Google Glass Makes an Official Return (cnbc.com)

Alphabet's Google has officially launched the "Enterprise Edition" of its smart glasses hardware, which is now available to a network of Google partners. From a report: The company's developer partners range from logistics and manufacturing to patient care. These apps have long-been involved with Glass through the business-focused "Glass at Work" program. In a blog post Tuesday, Google Glass project leader Jay Kothari said partners such as GE Aviation, AGCO, DHL, Dignity Health, NSF International, Sutter Health, Boeing and Volkswagen have been using Glass over the past several years, and make up just a sampling of 50 companies using the wearable. Wired said several of these companies found the original Google Glass to be very useful in factories and other enterprise environments. Google discovered this and began work on a product built by a team dedicated to building a new version of Glass for the enterprise. According to Kothari, the Google Glass Enterprise Edition glasses are lighter and more "comfortable for long term wear." They also offer more power and longer battery life and, offer support for folks with prescription lenses, Wired said. The glasses, too, are stronger and do double duty as safety glasses. Further reading: Google Glass 2.0 Is a Startling Second Act.

Comments

Re:Ah the return of glassholes

[MachineShedFred]

Honestly though - the workplace, and particularly manufacturing and industry, is where this product makes a whole lot of sense. Do you really want people reaching for a phone or tablet (or even looking away from what they are doing) when operating an industrial press, or some other dangerous machinery? And, because this product is likely completely controlled by the company that provides it, the worker wearing it is far less likely to be distracted by non-work text messages and other banal content not related to the hazardous activity they are performing.

Google Glass for every day knuckleheads on the street just wasn't a useful thing, which is why it died. It was a solution looking for a problem that nobody had. This seems like a good use for that R&D, especially if the companies using it are seeing marked improvements in productivity and product quality, which TFA claims.

Re:Ah the return of glassholes

[Martin Blank]

And that's your particular case, but not everyone's. Here are some things that could work:

  - A surgeon could monitor vital signs during surgery merely by glancing up at a display.
  - A factory worker could have a list of steps to follow to complete an assembly
  - A floor supervisor could monitor progress of the line before or after their location
  - Even you could step back a safe distance, triggering a reappearance of the display that you can check, which then disappears when you approach the machine to ensure that you have no visual distractions.

All of this could also be recorded or streamed for training, troubleshooting, or performance checks.

Glass was just ahead of its time and suffered from being the first to market, as many such efforts do. The same privacy complaints occurred as soon as cameras began appearing in phones, and got louder as smartphones became more common. Underskirt photos led to attempts to require that all devices make a sound when a picture is taken, even when the device is silenced. Now, no one bats an eye at smartphones. I could record everything in front of me just by putting the phone in my chest pocket, and you'd never know, compared to Glass with its LED. With augmented reality becoming easier to process and the applications growing, it's only a matter of time before Glass, HoloLens, and a dozen other products that rely on cameras are ubiquitous. The first app with universal appeal will be a game, but GPS directions will follow soon, and then you'll be able to pop menus out of restaurants in your field of vision.

It's going to happen. It will probably be a few years yet, but it's going to be come the norm.