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Google Glass Is Dead, Long Live Google Glass
DumbSwede writes BBC reports on the demise of Google Glass as we know it:
Google Glass sales halted but firm says kit is not dead. One can only assume there will be dissatisfied early adopters and developers given Google's decision. Here is to hoping Google Glass 2.0 (assuming there is one) will be better received. The Verge expands a bit on the re-org that the linked BBC article mentions, as a result of which Google Glass moves from the Google X incubator to its own division: Google's announcing today Glass is "graduating" from the Google X experimental projects incubator to become its own independent division — a division that will report into Nest's Tony Fadell. Current Glass head Ivy Ross will retain day-to-day authority, but she'll report to Fadell. Nest itself will remain separate and independent, and Tony will still be in charge there as well.
but they're better than New Coke.
or slashdot, for that matter. might as well just mod_redirect this shit to goatse or dice.com
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I was hoping to see some of these devices replace specialized fork lift pc's and inventory management systems. I know that a lot of things like the Honeywell hand helds and LXE's are tried and true but the idea of leaving an inventory listing in the corner of someones eye and allow verbal updates sounded like a game changer for replacing some of our existing systems.
I won't miss them, and hopefully nobody else will either.
...and it's sitting in a box in the corner, having failed to adequately meet the needs of any of our ideas to use it with our products. And we really tried too. Epic fail.
Glass never had a chance, not because of the privacy issues but because it just didn't actually have the processing power or battery life to do anything useful. Considering the guy who designed it has worn wearable computers for more than a decade, I expected better.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I doubt this technology is going anywhere anytime soon. Whether Google or someone else, this tech will persist.
Its release has at least sparked all sort of debate about the expectations and limits of privacy, not to mention raising the warning for the ubiquitous surveillance that will soon exist.
Expect to see FISA subpoenas in the future for people's Google Glass (or successor) data so the government can keep tabs on everything.
The best direction for Glass now would be to pair with Segway, you could call the combined company NiCHé.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Until it's on a store shelf it isn't for sale. It was never advertized as a consumer product. It wasn't even promoted. To get it you had to go out of your way to even find out where you were supposed to get the damn thing.
Mainframe, Google Glass, what's next? Windows 8?
Best way to judge how successful a new technology is going to be is to look at how many clones stream out of China. Haven't seen a single Google Glass clone so far. Cloners may be cheap, but they're not crazy :)
Site & blog: http://www.mayaposch.com
That was SUPPOSED to be NiCHe, where the e had a pretentious accent character.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It's just moving out of the Google-X section where they do experimentation to be a full-blown product.
Yes, that meanst that there will be changes, the current google-X resources that are building them will no longer be available, and so a new model with new production will be needed, and there will be a gap in availablility, but this should mean that there will be a lot more of them available, and probably at a much lower price with the new production.
In other words, it graduated out of alpha status.
One of the things that I always thought about Google Glass was this -- it has a billion good uses for work, but is stupid and creepy when you start walking around in public with it. It's creepy in more than one way - there's the "everyone thinks you're a stalker" thing, the weird head gestures you need to make to control it, the talking to yourself, and also the "Google now knows exactly what my eyes are tracking in any given image" kind of creepy. I'm not a millenial, so I probably sound like an old coot, but Google already knows enough about us - phones, search, Gmail, etc.
Now, that all goes out the window when you're talking about work use. With all these cloud data centers hosting thousands of racks of servers, maintenance techs would be able to get real time info. Warehouses would be able to show human forklift drivers where stuff is. Aircraft and car mechanics would be able to get manuals without having to print/read paper job cards. Stuff like that is very useful - walking around with them in public is a different story.
Maybe Google is realizing this and tailoring future devices for certain applications.
I honestly think we'll see the kind of jobs requiring that being automated before we see better tools for those jobs. The days of people going around warehouses gathering stuff on a list are coming to an end.
When Google, a company built on the concept of invading individual privacy, suddenly got all self-righteous and rejected my "What's the VIC's net worth?" facial recognition app, I knew the glasses were not going to succeed. You can't turn your back on your developers that way!
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
It's a neat concept and all but it doesn't really add enough value vs just carrying my phone to justify the outlay. Especially for something experimental that isn't going to have much support and that I can only imagine has an incredibly awkward interface.
You could have played it cool and acted like it displayed right and anyone who said differently was using a odd browser settings.
Now you can't say "Looks right on my screen!"
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
Got my official "see you later, dude" email today. quick takes:
The Good:
Display was quite good.
No visual acuity problems for far-sighted eyes
Good for hands free access to your phone
The Bad:
Terrible battery life
Poor public image
"Google vs. Apple" crappy tactics i.e., poor iPhone integration [We are trying to break new ground, why do we need that sh*t involved?]
sigs are for losers (except to point out that sigs are for losers)
GG project costs were high and then Sergey lost a wife and the alimony over it.
Probably the biggest tech cash blowout I know of. Big time bust.
True. I'm just sorry that this crap project has been shut down so fast that I haven't met any glassholes yet, otherwise I would have broken their noses instantly.
Yeah, except replace "broken their noses" with "posted on Slashdot"
All evidence from Google over the past few months (the Glass for Work initiative, their filing of design patents for Glass that are clearly dependent on an external power source such as a belt-worn battery pack, their partnership with Intel whose chipsets are not suitable to any form of Glass that does not depend on an external battery pack - note that Intel chips are suitable only to tablets/Chrombooks due to their excessively high power consumption) is that Google is targeting industrial/business uses.
They have done nothing to address Glass' biggest flaw as a consumer device - battery life/power consumption.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
At Crown we were hoping this tech would mature a bit more so we could make use of it for the same reasons you listed. It would be a big improvement over having to step up to the truck to see the next item or waiting for the vocal system.
(sigh) long live this headline format.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
Lots of people pay outrageous prices for stuff. People with lots of disposable income. If you were pulling in solid 7 figures (or higher), the cost of Google glass would be insignificant, less than the cost of a lunch out to someone with an average salary. Buying a private jet vs flying international first class seems like not that much of an upgrade, considering you get to the same place either way, and you get a comfortable ride regardless, but jet ownership and usage is increasing, even through you'll probably never buy one.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Google is now working on a version of Glass that won't get you punched in the face when you wear it in public.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
... and that is why I go with Apple products. At least I know that Apple goes 100% behind the devices they release and they will be around in 5 years and supported.
Apple is a horrible counterexample.
Pippin. Newton. Macintosh TV. Lisa. Macintosh Portable. eMate. You could argue for both the Apple III, AppleLink, and eWorld to have places on this list as well. And that's not even mentioning the unreleased products that were killed internally, such as Copeland and project Star Trek (well known), and the less well known ones I probably can't mention without violating NDA.
Also, the 5 years has shortened to about 3 years, or even less; the flip on requiring 64 bit EFI in Intel systems to use new versions of the OS happened in less than 2 years, and stranded a lot of older systems with 32 bit EFI (I had a 64 bit EFI loaded onto a system that was originally 32 bit EFI, but the new firmware for the laptop was never released outside Apple because the CPU Software Group didn't want to have to support it, and they had a preference for selling new hardware and not supporting old hardware).
When you have a lot of highly successful products, people tend to forgive/forget failures.
I've read several news reports about glassholes being publicly beaten, however, in no case I've read that the alleged aggressor has been arrested or jailed. How strange, maybe cops are more intelligent than you?
How much will Google charge for their next test product that fails? $3,000? $5,000? . . . .
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
Imagine everybody putting a phone in your face to stream it. Pretty invasive and creepy.
Yup.
No cop is gonna side with a glasshole.
If Google really wants to succeed with the technorati, they need to come out with monocle, pince-nez and quizzing glasses models. Plus protective goggles for the lumberdandies.
"I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if thousands of Glassholes suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced, and this not by the usual biweekly punch in the face by a creeped out passer-by"
...and nothing of value was lost.
Public interest would have been higher if they had picked a more appropriate name, like Googly Eyes.
Only for sufficiently big companies, and even then it's not going to happen overnight. If you can build a solid product to fill that transition gap for a ~10 year period, you can make a lot of money.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Or maybe the cops are just as corrupt and ignorant of the law as you are?
Being arrested would be the least of your worries when someone blows your head off for being such a piece of shit.
I fucking hate all those NSA Google Glass people.
I think the product is dead because of the douchebag glassholes.
I don't think all Google glass owners were obnoxious jackasses, but unfortunately it only took a minority that are to ruin the product for the rest of them.
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Toshiba showed off something like that at CES this year. http://www.cnet.com/news/toshi...
There are already several smartglasses for warehouse management, for example from Vuzix and Epson.
I remember the kid who assaulted that woman with the Glass in San Francisco got his ass kicked by her friend.
I have been a GG user for about 10 months. I just received my 5th replacement GG. Google's engineers were never able to fix the thin-film mirror on the optical cube. Under certain environmental conditions the mirror would start to bubble, rendering GG useless. The replacement process was "Google-centric" and not very customer oriented, particularly for users with GG prescription glasses. The Google team never really understood what it means to be in the eye-wearable business. I still believe in the GG concept as it provides a convenience level other wearables will not be able to offer. As far as price goes, sure GG is very expensive, even more so if you went all the way and got prescription glasses too. But the price could have been fixed, had Google been committed to the concept and wanted it to work. As far as wearing it in public goes, I never had any serious issues or concerns. Sure people are curious and I get asked a lot "How is GG working for you?". I tell them that GG works like a SmartPhone but is much more convenient. I wear my GG like regular glasses at home and at work, all the time. Obviously there is a code-of-conduct implied, if you are wearing something so conspicuous and has a somewhat mixed publicity on top of it. But I also believe, only if you try it out you are in a position to judge whether this concept has merit - and I am convinced that GG has merit, maybe not this time around. Why not this time around? Probably mainly because the Google Glass team never really understood it's product, it's technologies, it's business and it's customers. This is too bad - farewell Google Glass V1.