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Google Glass Hands-On: Brimming With Potential, Dangerous While Driving

Posted by Soulskill on from the friends-don't-let-friends-glass-and-drive dept.

Sean Hollister at The Verge was recently outfitted with Google Glass, and he provides a report on some basic usage. There's a learning curve — the device relies heavily on what information you push from your phone, so if you haven't thought through every use-case, you'll find yourself reaching for your phone fairly often. Hollister took Glass on the road for use as a kind of heads-up display while driving, and he says it felt awesome, but dangerous. "You have to look directly at what you're photographing, so you won't be getting any safe photographs unless they're photos of the road. More importantly, Glass' ability to look up important information on the go is extremely thin right now. ... While I loved having turn-by-turn directions from Google Maps navigation floating in my peripheral vision, the display wasn't bright enough for me to see those directions while looking out the windshield of my car. I had to glance up towards the car's ceiling, or place a hand behind the cube to see where I was going. ... When another person called, I was able to pick up easily enough by tapping Glass at my temple, but the bone-conducting speaker wasn't loud enough to hear over the noise of the car. I had to enunciate extremely clearly and loudly for Glass to interpret my voice searches correctly." Hollister says Glass has a lot of potential — the things that don't work well are at least close. CNET's Scott Stein also provided a detailed perspective on how Glass works for somebody who already wears glasses: "I can see the screen with some twiddling. Glass can end up tipping to the side, and I need to prop it up with my fingers, since the nose piece isn't seated on my nose any longer."

13 of 67 comments (clear)

  1. Nooooooooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    he says it felt awesome, but dangerous.

    You mean a device that distracts you from driving can be dangerous?
    Who would have imagined?

    1. Re:Nooooooooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Ah, so *this* is why Google is working on self-driving cars...

  2. Projected in field of vision... by HockeyPuck · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How is having something that is projected into your field of vision legal for use while driving? I realize there are cars that project your speed onto the windshield but that is the projection of a 1in high font of 1-2 digits at the bottom of the windshield, and it doesn't move when you move your head...

    I'm especially concerned when the author states he has to put his hand up to block the road to see what's on the Google glass's screen..

    1. Re:Projected in field of vision... by Narcocide · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Not yet but I'm fairly certain it will be illegal to drive with these things on in California by the time a lot of them actually get sold.

    2. Re:Projected in field of vision... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Driving without due care and attention would cover this.

    3. Re:Projected in field of vision... by The_K4 · · Score: 2

      While I agree that distracted driving is dangerous and and I also expect that CA will make this illegal. I would love to have something like this to project speed and directions (think distance to next turn and direction) in my motorcycle helmet. The down side of some of these laws is that it's designed to nack people from doing stupid/dangerous things but also stop usage models for augmented reality that might actually make things easier/safer. How many drivers look at the GPS display on the center dash board? Is that safer them having it displayed on the windshield or google glass?

    4. Re:Projected in field of vision... by swillden · · Score: 2

      How is having something that is projected into your field of vision legal for use while driving?

      It's not projected into your field of vision, not the part of it you use to look at the road, cars, pedestrians, traffic signs, etc., anyway. To look at the screen you have to shift your gaze up and to the right. It's also translucent, which is probably the biggest reason that the guy couldn't easily see it -- white translucent text (which is what was used in the demo videos I've seen) would be fairly hard to see in full daylight. I wonder if it would be easier if the top of your windshield is tinted, to provide a darker background for better contrast.

      I think it has the obvious potential to be much safer than looking down at your GPS, or phone.

      I'm especially concerned when the author states he has to put his hand up to block the road to see what's on the Google glass's screen.

      Yes, this is an issue. Perhaps the navigation displays should use a dark font during daylight. I believe pure black is reserved to mean "transparent", but perhaps a dark blue would be good during daylight.

      (Disclaimer: I work for Google but I haven't touched a Glass device other than a very early prototype that one of my colleagues who was transferring to the Glass team had. All of this is based on the Youtube videos and the public developer toolkit documentation I've seen, and none of that has included much information about what the navigation display looks like.)

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  3. CHP should mail this clown a citation. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Distracted driving is stupid and against the law even if there is no law against the specific means of distraction.

  4. brand new tech by ganjadude · · Score: 2

    This is brand new tech, everyone who has it still has a beta version of the end product if my memory serves me right. of course its not perfect yet. but the concept is amazing (negating the creepy factor) and im sure after a generation or 2 all the kinks i keep reading about will be ironed out. Most of the kinks seem to me people simply using the devices in ways that google may not have anticipated, or people want them to do more then they can.

    its still too early to tell, but it does look promising

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    1. Re:brand new tech by Cro+Magnon · · Score: 2

      This is brand new tech, everyone who has it still has a beta version of the end product if my memory serves me right. of course its not perfect yet. but the concept is amazing (negating the creepy factor) and im sure after a generation or 2 all the kinks i keep reading about will be ironed out.

      This is Google. After 2 generations and it's in common use, it will still be beta.

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  5. Even more dangerous... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    If you lean over and shout into the google glass "GOOGLE, IMAGE SEARCH DIARRHEA, I'M FEELING LUCKY" while he's driving.

  6. Eye dominance by Varmint01 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I had a go at Google Glass a few days ago (courtesy of a friend with connections), and I had a rather unexpected problem with them. The display is set on the right side of the frame and can't be moved. I'm extremely left-eye dominant, to the the point where reading with my right eye alone is next to impossible. I can make out the scenery, but the center of my vision in that eye has the acuity of peripheral vision, and I can't parse complex shapes (ie text) with that eye alone. I hate to claim "I have a medical condition", but I do, and it's called amblyopia. Until Google makes the display switchable to the left side, this is a show-stopper for me.

    I can certainly see that as the kind of thing that will show up in version 2 or 3, but they would be a waste of money for me at this point.

  7. An interesting point all comments have overlooked. by imsabbel · · Score: 2

    Brightness.

    I found it very interesting that he found the display to dim to see anything when looking out of the windshield.

    No preview has mentioned this up to now, and I think thats an interesting issue. If you cannot even see the turn by turn display of google maps in daylight, how will the other usability be?

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