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ChipSiP Smart Glass Specs Better Than Google Glass?

Posted by timothy on from the wait-for-a-flood-of-do-alikes dept.

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."

24 of 129 comments (clear)

  1. Google Is Trembing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    1. Re:Google Is Trembing by olsmeister · · Score: 3, Insightful

      or - acquisition in 3... 2... 1...

    2. Re:Google Is Trembing by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Because you know, they haven't been doing anything to prepare the next version of Google Glass.

      Beyond that very good point, this company, do they have an actual product? Because, you know, anyone can write "specs". But have they actually built one yet?

      --
      If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
    3. Re:Google Is Trembing by AK+Marc · · Score: 2

      TFA has some video of working units.

      You could always try reading TFA before asking basic questions.

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      Learn to love Alaska
    4. Re:Google Is Trembing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Google isn't trembling but Glass should be. They kill off far more successful projects on a weekly basis.

      Captcha: infanticide.

    5. Re:Google Is Trembing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      You could always try reading TFA before asking basic questions.

      That would go against everything that we stand for here at Slashdot!

    6. Re:Google Is Trembing by rk · · Score: 3, Informative

      Demo at CES != "product". There's no link where I can actually buy it or even get a price in either link. this video seems to suggest 2nd half 2014, but I haven't heard an MSRP yet. I would love to investigate HUD computers like this without coming up with $1,500 and a reason sufficiently hip to satisfy some Google engineers.

    7. Re:Google Is Trembing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Contrary to what slashdot would have you believe, Google Glass is not the only see through HMD and never has been. For example, Epson is now taking pre-orders for their SECOND generation Movario BT-200. It has binocular display, gyro sensors, front facing camera, runs android, has prescription inserts, and is half the price of glass. It even won an award at CES this year - I even tried them on (very cool). Link:
      http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/jsp/Landing/moverio-bt-200-smart-glasses.do

      There's also a small Italian company and a french company that also produce the damn things! And I'm sure I'm forgetting several others. I might be able to dig up the links if I try.

      There are several direct competitors - just because /. is in Google's pocket, doesn't mean competitors don't exist!

    8. Re:Google Is Trembing by Dr+Max · · Score: 2

      Hardly, these people are making all the same mistakes google has (dual, see through, full size glasses lenses please). For an acquisition you need to come up with a product people actually want. Solve all the problems, generally put in all the hard yards, and be able to take the market by storm; then you can get a few billion to shut you up, while google uses it to make the same money every quarter.

      --
      Rocket Surgeon.
    9. Re:Google Is Trembing by swillden · · Score: 2

      This is a more correct translation.

      More correct, but not correct. I'll take a shot at a correct explanation.

      There are several things that can keep an unprofitable product alive at Google. One is employee interest. Google's culture is quite bottom-up, and if a group of people are willing to invest time -- and, along with it, a portion of their bonus/promotion prospects -- then the company is reluctant to kill it. Another is user impact. If a product has broad and/or rapidly-growing usage, and users use it very regularly, then Google will almost certainly keep it going. In both cases, the theory is similar: If there are enough people sufficiently interested, then the product probably has a path to profitability, perhaps on its own or perhaps in conjunction with other products. Products that are profitable, with good margins and good growth prospects are quite safe, unless some other product's strategy is harmed by them. Paid products, especially those with long-term contracts, are extremely safe. If you're paying Google money for the service you're using, it's not going away, though the pricing may change if it's not profitable.

      Google's reputation for being willing to kill products is a direct and inevitable result of Google's willingness to try things that may not work out. You can't have the latter without the former, because most new ideas won't work. Wave didn't work because no one used it. Reader didn't work because there was no path to profit.

      Users should probably treat speculative new Google products the same way they'd treat products from a startup... cautiously until the product looks like it really has legs, either in the form of serious resource commitment from Google, or in the form of clear profitability. Once a product is well-established (say, hundreds of millions of users) and/or making money, then they can be sure it'll stick around.

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  2. Specsmanship by TheloniousToady · · Score: 4, Funny

    That's all well and good, but what about the spec that really matters: does it beat Google Glass on dorkiness?

  3. Features != UX by gilgongo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "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?"
  4. And the specs that matter? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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?'

    1. Re:And the specs that matter? by tftp · · Score: 2

      'What exactly does having this thing attached to my face do to make up for having this thing attached to my face?'

      Google can make pretty penny on selling GG to people who already have an answer to that question. Numbers of those people are growing every day. Those people are absolutely certain that everything that happens to them is so precious, important and valuable that they just must, as a service to humanity, carry GG on their face all day and all night, lest we, poor peons, miss one of their exciting adventures. Those people consider it perfectly normal, social, and entirely not offensive, to [threaten to] record other people against their wishes. They also wear GG while operating two-ton vehicles on freeways and then claim that "GG was not turned on," as if anyone can prove it one way or another. Why not - nothing bad can ever happen to those people; they do not need to be careful at all.

    2. Re:And the specs that matter? by tftp · · Score: 2

      Because of side effects of new technologies. You can say the same thing about nuclear power, for example. If you buy the light side of it - easy power with little fuel - then you have to also buy the dark side of it (potential contamination of large territories that cannot be cleaned for a hundred generations.)

      In this case the only thorny issue of GG is its camera - that may or may not record you. You are not important to millions of other people, but you are important to you. It may well be that I will see your face in a GG video and will never realize who you are; but your friends will recognize you; and your parents; and your GF; and your boss; and all the other people that you know and who know you. Is this important? Usually it is not. However sometimes it is important; GF #1 does not need to know who GF #2 is; your boss does not need to know that you are not sick at home but running an essential family errand that you could not wiggle out of. People like to keep private things to themselves. Sure, being in public already breaks this intent somewhat, but you can manage it as people managed that risk for thousands of years - you do not show up where you can be recognized. GG changes that - you can be recognized even if you are on the other side of the planet.

      Note also that many techies are joining the crowd of those neo-Luddites - not because they are despising the technology, but because they are concerned about what this technology brings us. Not all new technology is automatically good for the society. This here new and shiny collar may be new and shiny, but if you look carefully, it is a slave's collar. Do not wear it, even if it is artfully made.

  5. Not the Point by gr4nf · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

    1. Re:Not the Point by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Exactly the point. I want a device that will integrate with all my Google things, not some random collection of shit that some Taiwanese company threw together. It's the same reason why iPhone is popular. Same reason why the Nexus line is popular. Same reason why Kindle is popular. Integration. This is why companies like Microsoft and Facebook suck, they have nothing to integrate with, or just don't get it.

    2. Re:Not the Point by tlambert · · Score: 2

      Who's going to want Google Glass after many glassholes will be beaten by random people angry for being illegally recorded?

      Covertly taken photographs, or it didn't happen...

  6. Borg! by Infestedkudzu · · Score: 2

    The winner will be the one that can be modded to be assimilated

  7. When? by Threni · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

  8. Smart Glass? by msobkow · · Score: 2

    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.
  9. Features != Capabilities by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 2

    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.

  10. Re:Battery Life? by Saithe · · Score: 2

    TFA said 3h battery with option to add another battery-pack on other ear. Now, if that is an accurate time while in-use remains to be seen.

  11. Re:Cool. Here's hopeing Google doesn't... by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 2

    This is Google. Not Apple.

    So you're saying they'll sue through their wholly-owned Motorola subsidiary rather than using their own name?

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