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Google Glass Specs Hit the Web
Nerval's Lobster writes "Google has issued the specifications for its spectacles. The search-engine giant's Google Glass, an augmented-reality headset that allows wearers to view information on a tiny screen embedded in one of the lenses, features a camera capable of snapping 5-megapixel photos and 720p video. That aforementioned screen, in the words of Google's just-released specs sheet, "is the equivalent of a 25-inch high definition screen from eight feet away." Google Glass is compatible with any Bluetooth-capable phone. Its MyGlass app, which enables SMS messaging and GPS, requires a companion device running Android 4.0.3 (the "Ice Cream Sandwich" build) or higher. Google claims the battery will provide a "full day of typical use," although the company warned in the specs sheet that certain functions—most notably video recording and Hangouts—could drain the battery faster. Despite those neat features, Google Glass also raises some thorny questions about surveillance culture, and whether people really want whole crowds recording every moment of our collective lives. But those are the sort of conundrums that will only become more clear when Google Glass is actually released sometime later this year."
What does their app do to my phone battery life? Who doesn't wear glasses in the rain (it can't get wet?) Why/what does this actually bring in utility to my life? I think this will actually be adopted by a few, but not mainstreamed in the immediate future. (Think Segway)
Life's journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well-preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally wo
Protip: Your eyeballs are just fancy radiation detectors. Worried? Keep them closed.
All welcome the real-world gargoyle. Bluetooth headsets weren't enough...
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Following quotes from Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson:
Gargoyles represent the embarrassing side of the Central Intelligence Corporation. Instead of using laptops, they wear their computers on their bodies, broken up into separate modules that hang on the waist, on the back, on the headset. They serve as human surveillance devices, recording everything that happens around them. Nothing looks stupider; these getups are the modern-day equivalent of the slide-rule scabbard or the calculator pouch on the belt, marking the user as belonging to a class that is at once above and far below human society. They are a boon to Hiro because they embody the worst stereotype of the CIC stringer. They draw all the attention. The payoff for this self-imposed ostracism is that you can be in the Metaverse all the time, and gather intelligence all the time.
Gargoyles are no fun to talk to. They never finish a sentence. They are adrift
in a laser-drawn world, scanning retinas in all directions, doing background
checks on everyone within a thousand yards, seeing everything in visual light,
infrared, millimeter. wave radar, and ultrasound all at once. You think
they're talking to you, but they're actually poring over the credit record of
some stranger on the other side of the room, or identifying the make and model
of airplanes flying overhead. For all he knows, Lagos is standing there
measuring the length of Hiro's cock through his trousers while they pretend to
make conversation.
"Where the hell are you, Hiro?"
"Walking down a street in L.A."
"How can you be goggled in if you're walking down a street?" Then the terrible
reality sinks in: "Oh, my God, you didn't turn into a gargoyle, did you?"
"Well," Hiro says. He is hesitant, embarrassed, like it hadn't occurred to him
yet that this was what he was doing. "It's not exactly like being a gargoyle.
Remember when you gave me shit about spending all my money on computer stuff?"
"Yeah."
"I decided I wasn't spending enough. So I got a beltpack machine. Smallest
ever made, I'm walking down the street with this thing strapped to my belly.
It's really cool."
"You're a gargoyle."
"Yeah, but it's not like having all this clunky shit strapped all over your
body. .
"You're a gargoyle.