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>“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 alon

• 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]
    • nextparadigms 15y ago
      I believe Google has higher ambitions than selling advertising for the next 3 decades. They didn't buy Motorola just for patents, and to me they seem to be increasingly more interested in the physical world. I don't think it's a stretch to think that they want to make and sell physical products.
      • zmmmmm 15y ago
        Yeah, the more I think about these glasses the more the Motorola acquisition makes sense. If you look at some of the products Motorola makes, eg: http://www.motorola.com/Consumers/US-EN/Consumer-Product-and-Services/Bluetooth-Headsets/Motorola-S10-HD-US-EN http://www.motorola.com/Consumers/US-EN/Consumer-Product-and... You can see it is a fairly short leap to producing all manner of interesting hardware, including AR glasses. I think Google is starting to realise that so many of their ventures are getting stymied by depending on 3rd parties for hardware that it's eventually going to be a threat to their core mission (organizing information, etc.) I bet they've had high level talks with OEMs about things like this and always get frustrated by the low margins they operate on and the need to reap immediate profits for anything to happen.
        • pagekalisedown 15y ago
          I think this Motorola product is even more relevant: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden-i http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden-i
    • taliesinb 15y ago
      .. making the term "selling eyeballs" just a _little_ bit more accurate.
• andreyf 15y ago
  From a marketing perspective, it's a greater blunder still: asking people to think about what they'd want Glass to do it will quickly set expectations well beyond what's technologically feasible for an initial product. That and the wishful concept video almost guarantee the initial product will be a disappointment. And that's a damn shame, because given Google's talent, it'll nevertheless be a engineering feat of epic proportion. That said, perhaps Google doesn't care about releasing perfectly marketed hit products a la Apple. If wearable computers catch on that make it easier to check-in to the places you go and +1 the stuff you like, they'll make tons more money from useful targeted ads than units of hardware shipped, just as they do now.
  • FredFredrickson 15y ago
    "And that's a damn shame, because given Google's talent, it'll nevertheless be a engineering feat of epic proportion." You know, I have respect for the people Google employs - they are certainly a very talented bunch. But what has Google ever engineered, at least physically, that has set your expectations so high?
    • courtewing 15y ago
      I think the technical infrastructure they've built to support Youtube, Google Search, and the rest of their products is a modern technological marvel, and that was designed 100% in-house as far as I know. I don't think they've developed a physical consumer product that is revolutionary, but I believe they have the talent to do so.
    • atonse 15y ago
      Everything I've heard about the self driving car gets me more excited than Search ever did. But then again I've never seen it.
    • deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
    • jrockway 15y ago
      But what has Google ever engineered, at least physically, that has set your expectations so high? Driverless cars.
• brico 15y ago
  They ask it because they have a cool product but don't know how to use it. I doubt it will be used the way they promote it, this is cool stuff you come up with when you are brainstorming with some friends + beer but when you think about it, it doesn't improve your life, it adds noise. In different areas however it could be a big improvement, if you are repairing stuff with no hands free in a dimly lit area and you need info from a manual or you want others to see what you see and help you.
• ramy_d 15y ago
  this, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denn%C5%8D_Coil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denn%C5%8D_Coil make dennu coil happen.
  • chadgeidel 15y ago
    Sounds a lot like Rainbow's End: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbows_End http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbows_End I agree - make it happen.
    • ianferrel 15y ago
      Nitpick: There's no apostrophe in the title "Rainbows End". Relevant because of how much it changes the meaning.
  • agumonkey 15y ago
    completely off topic but you put Mitsuo Iso's name in my internal map of the universe and now an entire span of dark fog is gone. thanks
• indiefan 15y ago
  Typical Google. Treating what should be platforms like products and treating what should be products like platforms.
  • nextparadigms 15y ago
    Are you saying they should license this technology to Samsung and others? If that's the case, I disagree. This is Google's chance to increase their profits and market cap three fold and within a few years, if this product turns out as exciting as it seems to be right now.
    • fudged 15y ago
      Considering the number of failed Google services, I think it's plausible to consider more "open" products to have a bigger opportunity for growth and popularity. Allowing third party developers to do their own thing with the product would remove Google's sluggishness as a factor for avoiding the device.
  • jordhy 15y ago
    This is a great point. In the Project Glass video all of the products are Google's. Imagine if, instead of a product, the Google glasses were an open platform for AR like Android is for smartphones. If this were so, Google could create a new app store for AR applications, a new distribution platform for web searches, AR open web apps, and (maybe) a first-person version of YouTube (reality TV 3.0). This platform would mobilize the development community and deter some companies from building apps for the iPhone (if delivery on the Google Glass platform would be more convenient). As a developer who is working on a product that's very well suited to take advantage of this product I'm very ashamed of Google's lack of third-party developer involvement and business vision. Sure the product looks great, but is not solely about products; it's about people, about delivering value for customers the world over. And the full value of this product would only be realized if Google takes a platform approach, opens up the ecosystem and lets everybody in (including, and, especially Facebook). Summary of the good things I saw in the demo: - Very clean user interface - Nice hardware design - Interesting functionalities - Nice integration with Google products - Slick animations - Seems to be pretty fast Initial concerns: - Video calls in version one? What about battery life? Sometimes is better to keep some things out on first iterations - No hints to integrations with other platforms - Too much use of voice (we all know the state of the art in voice recognition and how long voice processing currently takes) - I didn't see a single Web search in the video... how come? All and all this is a VERY promising product and a very important one for the whole industry. I hope Google opens up this platform so that it can reach all the momentum and followers it deserves.
• fudged 15y ago
  Why would you ask that? Did you hear about how Google dogfooded Google+ for months, and when it was released to the public, people used it entirely differently than they had used it internally? It seems to me that Google is so stuck in the mindset of "Release a Beta, assess the adoption, iteratively improve" that they don't know how to make a product that people will actually want from the start. Chrome took a while to be adopted because everyone was still stuck with useful extensions in other browsers. Wave had neat interaction, but failed the adoption hypothesis. Google+ correctly assumed the need for a sharing-centric network to replace Facebook, but botched the actual social aspect of it. Google is the polar opposite of Apple in this regard. They need to learn to keep things under wraps and understand the userbase for the product before it actually reaches them. In the case of Google+, for instance, it's impossible to change the sharing mechanism that has been there from the start, as fundamentally flawed as it may be.
  • cromwellian 15y ago
    I don't see why everyone should seek to emulate Apple, it's the antithesis of the Valley mentality. Everyone else goes for openness, iteration, and lean mentality, not stealth and secrecy, it rarely works. You can't always design products from the top down. Sometimes you have to run actual experiments and collect data. The Apple aura that they can sit in an ivory tower and perfectly craft things that everyone wants will fade away the first time they release a product that bombs. Right now, they are successful, so everyone says go emulate them. That's a shortsighted MBA mentality, that there's this formula for success, and you just need to emulate the practices of others.
    • lukifer 15y ago
      Apple creates bombs all the time: the G4 Cube, iPod Socks, iPod Hi-Fi, iAds. They create enough other things that don't bomb to make up for it. But you're right that Apple's way is only one way, and it's non-obvious how to go about replicating their processes even if you wanted to. If anything should be learned from Apple, it's every aspect of the experience should be considered part of the product, including anticipation and expectations. That can mean a big media event unveiling a top-secret project, or it can mean launching a developer wiki before the product is even finished. Either way, managing the experiences of your customers, even pre-purchase, is part of the job.
• dannyr 15y ago
  Some people see the infinite possibilities to what Google is doing. While others see only what's wrong to what Google is doing.
  • deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  • jodrellblank 15y ago
    If I wanted infinite possibilities, I'd go outside. I pay companies to narrow out the nearly-infinite shitty possibilities and provide a useful grouping of the remainder.
    • acchow 15y ago
      Innovative products from companies are more than "fold" or "reduce" operations.
• EwanG 15y ago
  Interesting timing. I wrote the following yesterday afternoon before they published, and yet I seem to be answering their question: http://a1.blogspot.com/2012/04/first-app-i-want-from-new-google.html http://a1.blogspot.com/2012/04/first-app-i-want-from-new-goo... So guess they might get a FEW good ideas :-)
• gt384u 15y ago
  I think I understand the motivation behind your comment and I'd agree to some extent, but designers still have the mantra that users need to be involved in the process of design. For some design practitioners, it's maybe ensuring that designers write personas and scenarios for different types of users or engage in narrative-based design exercises, or even (if you're the right sort of weirdo) participatory design. I honestly have no idea what stage this project is in. Are they in a phase that's more ideation? Are they refining in their design funnel? I think it's a bit curious to point at an example of a product by one company and say essentially 'They did it this way and were successful, clearly this is how all things should be designed'. I'm not sure this is an issue of them asking a question analagous to "What do you want the iPhone to do?" so much as it's maybe "How annoying are people who aren't researchers and designers going to find wearing HUD glasses for 3 hours a day?" or "Will people feel uncomfortable using them in pedestrian or cycling settings given that they're voice-activated and pervasive?" Granted, there are maybe analogous products on the market that will maybe inform how people will interact with this new medium, but I have a few years experience interacting with someone using this sort of one-eyed projective displays (my former research advisor wore one) and there are some funny things involved with face to face interaction with someone using them that you might not anticipate. In fact, he felt that the eyepiece was often enough of a social interaction barrier that he'd take his off and tuck it into his shirt pocket when he was having a conversation. You're not necessarily going to figure these things out in the product design lab. Maybe it's stupid of Google, but I suspect they're trying to better do design for the wild. Alternately, they're just people who don't know how to make products.