and your software will be vastly better, and your physical performance will improve by taking all that stuff out of the airstream.

      This, I think, is an example of the niche markets that no marketer in his right mind would build a product to meet, but combined with 1000 other niches could start to make the product ubiquitous. /frank

      --
      And the worms ate into his brain.
    2. Re:This is a toy for geeks having nerdgasms by SuricouRaven · · Score: 2

      I work Helldesk. I can see a use for a display like that: Display alerts of network status and pending tickets. Now technicians can be much faster in their response time. The same thing would work for, say, shelf-stackers or cleaners in a store: Have it bring up alerts telling them what needs stocking in real time. A considerable boost in worker efficiency, which in turn means fewer workers. If the store can lay off just one employee, the savings will easily pay for giving the rest google glass and having an appropriate app written.

    3. Re:This is a toy for geeks having nerdgasms by ancientt · · Score: 2

      I want my speed, distance and map in a heads up display when bicycling. My smartphone does that except for the heads up display but that part is pretty important since looking down means I'm missing a lot of the stuff that I need and want to see.

      I'd also like to have it provide one of the video feeds from the person speaking during company video conferences. We have multiple feeds but having one coming from the speaker, or potentially letting the speaker see someone remotely asking questions would add a good bit to the experience.

      It would be great for taking remote tours when you're getting ready to move as well. Your real estate agent (thanks for earlier post to get the idea) could take you on a tour of several houses before you go to the site so that you'd have a narrow list of final home candidates as well. You could do it with a smart phone but a display from a wearer would give you a better virtual experience and be more natural for the real estate agent to use.

      How about attending a class lecture when you're sick or called away for a family emergency? Again, a smart phone could do it, but a classmate with Google Glass wouldn't have to worry about working the video and you'd look at the things the classmate does, like other students asking questions, answering them and so on.

      I doubt many of these things will be justified considering the cost, but I'm hopeful the price will come down.

      --
      B) Eliminate all the stupid users. This is frowned upon by society.
  7. Google Glass records, too by Uninvited+Guest · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Google Glass doesn't just present information; it can record, too. And if you record every little thing you see, it's possible to review and discover small, but critically important events later. For example, one of my college instructors has a child with autism. Video from his child's second birthday party helped make the diagnosis, but more and earlier footage would have helped diagnose it sooner. If my instructor had been wearing and recording with Google Glass every time he saw or watched his child, he would have had a wealth of material for evaluation and diagnosis.

    --
    Sometimes I worry that I'll develop Alzheimer's disease, but no one will notice.
    1. Re:Google Glass records, too by Skewray · · Score: 2

      Google Glass doesn't just present information; it can record, too. And if you record every little thing you see, it's possible to review and discover small, but critically important events later.....

      Haven't you noticed that this is half of what makes Google Glass so horrifying?

    2. Re:Google Glass records, too by SuricouRaven · · Score: 2

      Oh, that's going to be a legal minefield. You've obviously got all the fun of state laws on recording conversations, for a start - do you need to have everyone you talk to agree to be recorded? Then there is the possibility of the records being used in legal proceedings against you - not just run-ins with the government, but civil cases too. Child custody, for example: If you and your ex lived together with these things for a year raising a child, you'll both have a rich library of footage that could be edited to cast the other in a very bad light. And the children, too... better make sure you take the glasses off or stop recording every time you need to change your baby or bathe your young child. There was a time once not long ago when family videos of the children in the bath were seen as innocent recordings of a carefree age - now, they'll get you twenty years in jail and a lifetime on the sex offender register.

  8. Golf by HoboCop · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I could see that thing being awesome for golf... they already do GPS through smart phones.. if it can tell you how far away an object is in your field of vision, pretty darn spiffy.. show you a trail where your ball went, display your swing trajectory in your field of view for analysis... lots of cool things. Plus golfers will spend that kind of money.

  9. Seems obvious enough... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Given the...how to put this politely... 'strongly habituated'... cellphone-checking among a large number of people, I'd say that the closest analogy would probably be selling infusion pumps to heroin junkies.

    By making 'pulling out your phone and compulsively checking it all the goddamn time, even when in company' entirely seamless and automatic, Glass allows you to indulge your vices even further, while exhibiting the formerly required movements much less often...

    I thought Sergei's(deeply weird) comments about being 'emasculated' by his phone were actually sort of telling with regards to the strange contradiction underlying the 'Glass' concept.

    So, Sergei comes to the realization that damn do I spend a lot of my life, even when I'm ostensibly doing other things, basically poking at the little colored lights that live inside my cellphone, what am I doing? However, instead of adopting the "Hmm, maybe I should try doing less of that" approach, he goes for the "I know, I'll build a system where I no longer find myself clutching my cellphone alarmingly frequently; because it's hovering in front of my eye all the time!".

    1. Re:Seems obvious enough... by HeckRuler · · Score: 2

      For all the privacy fear-mongering, Google-is-a-big-scary-company-and-therefore-evil vibe, and disdain for dorkiness, this is probably the first bit of critisism that I actually understand.

      The smartphone zombies are getting to be a problem and I'm not sure society is ready for people to be even further removed in their day-to-day life. On the plus side, I know the battery life on this thing isn't going to let them wander that much so they'll probably gravitate to charging stations and/or heroin dens.

      On the cynical side though, smartphones are hardly being used to their full potential. I mean, everyone has a wearable crazy-connected really-fast computer. This was the DREAM back in the 80's and 90's. And what do most people do with them? Instant messenger and Angry Birds... The geek inside me weeps.

  10. Transformational tech ... by MondoGordo · · Score: 2

    Is the reality of technology that is truly transformational that you can't define what it's for ... the smartphone is transformational tech but nobody realized that when it was first created, it was just a phone that could save your contact list and run a few games to kill time. so nobody asked if it was being over hyped it just got sold as a phone with additional features. Nobody asked what graphene is for, another transformational tech advance that is finding dozens of uses that it's creators never envisioned ... GGlass will find it's purpose ... HUDs are all the rage in fighter jets for a reason GGlass is a HUD for your life ... we all live on our smartphones. It's inevitable that this or a similar tech will become as ubiquitous in society as HUDs are in fighter jets... and for much the same reason.

    1. Re:Transformational tech ... by BasilBrush · · Score: 2

      Not so. Dumb mobile phones were obvious to everyone from the start. Everyone had experience of landlines and could imagine the same, but without a wire to tether it. Smartphones came quite a while after PDAs, so it was perfectly obvious that smartphones were a mix of PDAs and mobile phones. Applications were obvious.

      Google glass is a different category. You'd do better to compare it with the Segway.

      And it's not a HUD. HUDs display in your field of vision. This is a display out of the normal field of vision. So all the overlay ideas are dead on arrival.

  11. WE ALREADY KNOW HOW TO WORK THE MIRROR API. by Haxagon · · Score: 2, Informative

    This is absolute bullshit. If anyone who approved this fucking article knew what they were talking about, they would know that Google held a Glass developer conference wherein they explain the capabilities of Glass, guidelines, and API abilities.

    Source: http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/5/4186182/google-explains-how-to-create-glass-services

    Fucking idiots. The entire Mirror API is explained in that video. Developers(or anyone) who have done a simple Google search know how the hell to develop for Glass right now, why doesn't the author of this /. post?

    1. Re:WE ALREADY KNOW HOW TO WORK THE MIRROR API. by AK+Marc · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That's about how to code, not what to code. There is a difference.

      --
      Learn to love Alaska
  12. Instructions by meta-monkey · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As a DIY kinda guy who does his own auto maintenance, fixes stuff around his house, cooks, assembles toys for his kid, etc, the immediate thing that would absolutely make me buy one of these is just the ability to present instructions in front of my face without me having to look away from what I'm doing.

    How many times have I been looking at my engine and gotten lost thinking, "Wait, was that bolt on the left side or the right side?" and had to stop and reach for the manual or the instructions I had loaded up on my tablet. Or been holding three pieces of baby furniture together with one hand while rummaging through my tool belt to get the right screws and then realized "crap, does this part take the long screw or the medium long screw?" and had to put the whole thing back down to reach for the instructions. If I had a hands-free display showing me the instructions it would be way easier.

    And the instructions don't even need to be digitized already and downloaded from the manufacturer's website. Glass has a camera, so before I get started, look at the instructions and snap a few high-res pics.

    Eventually, if such devices penetrate the market there might be a reason to use those QR codes. Companies could put out "Glass Enabled Instructions" where each part has a small code on it, so when you get to "Insert Rod A into Flange B" the instructions app would scan your visual field for the correct marker code on Rod A and give you a thumbs up. Which gives you all kinds of other applications for general education and training.

    Also, whenever I'm taking something apart, I find myself grabbing my phone to snap pictures during the disassembly, so when it comes time to stick all the color-coded but otherwise unmarked wires back into the posts on the PCB I have a quick reference for what it looked like when I started. With Glass, fuck, not only could I take stills without rummaging for my phone, I could just record a video of the whole process and then scrub back through it if I was unsure of how anything fit together during reassembly.

    Yeah, I'll buy one just for that.

    --
    We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
  13. Culmination of Internet as technology by sinij · · Score: 3, Funny

    This device is a culmination of everything internet stands for and a first attempt to have always-on interface directly with our sensory inputs.

    It will finally allow us to browse porn and watch cat videos everywhere we go, 24/7.

  14. Re:Real estate agents don't work that way by BoberFett · · Score: 2

    Wanna know how I can tell that you don't actually know any real estate agents?

  15. Eh? by DeathToBill · · Score: 2

    And investors not understanding what they are investing in is news because... why again?

    Have you not followed the last five years?

    --
    Slashdot - News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters, in ISO-8859-1 Has just realised that beta makes this signature redundant
  16. Oh dear God by sootman · · Score: 5, Funny

    I don't know what the future holds for Google Glass, but I know one thing for sure: Marc Andreessen should not be bald. I'm pretty sure I saw him in a movie with Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtain twenty years ago...

    --
    Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
  17. Healthcare! by ZaphDingbat · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Good grief, people! Healthcare!

    "Glass, call the RT." "This is the RT. Can I help you?" "Can you have a look at this man's breathing? We're not sure what's going on..."

  18. Re:to be really useful it needs to be realtime by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Leave it on continuously and tell me how long your phone's battery lasts. Constantly polling the camera and other sensors and overlaying that data correctly enough to be useful (and for something like driving it has to be damn near perfect to be safe) will drain a battery of that size in a few minutes.

    This tech is being held back by the same limiting factor by which all mobile tech is being held back: batteries. Batteries are terrible. They've been terrible for a long time and barely gotten better. It takes all the improvements in chemistry we can muster just to keep up with the increased power draw. That's why phones today actually have shorter battery life than the phones of five years ago, and those phones had shorter battery lives than the ones made five years before them.

    Until we see a revolution in battery technology there won't be a truly phenomenal Google Glass-like product that lives up to our expectations of what augmented reality should be. Glass is just going to be a persistent external display for your phone with a forward looking camera and mic. It's a smartphone resting on your ears and nose instead of carried in your pocket. This new form factor will allow some clever new tricks, probably even compelling enough to enjoy moderate success, but it's going to be disappointing compared to what could be possible if battery life was no issue.

  19. The first thing they teach you in sales ... by westlake · · Score: 2

    I bet every real estate agent in the world would like one of these hooked up to a database of houses for sale, so they could instantly scan all the relevant information.

    ... is to keep your eyes focused on the prospect.

    He is the most important thing in your life right now; don't let him catch you drifting off into Lah-Lah land.

    The glasses are a distraction. Ditch them.

  20. Re:to be really useful it needs to be realtime by h4rr4r · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When I am in the car, my battery should never deplete. My car surely makes enough electrical power for this task.

    Phones today could have much longer battery lives if we did not sacrifice all the alter of thin. My galaxy nexus is more comfortable to hold with the extended battery pack. The entire device could be that thick and it would allow even more battery life.

    Yeah, they suck, but we also make them way too small.

  21. Like an iPad? No, like an Arduino! by ZeroPly · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Your mentality is that of an Apple consumer, not that of an inventor. You tell the corporations "tell me how I should use your product". My crowd tells them "show me what your product does, I'll decide if I have a use for it". In my world, iPads are complete crap - they're an appliance for Grandma that I can't connect my 1-wire scanner to, because it doesn't even have a USB port. On the other hand, an Arduino or cheap 3-D printer is a godsend. Google Glass is meant for me, not for you.

    As soon as Glass hits a good price point and works with QR codes, that's my next inventory solution. Put on your glasses and look at the QR code on a server, get a readout of what it is and who the point of contact is. Oh wait, your glasses just popped up the status from the SQL database "DO NOT POWER DOWN, LARGE UPDATE IN PROGRESS". Or when maintenance looks at the QR code on an HVAC controller, it pops up the web page to access it.

    You have no imagination, that's why you don't understand that this is just the first step to the rig in "Virtual Light" (fingers eagerly crossed). It has been so long since a large company did innovation for the sake of innovation, that nowadays it's an alien concept.

    --
    Support microSD: in a post 9/11 world, it is unwise to carry your data on media that you cannot comfortably swallow.
  22. My only question: Who owns it? by Opportunist · · Score: 2

    1. Will these glasses display only what I want them to display?
    2. Will the sensors of these glasses only record what I want them to record?
    3. Will the data outputs only transmit the data that I want them to forward, and only to the devices, networks or other targets that I specify?
    3. Will the specifications be open enough to develop a driver for whatever appliance I want them to interface with?

    A "no" to either of this question will mean a "no thank you" (put the comma where you prefer it) from me.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  23. long term health effects by thereitis · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm interested in knowing more about the long term health effects of wearing Google Glass. Apparently binocular rivalry may be of concern.

  24. Re:to be really useful it needs to be realtime by AK+Marc · · Score: 2

    But your point about the battery in your car seems wrong. Are you going to have a power cable dangling off your head plugged into the cigarette lighter? We are talking about augmented reality in the context of Google Glass, which will be on your head. A power cable seems like a non-starter in that form factor. It has to be battery powered when in use, and that means limiting what it can do.

    I disagree. I'd put a battery in my pocket and a cord to my glassses. It seems like 50% of people walking around have a cord to their ears already from a device in their pocket. I don't see all the focus on cordless when we are used to corded earbuds, and most of the cordless headsets flounder in the market place.

    --
    Learn to love Alaska
  25. Re:Isn't it obvious what these glasses are for? by BasilBrush · · Score: 4, Funny

    instantly identify assholes by the little light on their glasses

    Glassholes.