17 ms·

Google Begins Testing Its Augmented Reality Glasses

477 points by nickbilton 15y ago

On Wednesday, Google gave people 20/20 vision about a secret augmented-reality project called Project Glass. The glasses are the company’s first foray into wearable computing.

DanBC 15y ago
I want face recognition. No more "Hello er, ah, hello! How are you?" moments. I also want a version that shoots laser beams into my eye. (http://slashdot.org/articles/99/04/15/2058223_F.shtml http://slashdot.org/articles/99/04/15/2058223_F.shtml) (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3647437.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3647437.stm) Combined with a chording keyboard (Frogpad (except they don't seem to be making them anymore) or "The Twiddler" and I can be happy when commuting.
njharman 15y ago
I've been following wearable computing for very long time. Since Dr Steve Mann's eyetap and early MIT media lab http://www.media.mit.edu/wearables/ http://www.media.mit.edu/wearables/ and http://www.remem.org/ http://www.remem.org/ with chording keyboard and HUD is how I wanted future to work. These glasses look 1/2 as good as prototype and they are hackable at all, then the future is near. And look matters. I don't have problem stickin out. But many situations having bunch of wires and contraptions on your head is stickin out too far. esp now days that people think lightbrites are WMDs. Very, very excited.
mladenkovacevic 15y ago
Youtube promo of how it might work (is this for real or just a concept? looks too good to be true) http://youtu.be/9c6W4CCU9M4 http://youtu.be/9c6W4CCU9M4
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- pfraze 15y ago
  I'm buying first gen. Then second gen. All the gens.
  - Xurinos 15y ago
    What scares me is there is next to no choice on buying these, particularly if they are fast. There is an extreme advantage to people having easy access to information as it is presented in the video. Moreso than smartphones, it is a game changer.
    - artursapek 15y ago
      Next to no choice? You're saying people will just all want this by default? I think most people will want to try this, myself included. But personally I draw the line here and I think many others will. I would never want to own a pair. This will be a niche product for those people who already use Bluetooth headsets, who are a minority.
      - huskyr 15y ago
        "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame." ;) http://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-ipod http://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-ip...
        eli 15y ago
        The original iPod was lame. It had a nice UI, but you had to already own a Mac with Firewire to even use it. But Apple kept iterating, ported iTunes to Windows, etc.
        artursapek 15y ago
        Cute winky face, but you completely miss my point. I'm not saying this is "lame," I'm saying most people won't want to wear pixels on their face. Even the most successful products get criticism, especially in the beginning.
- wickedchicken 15y ago
  Off topic but I'm a little disappointed in their choice of the Strand. Alabaster Bookshop is right around the corner and has loads of stuff you wouldn't find at a Barnes & Noble.
  - gmichnikov 15y ago
    While we're off topic, it's amusing that anyone would take the subway from 23rd and Park to the Strand. Perhaps Project Glass will have an option to promote healthy choices.
- ilaksh 15y ago
  I want to know what it actually does and what it actually looks like at this point in time. How about a video of that?
9k9 15y ago
Everyone would go crazy with the ability to check a news feed 24/7. I suppose we'd have to find a way to adapt to it as there are some pretty awesome advantages.
- orblivion 15y ago
  I keep hoping that the next real revolution will be a way we can decrease the amount of data we get. I can't conceive of how this would work even on a theoretical level, but I hope someone figures it out.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - koalaman 15y ago
    I've been thinking about this a lot myself. I think that software is eventually going to have to help us stay disciplined in concentrating on one thing at a time. Of course people are creeped out by the idea of software that tells us what to do, or not to do, but I for one would like my phone to remind me that this is not the time to look at hacker news, and besides, there's nothing critical on it for me to look at it that can't wait until later.
- acgourley 15y ago
  Don't phones do this now? To me the killer feature isn't 'always available' but that it's 'always passive'. Passively recording, passively overlaying information you might want, passively inserting ads...
heyrhett 15y ago
Why would the largest advertising company in the world want to place a screen between my eyeballs and reality?
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- jgrahamc 15y ago
  Also, in the concept video he goes into a physical book store and selects a physical book and buys it. Surely, his Googgles would just scan the book tell him how much cheaper it was in the Google Store... Rather amused that when meeting a friend he spent time checking in to the location rather than talking to the dude. But these could be useful in situations where you don't have your hands free to hold a smartphone. For example, I would very much like GPS as a heads up display for cycling around London. And skiers/snowborders would enjoy them for other information (How many Gs am I pulling in this turn? How fast am I descending? Where am I?)
  - falling 15y ago
    > And skiers/snowborders would enjoy them for other information (How many Gs am I pulling in this turn? How fast am I descending? Where am I?) http://www.reconinstruments.com/products/mod http://www.reconinstruments.com/products/mod
    - akurilin 15y ago
      That is absolutely mind-blowing. I had to double-check online that it wasn't a concept mock-up or a joke, but it turned out to be a real product. I have no idea how well that screen looks in RL, but if it's half as good as in those promotional videos, then it's pretty impressive. I thought it was going to cost a few thousand, but it's only 300/400, wow. I can only imagine what a company with the talent and resources of Google could do with more advanced iterations of HUD technology.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
DasIch 15y ago
Augmented reality glasses, self-driving cars... Google is becoming a really exciting and interesting company. It will be interesting to see how Apple will react to this given that they are the ones claiming to revolutionize consumer technology every couple of years.
- joejohnson 15y ago
  Real artists ship. I'm very excited about all of Google's cool new projects, but they have a history of shooting themselves in the foot. If these technologies are so far along, why not build a consumer version and get people to pay to be testers?! Then iterate on the concept and keep improving it through successive versions. But that's Apple's game.
  - jonknee 15y ago
    Because you don't ship when it still kills people. Google launches stuff in betas all the time (arguably too much and for too long), but I'm glad they're not out there letting anyone test self driving cars or augmented reality contacts. Apple's difference isn't that they iterate, it's that they don't talk about their new stuff until it ships.
    - switz 15y ago
      The automated car has driven over 200,000 miles and has never once been in an accident. I don't know many humans that can live up to that.
      - teej 15y ago
        200k miles is nothing. Over 8 billion vehicle miles are spent per DAY in the US. One person is killed for every 75 million miles driven. 200k miles isn't enough to test every terrain, under every weather condition, in every lighting, etc. There's too many variables in the equation. The Google car won't be truly safe until it has logged 1000x miles.
jeffpalmer 15y ago
This has the potential to be huge, especially since it's the brainchild of Google. One thing I noticed is that they didn't showcase object recognition of any type in the promo video. When I heard they were testing these glasses, Google Goggles is the first thing that came to mind. It would be really useful to auto-search objects by simply looking at them and issuing a command. I'm sure it's on their roadmap, if it's not already live in the glasses alpha/beta product.
- dpezely 15y ago
  Although Google will make this more popular due to their marketing efforts and brand, it's hardly their brainchild. Tom Furness developed similar devices decades ago: Once out of the military lab, this was a key project of the Human Interface Technology Lab at UW in Seattle in the early 1990's. Updating for smaller chips and components contributes to the current form-factor which includes the front-facing camera not present in the earliest versions. The upside of course is that this might finally get some traction with Google's budget and efforts.
  - raphman 15y ago
    also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Mann#Anonequity_project_.28Mann.2C_Kerr.2C_and_others.29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Mann#Anonequity_project_....
exit 15y ago
is it a mistake releasing concept videos far ahead of the state of the art? hopefully what google announces at i/o will be shockingly advanced
jpontyface 15y ago
Seems like a cool product but glasses are a thing of the past. People moved to using contacts because of the annoyance of glasses, and wearing them all day can actually hurt my ears and nose. And once we start taking them off and putting them in our pockets while not using them, they become a phone with less features. I want something like this, maybe in a pair of contacts, but even contacts can be irritating. How about a genetically engineered eyeball?
- raphman 15y ago
  You want the display to overlay the environment. Contact lenses move with your eyeball - glasses don't. This means that you would need to precisely track the lenses somehow - probably with an apparatus affixed to your head. => Glasses are preferrable. Regarding genetically engineered eyeballs: what if they get a virus?
hswolff 15y ago
>“We’re sharing this information now because we want to start a conversation and learn from your valuable input,” the three employees wrote. “Please follow along as we share some of our ideas and stories. We’d love to hear yours, too. What would you like to see from Project Glass?” Why would you ask that? This type of product is so different from what's available on the market that I doubt the Project Glass team would receive any type of suggestions they'd find useful. That would be like Apple asking people "What do you want the iPhone to do?" before it was first released in 2007. If you're creating the product, create it. Find the features you want it to have and research the features it needs to have. Asking the public "what do you want it to have" will not do anyone any favors. Decision by committee can be truly atrocious.
- nextparadigms 15y ago
  If Google is smart, they would keep this for themselves, and sell the hardware themselves for a nice Apple-like profit. From the way it looks, I'm sure people will be more than happy to pay a bit extra - especially if it takes a few years for others to catch-up, like it happened versus the iPhone. Also, I assume this is going to work with a data plan as well? Well at least this time I really hope Google will not give in to carriers, and compromise on nothing. Don't give carriers the power Google. When this product becomes extremely successful, as I believe it will become, they will be begging you to sell it on their network. Although I'd probably prefer something like the former Nexus store, that intended to commoditize carriers, rather than give them exclusives.
  - Androsynth 15y ago
    Google and Apple have fundamentally different business models. One sells hardware and one sells advertising. I would imagine Google's goal will be to put these glasses on as many people as they can, as cheaply as they can and then they have a direct advertising connection to a lot of eyeballs.
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
philo23 15y ago
That's a pretty neat concept video, but of course it's more than likely just a well produced concept video. Hopefully the real thing can live up to it. One thing I did think about after seeing the concept photos they have on the Google+ page (https://plus.google.com/111626127367496192147/posts https://plus.google.com/111626127367496192147/posts) and in this NYT article, what about us poor people not gifted with 20/20 vision? But again they are probably just concept images and shouldn't really be taken as much more than that.
- gyardley 15y ago
  From the article: There are reportedly dozens of other shapes and variations of the glasses in the works, some of which can sit over a person’s normal eyeglasses.
georgieporgie 15y ago
I want these glasses, but with lenses. Not just any lenses, I want lenses that have electronically-controlled, variable tint. Not only would I get the benefit of sunglasses, but the tint could be run up when I'm significantly engaged with my built-in display. Sort of an indicator to others to avoid the social annoyances witnessed in modern, overly discreet mobile phone Bluetooth headsets (and no, I don't mean black them out and blind me, nor do I mean to signal muggers as to my distraction in a shady part of town, though I do see the benefits of Peril Sensitive Sunglasses).
joshrotenberg 15y ago
Looks like a great way to increase pedestrian fatalities.
- msg 15y ago
  If only there was a way to travel autonomously without needing to monitor the environment visually. Back to the drawing board, Google. </>
- GraffitiTim 15y ago
  Not if you also wear a Google self-driving beanie.
duopixel 15y ago
As much as I like the design, I think Google should first aim at making them look as inconspicuous as possible by making it look like a normal piece of eyewear. There are very few visible pieces of technology that we carry and display in public (probably only glasses and watches). Visible wearable technology has a long history of being either geeky or douchebaggish (bluetooth headsets). I'm suspecting the current incarnation of Google's glasses would elicit both perceptions.
- nextparadigms 15y ago
  To be honest, the glasses look way more minimalistic than I was thinking. I was expecting something like full sunglasses - maybe even ones that are bit bulkier. So from what point of view I'm very impressed. But I agree that if they got this far already, they can probably make them even more minimalistic in version 2.0 or 3.0. But really, they look very modern already. Kind of like some of the best looking bluetooth headsets out there - just longer.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
sebastianavina 15y ago
I just want to lay on the beach this vacations, but my cellphone doesn't stop to ring, I'm attached to my job with my cellphone, and if I turn it off, it's just rude. This glasses are a real nightmare for me.
- gilrain 15y ago
  This is a problem with your job or possibly your work ethic, not your phone.
- slowpoke 15y ago
  Why would that be rude? On the contrary, I'd consider the people calling you while you're on vacation rude.
jacquesm 15y ago
I can see a great use of this for technical work on hardware that requires huge amounts of documentation (say aircraft maintenance). The glasses the way they're designed are smart, not in between but rather in a fixed spot and only a part of the field of view. I definitely wouldn't want a computer screen between my eyes and 'the real world' in normal day to day life. Believing what my eyes see is important to me and with another layer in between you'll never know whether you are reacting to an overlay or the real thing. Especially if the images are created with input from a remote source which opens all kinds of interesting possibilities. Superimpose a picture of a traffic accident on the glasses of someone that is driving and you could very well end up with the real thing. Seeing is believing they say and the response to visual input can be very reflexive. Audio alone can be distracting enough. So google seems to have that part done right, it'd be great to play around with these.
- dpezely 15y ago
  Chris Esposito at Boeing in the early 1990's worked on such a project: aircraft maintenance augmented using "VR glasses" concurrently developed at the Human Interface Technology Lab in Seattle. I suspect that this is his profile: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/chris-esposito/5/673/785 http://www.linkedin.com/pub/chris-esposito/5/673/785
- daralthus 15y ago
  On the opposite side they could have made not another display, but a whole new tool. A new interface for manipulating dynamic content. Preferably with your hands. Eliminating objects, laptops, touch displays... However there are some clear points why did they choose this path: - they only needed to make the display tech. Everything other could come later. - the lifelogging aspect could get hyped, making the whole thing sexy. But still I am a bit dissapointed, now let's jump on hand and object recognition!
  - Erwin 15y ago
    I don't know whether the technology is there, but I could see AR glasses being paired with a (RFID? Bluetooth?) ring you wear as a pointing device. The demo uses speech but I haven't found the Google voice search very impressive so I have my doubts. Put it on your finger (or if a cheap and small RFID chip, glue it onto your fingernail, or even paint each of your fingernails with invisible slightly radioactive nail polish), pair it with your glasses and you can use your finger(s) as a pointing device in the AR overlay. Depending on input resolution, the movements could be subtle -- you don't have to raise your hands as if conducting an orchestra although that would be fun to see. Wiggle your fingers to control your headset. Or how about keyboard trousers. Invisible areas on the outside of your trousers that you can tap as a small 10-key keyboard.
robbiemitchell 15y ago
Interesting that, in the demo video, he "shares to his circles" rather than to a specific circle. Even in the Google+ future, it's easier to share with everyone than to segment everyone endlessly.
- xxbondsxx 15y ago
  They've changed this on the main site as well. They know most people are just blasting everything, so that's the default now (at least for me).
saturdaysaint 15y ago
Interesting that that the intro video also seems to be a subtle demonstration of new natural language commands. Kind of a clever way of minimizing "Siri" by packaging it into something much bigger. I'm curious how some of the actions are initiated - the video implies that visual recognition/location awareness/voice commands initiate the search, but I wonder if a button is also pressed.
dsirijus 15y ago
I could name you dozen of IT companies that unveiled concept for a product that's basically same as this. The only and real question is - can Google pull it off?
sabalaba 15y ago
Looking forward to hacking on these. Hopefully they can redesign them to not look like Geordi from Star Trek.
saturdaysaint 15y ago
I don't know whether to be encouraged or disturbed by the notion of having wearable cameras become socially acceptable. On one hand, I would think this could be a major crime deterrent - the idea of a "witness" could become quaint as any crime could easily be captured with a time/location stamp. But it could also be a major altering of norms. Are women comfortable with the idea that any guy looking at them on the street can capture their image?
- dpark 15y ago
  How is this actually any different than today? There's nothing stopping me from popping up my phone to take a picture or video in a public space. There's also nothing stopping me from wearing a pinhole camera all the time. If these became common, then obviously there would be more cameras on at all times, but the fundamentals wouldn't be any different. It seems like the biggest difference is that if a ton of people were wearing these all the time, police couldn't tell everyone to turn them off. If they looked like normal glasses, they wouldn't even know.
  - saturdaysaint 15y ago
    I agree that in a way, this would only intensify effects of camera-equipped cellphones. I have a pet theory that ever-present camera-phones are responsible for at least some of the drop in crime in the last decade. And while the controversy has gone away, there were a lot of overblown concerns about "camera-phones in locker rooms" in the early 00's. The difference is speed. You'd always have a camera aimed at whatever you were looking at. If you saw a mugger grab a purse, you might not have the presence of mind to fumble with your phone, but you might be able to press a button or say "take picture" (or whatever). I'd imagine that a decrease in response time could be a real deterrent. I know there've been spy cams forever, but I'd argue that merely owning one (let alone openly displaying it) would mark you for suspicion among a lot of people and I don't think they're widely used. I'm not saying it's the end of the world, but there are some new privacy norms that will be established if these are to take off.
    - 15y ago
jasonlotito 15y ago
What this will provide for disabled and autistic people is amazing. It's too easy to get caught up in the "social sharing" part of this and forget that something like this can really help change people's lives. Edit: To expand a bit, take an autistic adult that wants to do something, like go to the movies. It's simple for us, we wash up, get dressed, go outside, go down the straight, hope on the 132 Bus for 3 stops, get off, walk 2 blocks, pay for tickets, and go into theater number 5. For someone with autism, they can struggle with things like this. These glasses provide them with visual cues base upon their location, so when they finally do get to the theater, the glasses can show them what to do next, and give them that visual cue. Currently working on an app for tablets for this sort of things, but having it work in glasses would be simply amazing. God, what I wouldn't give to be apart of this.
- trothamel 15y ago
  I suspect that this will be a huge benefit to deaf people as well, once speech recognition works well enough.
  - jasonlotito 15y ago
    The biggest benefit of this is it's inconspicuous nature. they are glasses. They aren't big cumbersome devices, and they aren't phones that you have to carry around in one hand to use. They're apart of you like no other device you carry.
  - sp332 15y ago
    You wouldn't even necessarily need the speech "recognition" to resolve words completely, e.g. deciding which homonym is appropriate in a given context. Just representing incoming phonemes in IPA could be a great improvement. The human brain can translate this input on the fly just like it does with spoken words.
- FredFredrickson 15y ago
  I don't work with these types of people, so I might sound ignorant here, but it seems like glasses like these could add a lot of "noise" to the world of an autistic or disabled adult.
jQueryIsAwesome 15y ago
This will certainly introduce a revolution in the gaming industry in the next few years... or at least, i hope it does.
- gumbo72 15y ago
  It will, for sure.
siavosh 15y ago
I loved the video, but it didn't show the glasses on his face. Besides the technical/usability challenges, I think the cultural connotation of the device will be an equally deal/no-deal situation. Like the Segway, significant portions of the society might associate negative connotations with the device ("dorky", antisocial, pretentious etc). I remember when a friend bought a pair of Oakley sunglasses with built in headphones. I think amongst my friends, the almost unanimous consensus was that it was not a good social statement to say the least. This will be a challenge, but I'm sure there's a solution.
- brico 15y ago
  I honestly don't see a market for every day use like they show it in this video. If I saw this on the streets right now I'd get a "bluetooth-headset-douchebag"-vibe
  - watty 15y ago
    What if they looked like normal glasses/sunglasses? May not be possible in the first revision but certainly a possibility.
    - Splines 15y ago
      /r/futureworldproblems: I'm wearing glasses because I can't afford LASIK, but everybody around me thinks I'm an AR douche
- Someone 15y ago
  "but it didn't show the glasses on his face" It did not show them on her face, either. That made me wonder whether it would, at some time, become socially acceptable or even the norm to have a video call where both parties do not see each other, but what the other is looking at. I think it might become the norm soon, if there are no technical challenges (how much stabilization do such images need? How much lag will that stabilization introduce? How will the experience be if the connection isn't good enough?)
  - 15y ago
JshWright 15y ago
Here's an example of how I would love to be able to use (even a very basic version of) this product: I'm an EMT (and Paramedic student). There are plenty of scenarios in emergency medicine where you're following a time based algorithm. In the example of a cardiac arrest patient, everything revolves around two minutes cycles of CPR, medications, and (if applicable) defibrillation. Even something as simple as a clock that was alway superimposed in the corner of my field of vision would be great. If it kept track of upcoming medications and other actions, that would be even better. I think this technology has applications in technical fields (medicine, mechanics, etc), long before it will be a common thing to wear out in 'normal life'.
- evoxed 15y ago
  What's exciting about this project is that if the software is an open platform, this is exactly the sort of thing that could be easily implemented for incredible benefits. They don't even need to implement it themselves as long as the hardware is solid– just spark enough interest with the public, get some contracts with other corporations (as you said in technical fields) to subsidize the cost of making it widespread in a short amount of time, and hackers will do the rest.
- rudyfink 15y ago
  I am in complete agreement that augmented reality ("AR") has the potential to be a game changer for physical tasks. It is the kind of thing that has the potential to raise the effective IQ of the user quite substantially. The military has spent a fair amount of time working on something similar to what you describe for vehicular repair. I think you might find the videos off of this page ( http://graphics.cs.columbia.edu/projects/armar/index.htm http://graphics.cs.columbia.edu/projects/armar/index.htm ) and this page ( http://singularityhub.com/2010/01/11/augmented-reality-to-help-military-mechanics-fix-vehicles-video/ http://singularityhub.com/2010/01/11/augmented-reality-to-he... ) very suggestive of the kind of thing you are looking for in medicine. I haven't seen the same level of thing yet for medical systems, though it may exist. I have seen some work on using AR for visualization of imaging (e.g. map the CT scan onto the body I am looking at). I think the sort of direct procedural guidance you describe is probably harder for people than it is for vehicular repair. At the core that is probably just a computational problem though.
ChuckMcM 15y ago
I wonder if they use a laser to do range finding. While asking for public input into what they should be able to do, it is clear the real value is that all Google employees can wear them, where they can stream snippets of other teams that are working on other parts of your project to you so that you can co-ordinate with your team. This should really streamline the release process, allowing groups of Googler's to get way more done than they would working alone and relying on email or other social media tools to co-ordinate. Creating dynamic hang outs, streaming the feeds of those around you, allowing for collective action against problems and to respond immediately and on target with just the right resources. A real break through in organizational efficiency. The only hangup is that the legendary mobility of people in Google, being able to switch jobs almost at will, means that trying to hard code names into the stream is really time consuming. The current work around is to just use numbers for the groups, so if you're the group working on adding Picasa support which is group number 15 on the p pages, you might be referred to as 3 of 15 ...
kiloaper 15y ago
I wonder how many Google Glasses wearers will become Life Loggers? I meet them at conferences occasionally. Some people actively avoid them. There's something about standing face to face with someone taking a photo of you every X seconds that people find really unnerving. I certainly do. Real time video is worse and it's very different to CCTV. How long before Google collects and mines all this video like they did with Google StreetView but in realtime? Combined with the huge advances in facial recognition the privacy implementations are frightening. It reminds me of the scifi film "The Entire History of You". [1] In the future will people who want to opt out of face recognition and tracking have to wear identifiers*, e.g. QR codes, on their person when talking to Google Glasses users, much like Google's wifi policy? [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Mirror_%28TV_series%29#3._.22The_Entire_History_of_You.22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Mirror_%28TV_series%29#3... [2] http://searchengineland.com/google-announces-nomap-wifi-optout-101134 http://searchengineland.com/google-announces-nomap-wifi-opto...
- jrockway 15y ago
  All the technology you're worried about exists and is widely used. Walk around the streets of New York City. Chances are, you're being photographed by people sharing photos online. My commute involves riding across the Brooklyn Bridge. I'm sure I ended up in 20 separate photographs today, many of which are now on Facebook. Likely with a comment about how I'm an asshole for riding my bicycle in the bicycle lane :) The underlying technology is not going to change once people start wearing cameras. If anything, the sheer volume of photographs being shared will make it less likely that the picture is of you. As for facial recognition, anyone who can write a few lines of Perl could easily scrape social network profile photos and start matching pictures of people on the Internet to names. It's trivial. And doing this sort of thing manually is popular: search for "human flesh search engine". Privacy in public just doesn't exist.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - pavel_lishin 15y ago
    I wonder if (when?) it will become socially acceptable to wear masks in public. Or perhaps something like this: http://cvdazzle.com/ http://cvdazzle.com/ Or perhaps a combination - a semi-transparent mask that constantly displays shifting patterns, like Rorschach's mask.
methodin 15y ago
Any indication how one interacts with the device aside from voice and the button for camera? Eye movement?
PanMan 15y ago
Unclear to me is how the interface works. In the demo video, how do you select an item? By eyesight? How do you click? The design is more stylish than I expected.
- DevX101 15y ago
  I love the style! The most elegant (but difficult) solution for selecting items would be to detect the focus of the eye.
EREFUNDO 15y ago
Since I was a kid I always dreamed of making a wearable goggles that will let you see the world very differently, like seeing another dimension. Advertising wasn't part of the idea....lol
sswezey 15y ago
If the other engineers are anything like Thad Starner (Georgia Tech professor), this will be an amazing thing! Thad has being working on very similar projects for ages and cannot be found without his laptop in a bag and screen on his glasses.
chrischen 15y ago
Something else you can get punched in the face for while walking down the street.
- DevX101 15y ago
  Warning! Warning! Convicted felon detected in oncoming approach 30 feet ahead. Take evasive action immediately.
fosk 15y ago
I want that you make it a platform, expose APIs, and allow developers to create apps for it.
deniska 15y ago
It's the eyePhone from Futurama.
rjurney 15y ago
Why don't they EVER show you what it looks like through the glasses?
9oliYQjP 15y ago
These glasses are ugly and unfashionable. But so are bluetooth headsets. I wonder if they'll follow a similar trend curve of rapidly gaining adoption while they seem techy-cool, but quickly turn to douchebag-turnoff accessories as they peak and trail off in adoption.
mmahemoff 15y ago
"A group of us from Google[x]" So this is the first official acknowledgement of Google X, no?
varunsaini 15y ago
I believe that if the product is good then it doesn't matter if you keep it under wrap or give a peek to people. Google believes in iterative model and they are keeping that. If they pull it off and sell it in 300-500 $ I can imagine seeing a lot of people wearing these and updating their facebook timelines and twitter :), so now we all know why they call Android, and Android
jwallaceparker 15y ago
When I was young my grandfather got me a pair of augmented reality glasses. They had thick green rims and he also got a pair for my sister, Janine. Her pair had red rims. We put the glasses on right away and boy did they augment! After that we really only took them off to sleep. About three weeks later our family took a trip to New York City. We were looking at all the tall buildings and they were really tall and beautiful. Then we took the glasses off and realized we were in Hoboken!
- sheraz 15y ago
  hahhaha. deep thoughts by jwallaceparker!
dbh937 15y ago
I wonder who will be testing these things... Hope Google has a signup list like the had with the CR-48!
kpanghmc 15y ago
Very cool. Although now it's going to be even more difficult to tell whether someone is talking to you, their Bluetooth headset, or their augmented reality glasses. I'm hoping they build in Google Translate into these things. They could be the real life version of the Babel fish.
hcarvalhoalves 15y ago
Soon: "Girls around Me" app for Google Glasses.
SCdF 15y ago
It looks like my idea of augmented reality is different from google's. The features and functions shown in that video were basically removing the pain of pulling your phone out of your pocket. It was, essentially, a more elegant system than strapping your phone to your face. It's a good start for the idea of putting processing power in front of your vision, but I wouldn't buy it until it actually augments my reality. If I look at my friend it should show upcoming appointments between us. If I look at a concert poster it should bring up links for articles about the band, reviews, links to buy tickets. That would be augmentation.
Foy 15y ago
Just imagine the comedic possibilities created by this device. Especially the voice activated picture-taking part.
charlieok 15y ago
I want this to replace at least most of the cases in which I'd otherwise be seen walking around looking at my phone. Compared to that, this can't help but be an unqualified improvement :)
thret 15y ago
Imagine what these could do for someone with alzheimer's.
zmmmmm 15y ago
I'm pretty skeptical about people's ability to multitask like this. We all like to think we can do several things at once but many studies have shown we're basically interrupt driven single-tasking organisms. You simply cannot walk and watch where you're going while also watching something in your glasses. People think that having the screen overlaid onto reality solves the problem, but the problem isn't really visual in the first place, it's mental. Try even reading a (real) sign while walking along and you'll find you're bumping into people, dangerously strolling across roads without looking, etc. I really want these to work, and I can see in limited situations (manually turn them on to look something up, etc.) they could. But I really deeply doubt they can work they way people are imagining.
noduerme 15y ago
The use of all the hipster tropes in their vid is enough to make me change my mind about never punching people with glasses.
Hortinstein 15y ago
anywhere we can sign up for the beta?
jhull 15y ago
now it all makes sense. they released the self-driving car first so that i can now click on ads instead of driving. genius
jhull 15y ago
holy grail will be to be able to target ads to someones glasses right after the get in a car crash. "Need a Lawyer? Blink Twice"
aaaassssghghg 15y ago
Dont anyone think its fake?!!!
jeremysalwen 15y ago
Looking at the potential for this technology, and seeing that it being used for what amounts to nothing more than shoving your iphone in your face 24/7 is bothersome. It's just an incremental step towards being on Facebook a little bit more. Why isn't this technology being developed for surgeons? Mechanics? Engineers? Police? Disabled people? Well, the answer's obvious: it's not where the money is. It's sad that actual advancement to our society is only getting the funding through piggy-backing on our increasing intrusive means of entertainment.
stcredzero 15y ago
Only a matter of time before someone implements something along the lines of "Girls Around Me" for this thing, only it would be "Girl I'm Looking At."
valgaze 15y ago
I would love to put this into the hands (eyeballs?) of salespeople for stuff you can't scale well so they can look down a road and see an overlay of appointments and contacts- a CRM overlay
firefoxman1 15y ago
So the what the people in those Palm Pre commercials had...will soon be real! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLYmzszg3nM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLYmzszg3nM
altrego99 15y ago
The hardware to display the AR in the glasses is not what I am concerned about. What makes me doubt this is the software that will do the speech analysis, and image analysis. Based on how much less than human our current attempts of these are (eg. Google Goggles, Siri), it will be a miracle if this develops into a product which ranks above in practical usability than its entertainment value.
Tzunamitom 15y ago
We did a lot of research into AR headsets in my last job. Four years ago they already had a fully functional system that would "project" 3D organs into a plastic cadaver, which could be manipulated with a scalpel-like stylus. There were two key problems - one was the weight (resulting in wearer fatigue), and the other was the refresh rate which caused nausea during prolonged use. Neither of these are significant barriers, and given Moore's Law I wouldn't be surprised if these things are as ubiquitous as smartphones in 5-10 years.
b1daly 15y ago
Why does the Google promo video make me feel icky? I already feel like my attachment to my iPhone is not healthy, I literally feel lost when I don't have it nearby. I might be too old to get excited about stuff like this. I suppose if it helped with my work I would use it, but otherwise I really enjoy looking directly at the world.
b1daly 15y ago
Why does the Google promo video make me feel icky? I already feel like my attachment to my iPhone is not healthy, I literally feel lost when I don't have it nearby. I might be too old to get excited about stuff like this. I suppose if it helped with my work I would use it, but otherwise I really enjoy looking directly at the world.
naughtysriram 15y ago
This looks something like the TEDx Sixth Sense by Pranav Mistry. http://www.ted.com/talks/pranav_mistry_the_thrilling_potential_of_sixthsense_technology.html http://www.ted.com/talks/pranav_mistry_the_thrilling_potenti...
rbarooah 15y ago
A big question is how soon these can function as a standalone device, or whether they would be tethered to a phone in your pocket first. Otherwise, are they much more than a head mount display accessory for Android? Head mount displays for mobile computers have been in industrial use for some time - e.g. http://www.stereo3d.com/hmd.htm http://www.stereo3d.com/hmd.htm
zerop 15y ago
But wouldnt this make people wearing it, more prone to accident... you are driving and someone pings you on Google+, the message appears on google glasses and you appear next to God !! :)
marcamillion 15y ago
I really hope this sees the light of day and they are able to execute on it the way it looks in the video. Unfortunately, I have seen too many cool videos come from research labs or highly paid scientists/engineers at tech companies and nothing ever comes of it - or rather, in a meaningful way to me anyway. Microsoft surface anyone? One of the things I LOVE about Apple is...if they released this video, I know I could expect to see it on store shelves in a month or at most a few months. Sometimes even as little as a few weeks. That's awesome. With this....only God He knows when we will ever see this.
bmj1 15y ago
If they opened up an API for this you could have a lot of fun: - P2P payments - Add as friend on FB/follow on Twitter - See friends in common/shared network
cshekhar 15y ago
This can be a april fool joke.

477 points by nickbilton 15y ago

On Wednesday, Google gave people 20/20 vision about a secret augmented-reality project called Project Glass. The glasses are the company’s first foray into wearable computing.

DanBC 15y ago

I want face recognition. No more "Hello er, ah, hello! How are you?" moments. I also want a version that shoots laser beams into my eye. (http://slashdot.org/articles/99/04/15/2058223_F.shtml http://slashdot.org/articles/99/04/15/2058223_F.shtml) (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3647437.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3647437.stm) Combined with a chording keyboard (Frogpad (except they don't seem to be making them anymore) or "The Twiddler" and I can be happy when commuting.

njharman 15y ago

I've been following wearable computing for very long time. Since Dr Steve Mann's eyetap and early MIT media lab http://www.media.mit.edu/wearables/ http://www.media.mit.edu/wearables/ and http://www.remem.org/ http://www.remem.org/ with chording keyboard and HUD is how I wanted future to work. These glasses look 1/2 as good as prototype and they are hackable at all, then the future is near. And look matters. I don't have problem stickin out. But many situations having bunch of wires and contraptions on your head is stickin out too far. esp now days that people think lightbrites are WMDs. Very, very excited.

mladenkovacevic 15y ago

Youtube promo of how it might work (is this for real or just a concept? looks too good to be true) http://youtu.be/9c6W4CCU9M4 http://youtu.be/9c6W4CCU9M4

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
pfraze 15y ago
I'm buying first gen. Then second gen. All the gens.
- Xurinos 15y ago
  What scares me is there is next to no choice on buying these, particularly if they are fast. There is an extreme advantage to people having easy access to information as it is presented in the video. Moreso than smartphones, it is a game changer.
  - artursapek 15y ago
    Next to no choice? You're saying people will just all want this by default? I think most people will want to try this, myself included. But personally I draw the line here and I think many others will. I would never want to own a pair. This will be a niche product for those people who already use Bluetooth headsets, who are a minority.
    - huskyr 15y ago
      "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame." ;) http://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-ipod http://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-ip...
      - eli 15y ago
        The original iPod was lame. It had a nice UI, but you had to already own a Mac with Firewire to even use it. But Apple kept iterating, ported iTunes to Windows, etc.
      - artursapek 15y ago
        Cute winky face, but you completely miss my point. I'm not saying this is "lame," I'm saying most people won't want to wear pixels on their face. Even the most successful products get criticism, especially in the beginning.
wickedchicken 15y ago
Off topic but I'm a little disappointed in their choice of the Strand. Alabaster Bookshop is right around the corner and has loads of stuff you wouldn't find at a Barnes & Noble.
- gmichnikov 15y ago
  While we're off topic, it's amusing that anyone would take the subway from 23rd and Park to the Strand. Perhaps Project Glass will have an option to promote healthy choices.
ilaksh 15y ago
I want to know what it actually does and what it actually looks like at this point in time. How about a video of that?

9k9 15y ago

Everyone would go crazy with the ability to check a news feed 24/7. I suppose we'd have to find a way to adapt to it as there are some pretty awesome advantages.

orblivion 15y ago
I keep hoping that the next real revolution will be a way we can decrease the amount of data we get. I can't conceive of how this would work even on a theoretical level, but I hope someone figures it out.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- koalaman 15y ago
  I've been thinking about this a lot myself. I think that software is eventually going to have to help us stay disciplined in concentrating on one thing at a time. Of course people are creeped out by the idea of software that tells us what to do, or not to do, but I for one would like my phone to remind me that this is not the time to look at hacker news, and besides, there's nothing critical on it for me to look at it that can't wait until later.
acgourley 15y ago
Don't phones do this now? To me the killer feature isn't 'always available' but that it's 'always passive'. Passively recording, passively overlaying information you might want, passively inserting ads...

heyrhett 15y ago

Why would the largest advertising company in the world want to place a screen between my eyeballs and reality?

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
jgrahamc 15y ago
Also, in the concept video he goes into a physical book store and selects a physical book and buys it. Surely, his Googgles would just scan the book tell him how much cheaper it was in the Google Store... Rather amused that when meeting a friend he spent time checking in to the location rather than talking to the dude. But these could be useful in situations where you don't have your hands free to hold a smartphone. For example, I would very much like GPS as a heads up display for cycling around London. And skiers/snowborders would enjoy them for other information (How many Gs am I pulling in this turn? How fast am I descending? Where am I?)
- falling 15y ago
  > And skiers/snowborders would enjoy them for other information (How many Gs am I pulling in this turn? How fast am I descending? Where am I?) http://www.reconinstruments.com/products/mod http://www.reconinstruments.com/products/mod
  - akurilin 15y ago
    That is absolutely mind-blowing. I had to double-check online that it wasn't a concept mock-up or a joke, but it turned out to be a real product. I have no idea how well that screen looks in RL, but if it's half as good as in those promotional videos, then it's pretty impressive. I thought it was going to cost a few thousand, but it's only 300/400, wow. I can only imagine what a company with the talent and resources of Google could do with more advanced iterations of HUD technology.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]

DasIch 15y ago

Augmented reality glasses, self-driving cars... Google is becoming a really exciting and interesting company. It will be interesting to see how Apple will react to this given that they are the ones claiming to revolutionize consumer technology every couple of years.

joejohnson 15y ago
Real artists ship. I'm very excited about all of Google's cool new projects, but they have a history of shooting themselves in the foot. If these technologies are so far along, why not build a consumer version and get people to pay to be testers?! Then iterate on the concept and keep improving it through successive versions. But that's Apple's game.
- jonknee 15y ago
  Because you don't ship when it still kills people. Google launches stuff in betas all the time (arguably too much and for too long), but I'm glad they're not out there letting anyone test self driving cars or augmented reality contacts. Apple's difference isn't that they iterate, it's that they don't talk about their new stuff until it ships.
  - switz 15y ago
    The automated car has driven over 200,000 miles and has never once been in an accident. I don't know many humans that can live up to that.
    - teej 15y ago
      200k miles is nothing. Over 8 billion vehicle miles are spent per DAY in the US. One person is killed for every 75 million miles driven. 200k miles isn't enough to test every terrain, under every weather condition, in every lighting, etc. There's too many variables in the equation. The Google car won't be truly safe until it has logged 1000x miles.

jeffpalmer 15y ago

This has the potential to be huge, especially since it's the brainchild of Google. One thing I noticed is that they didn't showcase object recognition of any type in the promo video. When I heard they were testing these glasses, Google Goggles is the first thing that came to mind. It would be really useful to auto-search objects by simply looking at them and issuing a command. I'm sure it's on their roadmap, if it's not already live in the glasses alpha/beta product.

dpezely 15y ago
Although Google will make this more popular due to their marketing efforts and brand, it's hardly their brainchild. Tom Furness developed similar devices decades ago: Once out of the military lab, this was a key project of the Human Interface Technology Lab at UW in Seattle in the early 1990's. Updating for smaller chips and components contributes to the current form-factor which includes the front-facing camera not present in the earliest versions. The upside of course is that this might finally get some traction with Google's budget and efforts.
- raphman 15y ago
  also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Mann#Anonequity_project_.28Mann.2C_Kerr.2C_and_others.29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Mann#Anonequity_project_....

exit 15y ago

is it a mistake releasing concept videos far ahead of the state of the art? hopefully what google announces at i/o will be shockingly advanced

jpontyface 15y ago

Seems like a cool product but glasses are a thing of the past. People moved to using contacts because of the annoyance of glasses, and wearing them all day can actually hurt my ears and nose. And once we start taking them off and putting them in our pockets while not using them, they become a phone with less features. I want something like this, maybe in a pair of contacts, but even contacts can be irritating. How about a genetically engineered eyeball?

raphman 15y ago
You want the display to overlay the environment. Contact lenses move with your eyeball - glasses don't. This means that you would need to precisely track the lenses somehow - probably with an apparatus affixed to your head. => Glasses are preferrable. Regarding genetically engineered eyeballs: what if they get a virus?

hswolff 15y ago

>“We’re sharing this information now because we want to start a conversation and learn from your valuable input,” the three employees wrote. “Please follow along as we share some of our ideas and stories. We’d love to hear yours, too. What would you like to see from Project Glass?” Why would you ask that? This type of product is so different from what's available on the market that I doubt the Project Glass team would receive any type of suggestions they'd find useful. That would be like Apple asking people "What do you want the iPhone to do?" before it was first released in 2007. If you're creating the product, create it. Find the features you want it to have and research the features it needs to have. Asking the public "what do you want it to have" will not do anyone any favors. Decision by committee can be truly atrocious.

nextparadigms 15y ago
If Google is smart, they would keep this for themselves, and sell the hardware themselves for a nice Apple-like profit. From the way it looks, I'm sure people will be more than happy to pay a bit extra - especially if it takes a few years for others to catch-up, like it happened versus the iPhone. Also, I assume this is going to work with a data plan as well? Well at least this time I really hope Google will not give in to carriers, and compromise on nothing. Don't give carriers the power Google. When this product becomes extremely successful, as I believe it will become, they will be begging you to sell it on their network. Although I'd probably prefer something like the former Nexus store, that intended to commoditize carriers, rather than give them exclusives.
- Androsynth 15y ago
  Google and Apple have fundamentally different business models. One sells hardware and one sells advertising. I would imagine Google's goal will be to put these glasses on as many people as they can, as cheaply as they can and then they have a direct advertising connection to a lot of eyeballs.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]

philo23 15y ago

That's a pretty neat concept video, but of course it's more than likely just a well produced concept video. Hopefully the real thing can live up to it. One thing I did think about after seeing the concept photos they have on the Google+ page (https://plus.google.com/111626127367496192147/posts https://plus.google.com/111626127367496192147/posts) and in this NYT article, what about us poor people not gifted with 20/20 vision? But again they are probably just concept images and shouldn't really be taken as much more than that.

gyardley 15y ago
From the article: There are reportedly dozens of other shapes and variations of the glasses in the works, some of which can sit over a person’s normal eyeglasses.

georgieporgie 15y ago

I want these glasses, but with lenses. Not just any lenses, I want lenses that have electronically-controlled, variable tint. Not only would I get the benefit of sunglasses, but the tint could be run up when I'm significantly engaged with my built-in display. Sort of an indicator to others to avoid the social annoyances witnessed in modern, overly discreet mobile phone Bluetooth headsets (and no, I don't mean black them out and blind me, nor do I mean to signal muggers as to my distraction in a shady part of town, though I do see the benefits of Peril Sensitive Sunglasses).

joshrotenberg 15y ago

Looks like a great way to increase pedestrian fatalities.

msg 15y ago
If only there was a way to travel autonomously without needing to monitor the environment visually. Back to the drawing board, Google. </>
GraffitiTim 15y ago
Not if you also wear a Google self-driving beanie.

duopixel 15y ago

As much as I like the design, I think Google should first aim at making them look as inconspicuous as possible by making it look like a normal piece of eyewear. There are very few visible pieces of technology that we carry and display in public (probably only glasses and watches). Visible wearable technology has a long history of being either geeky or douchebaggish (bluetooth headsets). I'm suspecting the current incarnation of Google's glasses would elicit both perceptions.

nextparadigms 15y ago
To be honest, the glasses look way more minimalistic than I was thinking. I was expecting something like full sunglasses - maybe even ones that are bit bulkier. So from what point of view I'm very impressed. But I agree that if they got this far already, they can probably make them even more minimalistic in version 2.0 or 3.0. But really, they look very modern already. Kind of like some of the best looking bluetooth headsets out there - just longer.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

sebastianavina 15y ago

I just want to lay on the beach this vacations, but my cellphone doesn't stop to ring, I'm attached to my job with my cellphone, and if I turn it off, it's just rude. This glasses are a real nightmare for me.

gilrain 15y ago
This is a problem with your job or possibly your work ethic, not your phone.
slowpoke 15y ago
Why would that be rude? On the contrary, I'd consider the people calling you while you're on vacation rude.

jacquesm 15y ago

I can see a great use of this for technical work on hardware that requires huge amounts of documentation (say aircraft maintenance). The glasses the way they're designed are smart, not in between but rather in a fixed spot and only a part of the field of view. I definitely wouldn't want a computer screen between my eyes and 'the real world' in normal day to day life. Believing what my eyes see is important to me and with another layer in between you'll never know whether you are reacting to an overlay or the real thing. Especially if the images are created with input from a remote source which opens all kinds of interesting possibilities. Superimpose a picture of a traffic accident on the glasses of someone that is driving and you could very well end up with the real thing. Seeing is believing they say and the response to visual input can be very reflexive. Audio alone can be distracting enough. So google seems to have that part done right, it'd be great to play around with these.

dpezely 15y ago
Chris Esposito at Boeing in the early 1990's worked on such a project: aircraft maintenance augmented using "VR glasses" concurrently developed at the Human Interface Technology Lab in Seattle. I suspect that this is his profile: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/chris-esposito/5/673/785 http://www.linkedin.com/pub/chris-esposito/5/673/785
daralthus 15y ago
On the opposite side they could have made not another display, but a whole new tool. A new interface for manipulating dynamic content. Preferably with your hands. Eliminating objects, laptops, touch displays... However there are some clear points why did they choose this path: - they only needed to make the display tech. Everything other could come later. - the lifelogging aspect could get hyped, making the whole thing sexy. But still I am a bit dissapointed, now let's jump on hand and object recognition!
- Erwin 15y ago
  I don't know whether the technology is there, but I could see AR glasses being paired with a (RFID? Bluetooth?) ring you wear as a pointing device. The demo uses speech but I haven't found the Google voice search very impressive so I have my doubts. Put it on your finger (or if a cheap and small RFID chip, glue it onto your fingernail, or even paint each of your fingernails with invisible slightly radioactive nail polish), pair it with your glasses and you can use your finger(s) as a pointing device in the AR overlay. Depending on input resolution, the movements could be subtle -- you don't have to raise your hands as if conducting an orchestra although that would be fun to see. Wiggle your fingers to control your headset. Or how about keyboard trousers. Invisible areas on the outside of your trousers that you can tap as a small 10-key keyboard.

robbiemitchell 15y ago

Interesting that, in the demo video, he "shares to his circles" rather than to a specific circle. Even in the Google+ future, it's easier to share with everyone than to segment everyone endlessly.

xxbondsxx 15y ago
They've changed this on the main site as well. They know most people are just blasting everything, so that's the default now (at least for me).

saturdaysaint 15y ago

Interesting that that the intro video also seems to be a subtle demonstration of new natural language commands. Kind of a clever way of minimizing "Siri" by packaging it into something much bigger. I'm curious how some of the actions are initiated - the video implies that visual recognition/location awareness/voice commands initiate the search, but I wonder if a button is also pressed.

dsirijus 15y ago

I could name you dozen of IT companies that unveiled concept for a product that's basically same as this. The only and real question is - can Google pull it off?

sabalaba 15y ago

Looking forward to hacking on these. Hopefully they can redesign them to not look like Geordi from Star Trek.

saturdaysaint 15y ago

I don't know whether to be encouraged or disturbed by the notion of having wearable cameras become socially acceptable. On one hand, I would think this could be a major crime deterrent - the idea of a "witness" could become quaint as any crime could easily be captured with a time/location stamp. But it could also be a major altering of norms. Are women comfortable with the idea that any guy looking at them on the street can capture their image?

dpark 15y ago
How is this actually any different than today? There's nothing stopping me from popping up my phone to take a picture or video in a public space. There's also nothing stopping me from wearing a pinhole camera all the time. If these became common, then obviously there would be more cameras on at all times, but the fundamentals wouldn't be any different. It seems like the biggest difference is that if a ton of people were wearing these all the time, police couldn't tell everyone to turn them off. If they looked like normal glasses, they wouldn't even know.
- saturdaysaint 15y ago
  I agree that in a way, this would only intensify effects of camera-equipped cellphones. I have a pet theory that ever-present camera-phones are responsible for at least some of the drop in crime in the last decade. And while the controversy has gone away, there were a lot of overblown concerns about "camera-phones in locker rooms" in the early 00's. The difference is speed. You'd always have a camera aimed at whatever you were looking at. If you saw a mugger grab a purse, you might not have the presence of mind to fumble with your phone, but you might be able to press a button or say "take picture" (or whatever). I'd imagine that a decrease in response time could be a real deterrent. I know there've been spy cams forever, but I'd argue that merely owning one (let alone openly displaying it) would mark you for suspicion among a lot of people and I don't think they're widely used. I'm not saying it's the end of the world, but there are some new privacy norms that will be established if these are to take off.
  - 15y ago

jasonlotito 15y ago

What this will provide for disabled and autistic people is amazing. It's too easy to get caught up in the "social sharing" part of this and forget that something like this can really help change people's lives. Edit: To expand a bit, take an autistic adult that wants to do something, like go to the movies. It's simple for us, we wash up, get dressed, go outside, go down the straight, hope on the 132 Bus for 3 stops, get off, walk 2 blocks, pay for tickets, and go into theater number 5. For someone with autism, they can struggle with things like this. These glasses provide them with visual cues base upon their location, so when they finally do get to the theater, the glasses can show them what to do next, and give them that visual cue. Currently working on an app for tablets for this sort of things, but having it work in glasses would be simply amazing. God, what I wouldn't give to be apart of this.

trothamel 15y ago
I suspect that this will be a huge benefit to deaf people as well, once speech recognition works well enough.
- jasonlotito 15y ago
  The biggest benefit of this is it's inconspicuous nature. they are glasses. They aren't big cumbersome devices, and they aren't phones that you have to carry around in one hand to use. They're apart of you like no other device you carry.
- sp332 15y ago
  You wouldn't even necessarily need the speech "recognition" to resolve words completely, e.g. deciding which homonym is appropriate in a given context. Just representing incoming phonemes in IPA could be a great improvement. The human brain can translate this input on the fly just like it does with spoken words.
FredFredrickson 15y ago
I don't work with these types of people, so I might sound ignorant here, but it seems like glasses like these could add a lot of "noise" to the world of an autistic or disabled adult.

jQueryIsAwesome 15y ago

This will certainly introduce a revolution in the gaming industry in the next few years... or at least, i hope it does.

gumbo72 15y ago
It will, for sure.

siavosh 15y ago

I loved the video, but it didn't show the glasses on his face. Besides the technical/usability challenges, I think the cultural connotation of the device will be an equally deal/no-deal situation. Like the Segway, significant portions of the society might associate negative connotations with the device ("dorky", antisocial, pretentious etc). I remember when a friend bought a pair of Oakley sunglasses with built in headphones. I think amongst my friends, the almost unanimous consensus was that it was not a good social statement to say the least. This will be a challenge, but I'm sure there's a solution.

brico 15y ago
I honestly don't see a market for every day use like they show it in this video. If I saw this on the streets right now I'd get a "bluetooth-headset-douchebag"-vibe
- watty 15y ago
  What if they looked like normal glasses/sunglasses? May not be possible in the first revision but certainly a possibility.
  - Splines 15y ago
    /r/futureworldproblems: I'm wearing glasses because I can't afford LASIK, but everybody around me thinks I'm an AR douche
Someone 15y ago
"but it didn't show the glasses on his face" It did not show them on her face, either. That made me wonder whether it would, at some time, become socially acceptable or even the norm to have a video call where both parties do not see each other, but what the other is looking at. I think it might become the norm soon, if there are no technical challenges (how much stabilization do such images need? How much lag will that stabilization introduce? How will the experience be if the connection isn't good enough?)
- 15y ago

JshWright 15y ago

Here's an example of how I would love to be able to use (even a very basic version of) this product: I'm an EMT (and Paramedic student). There are plenty of scenarios in emergency medicine where you're following a time based algorithm. In the example of a cardiac arrest patient, everything revolves around two minutes cycles of CPR, medications, and (if applicable) defibrillation. Even something as simple as a clock that was alway superimposed in the corner of my field of vision would be great. If it kept track of upcoming medications and other actions, that would be even better. I think this technology has applications in technical fields (medicine, mechanics, etc), long before it will be a common thing to wear out in 'normal life'.

evoxed 15y ago
What's exciting about this project is that if the software is an open platform, this is exactly the sort of thing that could be easily implemented for incredible benefits. They don't even need to implement it themselves as long as the hardware is solid– just spark enough interest with the public, get some contracts with other corporations (as you said in technical fields) to subsidize the cost of making it widespread in a short amount of time, and hackers will do the rest.
rudyfink 15y ago
I am in complete agreement that augmented reality ("AR") has the potential to be a game changer for physical tasks. It is the kind of thing that has the potential to raise the effective IQ of the user quite substantially. The military has spent a fair amount of time working on something similar to what you describe for vehicular repair. I think you might find the videos off of this page ( http://graphics.cs.columbia.edu/projects/armar/index.htm http://graphics.cs.columbia.edu/projects/armar/index.htm ) and this page ( http://singularityhub.com/2010/01/11/augmented-reality-to-help-military-mechanics-fix-vehicles-video/ http://singularityhub.com/2010/01/11/augmented-reality-to-he... ) very suggestive of the kind of thing you are looking for in medicine. I haven't seen the same level of thing yet for medical systems, though it may exist. I have seen some work on using AR for visualization of imaging (e.g. map the CT scan onto the body I am looking at). I think the sort of direct procedural guidance you describe is probably harder for people than it is for vehicular repair. At the core that is probably just a computational problem though.

ChuckMcM 15y ago

I wonder if they use a laser to do range finding. While asking for public input into what they should be able to do, it is clear the real value is that all Google employees can wear them, where they can stream snippets of other teams that are working on other parts of your project to you so that you can co-ordinate with your team. This should really streamline the release process, allowing groups of Googler's to get way more done than they would working alone and relying on email or other social media tools to co-ordinate. Creating dynamic hang outs, streaming the feeds of those around you, allowing for collective action against problems and to respond immediately and on target with just the right resources. A real break through in organizational efficiency. The only hangup is that the legendary mobility of people in Google, being able to switch jobs almost at will, means that trying to hard code names into the stream is really time consuming. The current work around is to just use numbers for the groups, so if you're the group working on adding Picasa support which is group number 15 on the p pages, you might be referred to as 3 of 15 ...

kiloaper 15y ago

I wonder how many Google Glasses wearers will become Life Loggers? I meet them at conferences occasionally. Some people actively avoid them. There's something about standing face to face with someone taking a photo of you every X seconds that people find really unnerving. I certainly do. Real time video is worse and it's very different to CCTV. How long before Google collects and mines all this video like they did with Google StreetView but in realtime? Combined with the huge advances in facial recognition the privacy implementations are frightening. It reminds me of the scifi film "The Entire History of You". [1] In the future will people who want to opt out of face recognition and tracking have to wear identifiers*, e.g. QR codes, on their person when talking to Google Glasses users, much like Google's wifi policy? [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Mirror_%28TV_series%29#3._.22The_Entire_History_of_You.22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Mirror_%28TV_series%29#3... [2] http://searchengineland.com/google-announces-nomap-wifi-optout-101134 http://searchengineland.com/google-announces-nomap-wifi-opto...

jrockway 15y ago
All the technology you're worried about exists and is widely used. Walk around the streets of New York City. Chances are, you're being photographed by people sharing photos online. My commute involves riding across the Brooklyn Bridge. I'm sure I ended up in 20 separate photographs today, many of which are now on Facebook. Likely with a comment about how I'm an asshole for riding my bicycle in the bicycle lane :) The underlying technology is not going to change once people start wearing cameras. If anything, the sheer volume of photographs being shared will make it less likely that the picture is of you. As for facial recognition, anyone who can write a few lines of Perl could easily scrape social network profile photos and start matching pictures of people on the Internet to names. It's trivial. And doing this sort of thing manually is popular: search for "human flesh search engine". Privacy in public just doesn't exist.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- pavel_lishin 15y ago
  I wonder if (when?) it will become socially acceptable to wear masks in public. Or perhaps something like this: http://cvdazzle.com/ http://cvdazzle.com/ Or perhaps a combination - a semi-transparent mask that constantly displays shifting patterns, like Rorschach's mask.

methodin 15y ago

Any indication how one interacts with the device aside from voice and the button for camera? Eye movement?

PanMan 15y ago

Unclear to me is how the interface works. In the demo video, how do you select an item? By eyesight? How do you click? The design is more stylish than I expected.

DevX101 15y ago
I love the style! The most elegant (but difficult) solution for selecting items would be to detect the focus of the eye.

EREFUNDO 15y ago

Since I was a kid I always dreamed of making a wearable goggles that will let you see the world very differently, like seeing another dimension. Advertising wasn't part of the idea....lol

sswezey 15y ago

If the other engineers are anything like Thad Starner (Georgia Tech professor), this will be an amazing thing! Thad has being working on very similar projects for ages and cannot be found without his laptop in a bag and screen on his glasses.

chrischen 15y ago

Something else you can get punched in the face for while walking down the street.

DevX101 15y ago
Warning! Warning! Convicted felon detected in oncoming approach 30 feet ahead. Take evasive action immediately.

fosk 15y ago

I want that you make it a platform, expose APIs, and allow developers to create apps for it.

deniska 15y ago

It's the eyePhone from Futurama.

rjurney 15y ago

Why don't they EVER show you what it looks like through the glasses?

9oliYQjP 15y ago

These glasses are ugly and unfashionable. But so are bluetooth headsets. I wonder if they'll follow a similar trend curve of rapidly gaining adoption while they seem techy-cool, but quickly turn to douchebag-turnoff accessories as they peak and trail off in adoption.

mmahemoff 15y ago

"A group of us from Google[x]" So this is the first official acknowledgement of Google X, no?

varunsaini 15y ago

I believe that if the product is good then it doesn't matter if you keep it under wrap or give a peek to people. Google believes in iterative model and they are keeping that. If they pull it off and sell it in 300-500 $ I can imagine seeing a lot of people wearing these and updating their facebook timelines and twitter :), so now we all know why they call Android, and Android

jwallaceparker 15y ago

When I was young my grandfather got me a pair of augmented reality glasses. They had thick green rims and he also got a pair for my sister, Janine. Her pair had red rims. We put the glasses on right away and boy did they augment! After that we really only took them off to sleep. About three weeks later our family took a trip to New York City. We were looking at all the tall buildings and they were really tall and beautiful. Then we took the glasses off and realized we were in Hoboken!

sheraz 15y ago
hahhaha. deep thoughts by jwallaceparker!

dbh937 15y ago

I wonder who will be testing these things... Hope Google has a signup list like the had with the CR-48!

kpanghmc 15y ago

Very cool. Although now it's going to be even more difficult to tell whether someone is talking to you, their Bluetooth headset, or their augmented reality glasses. I'm hoping they build in Google Translate into these things. They could be the real life version of the Babel fish.

hcarvalhoalves 15y ago

Soon: "Girls around Me" app for Google Glasses.

SCdF 15y ago

It looks like my idea of augmented reality is different from google's. The features and functions shown in that video were basically removing the pain of pulling your phone out of your pocket. It was, essentially, a more elegant system than strapping your phone to your face. It's a good start for the idea of putting processing power in front of your vision, but I wouldn't buy it until it actually augments my reality. If I look at my friend it should show upcoming appointments between us. If I look at a concert poster it should bring up links for articles about the band, reviews, links to buy tickets. That would be augmentation.

Foy 15y ago

Just imagine the comedic possibilities created by this device. Especially the voice activated picture-taking part.

charlieok 15y ago

I want this to replace at least most of the cases in which I'd otherwise be seen walking around looking at my phone. Compared to that, this can't help but be an unqualified improvement :)

thret 15y ago

Imagine what these could do for someone with alzheimer's.

zmmmmm 15y ago

I'm pretty skeptical about people's ability to multitask like this. We all like to think we can do several things at once but many studies have shown we're basically interrupt driven single-tasking organisms. You simply cannot walk and watch where you're going while also watching something in your glasses. People think that having the screen overlaid onto reality solves the problem, but the problem isn't really visual in the first place, it's mental. Try even reading a (real) sign while walking along and you'll find you're bumping into people, dangerously strolling across roads without looking, etc. I really want these to work, and I can see in limited situations (manually turn them on to look something up, etc.) they could. But I really deeply doubt they can work they way people are imagining.

noduerme 15y ago

The use of all the hipster tropes in their vid is enough to make me change my mind about never punching people with glasses.

Hortinstein 15y ago

anywhere we can sign up for the beta?

jhull 15y ago

now it all makes sense. they released the self-driving car first so that i can now click on ads instead of driving. genius

jhull 15y ago

holy grail will be to be able to target ads to someones glasses right after the get in a car crash. "Need a Lawyer? Blink Twice"

aaaassssghghg 15y ago

Dont anyone think its fake?!!!

jeremysalwen 15y ago

Looking at the potential for this technology, and seeing that it being used for what amounts to nothing more than shoving your iphone in your face 24/7 is bothersome. It's just an incremental step towards being on Facebook a little bit more. Why isn't this technology being developed for surgeons? Mechanics? Engineers? Police? Disabled people? Well, the answer's obvious: it's not where the money is. It's sad that actual advancement to our society is only getting the funding through piggy-backing on our increasing intrusive means of entertainment.

stcredzero 15y ago

Only a matter of time before someone implements something along the lines of "Girls Around Me" for this thing, only it would be "Girl I'm Looking At."

valgaze 15y ago

I would love to put this into the hands (eyeballs?) of salespeople for stuff you can't scale well so they can look down a road and see an overlay of appointments and contacts- a CRM overlay

firefoxman1 15y ago

So the what the people in those Palm Pre commercials had...will soon be real! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLYmzszg3nM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLYmzszg3nM

altrego99 15y ago

The hardware to display the AR in the glasses is not what I am concerned about. What makes me doubt this is the software that will do the speech analysis, and image analysis. Based on how much less than human our current attempts of these are (eg. Google Goggles, Siri), it will be a miracle if this develops into a product which ranks above in practical usability than its entertainment value.

Tzunamitom 15y ago

We did a lot of research into AR headsets in my last job. Four years ago they already had a fully functional system that would "project" 3D organs into a plastic cadaver, which could be manipulated with a scalpel-like stylus. There were two key problems - one was the weight (resulting in wearer fatigue), and the other was the refresh rate which caused nausea during prolonged use. Neither of these are significant barriers, and given Moore's Law I wouldn't be surprised if these things are as ubiquitous as smartphones in 5-10 years.

b1daly 15y ago

Why does the Google promo video make me feel icky? I already feel like my attachment to my iPhone is not healthy, I literally feel lost when I don't have it nearby. I might be too old to get excited about stuff like this. I suppose if it helped with my work I would use it, but otherwise I really enjoy looking directly at the world.

b1daly 15y ago

naughtysriram 15y ago

This looks something like the TEDx Sixth Sense by Pranav Mistry. http://www.ted.com/talks/pranav_mistry_the_thrilling_potential_of_sixthsense_technology.html http://www.ted.com/talks/pranav_mistry_the_thrilling_potenti...

rbarooah 15y ago

A big question is how soon these can function as a standalone device, or whether they would be tethered to a phone in your pocket first. Otherwise, are they much more than a head mount display accessory for Android? Head mount displays for mobile computers have been in industrial use for some time - e.g. http://www.stereo3d.com/hmd.htm http://www.stereo3d.com/hmd.htm

zerop 15y ago

But wouldnt this make people wearing it, more prone to accident... you are driving and someone pings you on Google+, the message appears on google glasses and you appear next to God !! :)

marcamillion 15y ago

I really hope this sees the light of day and they are able to execute on it the way it looks in the video. Unfortunately, I have seen too many cool videos come from research labs or highly paid scientists/engineers at tech companies and nothing ever comes of it - or rather, in a meaningful way to me anyway. Microsoft surface anyone? One of the things I LOVE about Apple is...if they released this video, I know I could expect to see it on store shelves in a month or at most a few months. Sometimes even as little as a few weeks. That's awesome. With this....only God He knows when we will ever see this.

bmj1 15y ago

If they opened up an API for this you could have a lot of fun: - P2P payments - Add as friend on FB/follow on Twitter - See friends in common/shared network

cshekhar 15y ago

This can be a april fool joke.