Slashdot Mirror
Patent Filing Reveals Samsung's Designs For Google Glass Competitor
rjmarvin writes "A South Korean patent filing, complete with memos and device designs has let the cat out of the bag about Samsung's new head-mounted wearable device to compete with Google Glass, two days after Microsoft was found to be testing a similar prototype. The device isn't wireless; in fact it has an attached USB extension to plug into and serve as an extension of a smartphone. The device is categorized as 'sports glasses' to 'take phone calls and listen to music during workouts.' The filing gives an overhead, front, and side view of the proposed device, another entry into the rapidly expanding and increasingly competitive wearables marketplace."
you call this competing?!
here's a real competitor!
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
To be fair, this is likely a case of them simply pushing their engineers to start solving the problems inherent in such a design. Historically, I wouldn't consider "a smart sense of design or style" to be Samsung's strong point. Most of their decent designs tend to start out as aping their competitors until they can create something of their own, but they still need to have their engineering and technology in place in order to put out those redesigns, and that stuff can take a lot longer.
Whether this particular product succeeds or fails doesn't really matter (and the minimal amount of marketing for the Gear is evidence that they're not really trying with it either). What matters to them is that they're building the technological foundation they need. Once they figure out which way the market is going with wearable devices, they'll make something that fits that niche using this technology and then will market the hell out of it. But, for now, they don't know if it's heading towards wrist watches, glasses, or something else, so they're just throwing things out there and pushing their engineers to solve the problems that are coming up.
Perhaps they're planning on using bone conduction to transmit the sound.
That way nobody around you gets irritated by your horrible choice in music.
Or perhaps so no one can over hear your smartphone reading out your text messages and emails so you don't get hit by a bus crossing a street.
Thank you so much Samsung team. I was waiting this Google Glass competitor. It is really great user friendly and smooth.
Trolling is a art,
People act overly reserved around recording devices; wearing one of these makes you the death of the party.
Thousands of YouTube videos would suggest otherwise...
Anyway, video camera glasses are already widely available at minimal cost, and the world hasn't ended yet. https://www.google.com/search?q=Video+Camera+Sunglasses&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&lr=lang_en. I doubt these offerings from Google, Samsung, Microsoft et al will change the world as video recording or surveillance devices. That niche is already well-stocked.
These things could be a genuine enabling technology, changing the way we do things in interesting and unpredictable ways. Classing them with simple concealed video recorders is - ahem - short sighted.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
I'm usually not really bitchy about patents. I even tolerate software patents as long as they actually describe something truly novel, after all everything can be described as a set of mathematical equations. But what is novel about that? Earplugs and phone calls? If that passes does it mean that if a decide to "invent" any existing device, but with integrated earplugs and capable of making phone calls, I can patent it?
Party? You must be new here.