Slashdot Mirror
ChipSiP Smart Glass Specs Better Than Google Glass?
First time accepted submitter SugarManner writes "Google Glass is in for a fight even before they hit the market. The Taiwanese company Chipsip has just released plans for a competing product that beats Google Glass on all specifications. (Seen on the Swedish Elektronik Tidningen — warning: written in Swedish) Nine sensors on the Taiwanese product 'Smart Glass' can detect speed, altitude, temperature, light and position. It has built-in GPS, Bluetooth 4.0 and a microphone. The processor is based on Rock Chips Cortex A9 system RK3168 running at 1.5 GHz. While Google Glass supports 802.11g communication, Chipsip Smart Glass supports 802.11n. The camera and screen resolution also top Google Glass by a notch, and with stereo sound on the Smart Glass compared to Google's mono sound, it seems that the Taiwanese company has hit all the right spots to make Google goggle. Or not. Google Glass is still in Beta, so specs on the final product may change."
Because you know, they haven't been doing anything to prepare the next version of Google Glass. I'm sure they'll get started right away after this.
... send in an entire armada of lawyers to try and stamp this out before it can even happen.
I'm far more interested in what other companies will do with the idea than what Google will do with it. Especially if these 'knock offs' don't come with Google+ mandatory installed.
That's all well and good, but what about the spec that really matters: does it beat Google Glass on dorkiness?
It'll be great for the 5 minutes the battery lasts.
"detect speed, altitude, temperature, light and position. It has built-in GPS, Bluetooth 4.0 and a microphone. ..."
OK. It'll fail.
When will product managers understand that trying to compete by stuffing features into products does not a better product make? Has the tech design industry learnt *nothing* from the likes of Apple?
When Google's "inferior" product completely crushes them, I bet these idiots will be crying to their mystified managers that they didn't "market" it hard enough.
Muppets.
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
a competing product that beats Google Glass on all specifications.
Not according to the Google Translated page I read, it says it loses on all specs, and it smells faintly of poo.
I suspect that Google is going to be deeply unconcerned by anything that doesn't beat them to the punch on 'battery life' and 'What exactly does having this thing attached to my face do to make up for having this thing attached to my face?'
The point of Glass isn't putting a powerful computer on your face (well, it's not the only point, anyway). It's Google and its Sum-Of-All-Knowledge apps. Who's gonna want a more powerful system if they can't use Google's maps on it?
And - yeah - I'm pretty sure Google is already well down the path to the next version of Glass, which may be a match for ChipSip's product. I'm a lot less sure that Google would want the negative publicity a high-profile lawsuit might bring were they to sue. After all, their name alone guarantees them both incredibly broad exposure and buzz on the street when they market their product; they may well consider it to be to their advantage to permit or even encourage competition in this arena. Let us remember that (so far) this is happening within the Android ecosystem, not MicroSoft or Apple Computers. Google has a vested stake there, and so may be fairly selective about using the patent weapon in court.
...since the M100 is, as far as I've tried, unusable.
The good part of Google Glass is that in it's current incarnation IS USABLE, and it has been designed 1.5 / 2 years ago (_designed_ not presented).
Turn them on, do some basic configuration, and you are up and running in a matter of _minutes_.
The M100 comes with _nothing_ more than a bare android: you must do everything by yourself, and it not nearly comparable from the usability point of view.
This one, they seems they copied much of the design from google, and it's a good thing. We'll see if they will be up to the task...
The only spec that matters is how it looks.
No stereo. Less speed than a ChipSiP. Lame.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
so the killer app is a killer APPearance?
There are a slew of android devices out there that easily best iOS devices in every form factor. User experience and software support mean everything in a mobile platform - unless it's easier to use and more useful than what google is offering, it's DOA.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
The winner will be the one that can be modded to be assimilated
This is Google. Not Apple.
and they work great. I almost ran out of carbon in my cartridge but barely made it! 3D printing is awesome. I just downloaded the files and not 5 minutes later I had my glasses.
It seems like I've had to read about Google Glass for about 2 years now. Really boring, no interest in it, but inescapable. Google, please release it so all the early adopter tossers can drop £1500 or whatever and strut around like the fucking hipster idiots that they are, then, as a released, naff product the tech press will take a little less of an interest in it and we can all move on with our lives.
If not, then: FAIL.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Is really all that matters at this point.
Perfect way to look like a f'n retard!
Both in price and battery life? The idea that it has a built-in GPS is a little scary.
Fortunately with that choice of names we can still call their customers "glassholes". :P
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
This summary is needlessly breathless. For all we know, Google plans to use this chipset in the next rev glasses.
When will product managers understand that trying to compete by stuffing features into products does not a better product make? Has the tech design industry learnt *nothing* from the likes of Apple?
You are confusing features with capabilities. The problem with features is mostly about complexity and interface.
A non-smart phone had many features, but was complex to use. You had to memorize which keys enabled which feature, and the unit was stuffed with things that the programmers felt were easy-to-program such as a calculator, timer, and texting.
In contrast, an iPhone has two or three orders of magnitude *more* features than a typical non-smart phone, but presents these with a much-simplified interface. For example, Icons are visually mnemonic to their function, and navigating the virtual display space (paging through lists of applications) is intuitive.
That the new hardware has better capabilities than Google glass means that people have an incentive to purchase the new hardware. It says nothing about the feature-set or complexity of the unit.
This looks as bad as Google Glass. I don't want something that looks like a piece of medical equipment and only provides a small screen in one eye. I wanted a full augmented reality experience that covers the entirety of both eyes with transparent overlays.
Something like the Epson Moverio BT-200:
http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/jsp/Landing/moverio-bt-200-smart-glasses.do
Or the MetaPro Spaceglasses:
https://www.spaceglasses.com/
Nailed it. What good are twenty million sensors when you don't have a proper UI to control them? And that's just proper software to control the equipment - what about the rest of the ecosystem?
Am I reading this right? Google Glass has a _product_, while Chipsip has a _plan_?
Brings back memories of Microsoft Vaporware announcements, which were intended solely to fend off other companies' plans.....
Neither of these is something I'm likely to be interested in, but at least one of them actually exists.
wont work with there purported specs the RK3188 runs way to hot and uses way to much power for this applacation
also rockchip sucks
Chipsip product was in development for over a year. First prototypes were shown last march. Chipsip is not interesting in manufacturing it. It is just a technology showcase product and a reference design that will be sold to mainland white box OEMS.
It is remarkable that it has ChipSiPs own display module, which is a custom biaxial piezogoniometer mems IC that should be many times more power efficient than a regular matrix based display.
Honestly, the fact that a taiwanese company has PLANS to make a glass-like product is news? Google has had their product in people's hands for, what, 6 months? A year? And... goes this product support all current Glass apps? Google's trying to make an ecosystem with lots of hardware choices ... not make a single product ...
Glass's problem is battery life, pure and simple, and it's a toy until the battery life gets over 8 hours.
This is Google. Not Apple.
So you're saying they'll sue through their wholly-owned Motorola subsidiary rather than using their own name?
#DeleteChrome
Google Glass is the douchiest thing since bluetooth earpieces and iPhones. Today's technology is an embarrassment to humanity.
The smartphone already has all of these sensors.
Hardly. The smartphone has a light sensor, but it's not really usable for most uses being in your pocket... same thing for temperature (which most phones don't really have). Both of those things do more good on a sensor you wear in the open.
I don't think glasses are a good form-factor for anything but specialized uses (like protective goggles), but I do think there's a good use to be had for a lot of sensors to be put somewhere on us (my vote is, hat or attachment to garment).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Has anyone considered the long-term effects of having a radio so close to the brain? One reason why I myself haven't gotten into the Google Glass craze is because I'd like to be able to play a few rounds of pig with my child when he/she grows up.
Google showed their hand way to early on Google Glass. What, did they think no one would go straight out and copy what they'd done? Wait until you see what Samsung have been building Google...
Yet no one pauses to think "should we do this".
As if the hunch backed idiot masses using "smart phones" wasn't bad enough.
Example: Constant scanning mode, "oh that guy is arguing with his SO", upload photo + facial data to "asshole.com" next subscriber to Ahole.com scans, facial data clicks "oh look there's an asshole".
A whole new level of technological oppression.
Insert scenario here.
And you thought state based CCTV was bad...wait until this crop of sociopathic millennials goes to work on the public.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
And I want *you* regulated to a small desert island.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
That is all, return to your snacks.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Any hardware is only as good as the software supporting it.
I was going to say "Rockstar Consortium", but yeah, Apple only partially owns that one. You got me there.
Hardware specs are irrelevant in this space. The only thing that matters is user experience. The reason you still can't get glass at retail is because Google still haven't dialed in the user experience to anyone's satisfaction (I have direct experience of this). There's exactly no chance that some random taiwanese company's hardware is going to compete with google's product. And since google is not working on open-source android-based software for glass, they won't have the convenience of just using an open source package on their wearable computer. Glass is very much NOT just a remote display for your phone. It is a computing platform in its own right, with a sophisticated and difficult to engineer user interface that has to balance usability with obtrusiveness. It's a difficult task that google has been working on for a long time now. No one without enormous resources and a very creative interface design team is going to beat them to the punch at this point.
But please, for heaven's sake, does it do flac?
(Emphasis added.)
You nailed it, but I think you only scratched the surface.
What knowledge does Google have, anyway? You mentioned Google Maps, and yes, that is a good one. But what about all the information they can glean from GMail? Yes, we've been lead to believe Google provides e-mail in exchange for targeted advertisements.
I would posit it goes further than that. Consider all the photographs that have been sent from (and to) GMail. With some facial recognition software and rudimentary text analysis, I suspect Google may already know your name and what you look like.
Ponder on that for a bit.
Consider this e-mail message: "Hey there Jim! How's it going? Here are some pics of me and the wife on vacation. Wish you were here!! --Steve"
Do some feature analysis on the photos, tag them with links to Steve's info, and add it to their dataset.
Now consider, also, all the pictures that have been uploaded to photo sharing sites, and which Google dutifully spiders and indexes. Given Google's computational and indexing capabilities, I suspect those photos have also been tagged with links to people's real names, addresses, phone numbers, etc.
THIS is where Google has the advantage over all the other Glass-alikes. Google has a much larger dataset from which it can identify someone or something. The other glasses may have better technical specifications, but they don't have access to all that data.
Thanks for linking to us! I think that's a first!
Credit goes to Armdevices for finding the story: http://armdevices.net/2014/01/...
Chipsip also of course publishes its own press releases: http://www.chipsip.com/news/in...
This is Chipsips own comparison between their design and Google Glass (pdf) http://www.chipsip.com/archive...
To some commenters:
- This is not a product. This is a reference design which other companies will build smart glasses from. Some of the dozen or so manufacturers of prisma smart glasses out there, besides Google, might well have used this design.
- The specs top Googles Glass, but the manufacturer can of course choose to not utilize them fully, to make for example price more reasonable. Look upon this specification as the limit of what you can to today in this form factor – maybe carrying an external battery in your breast pocket?
- Google put a lot of effort in the software ("OK glass!", et cetera). Chipsip has a much simpler idea in the link above – to use the smart glasses basically as an extra screen to a standard Android smartphone.
- Jan Tångring, reporter, Elektroniktidningen (etn.se).
Dear moronic summary author and Swedish writer, "dual-core 1.2 GHz" is not "running at 1.5 GHz".
we do not need cheap Chinese or Taiwanese knockoffs of this crap.
Oh please.
Really?
Next....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.