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It does seem to rely heavily on picking at low hanging fruit. Flight times are important if you are in an airport, but its hardly life changing. My hunch is th

by 7952 14y ago

It does seem to rely heavily on picking at low hanging fruit. Flight times are important if you are in an airport, but its hardly life changing. My hunch is that it will be made by a hundred thousand small niche uses rather than a single billion dollar idea. This could be completely transcendent, and maybe needs to be to cut through the sensible aversion to this kind of tech.

DrDreams 14y ago
I agree. I think, like cell phones, they will add more value in specific occupations, like package deliveries/warehouses, than everyday life. Once enough niche apps are developed and people start to feel the need to bring those apps into everyday life, then people will use them.
jgrahamc 14y ago
Flight times at the airport are a great example. I don't need to know the time of my flight, but I do need to know if it's been delayed or if the gate changes. I don't need to know those things I already know them in some other way.
- 7952 14y ago
  But the flight example could work just as well or better with text messages from the airline. Your example is just a more annoying way of displaying notifications.
  - nthj 14y ago
    I was about to disagree with you, but I realized the real problem I wanted to address was the importance of context. Text messages from an airline aren't great because by default they have the same "ding" as random jokes and "hey what's up." messages. But Google Glasses could easily start having the exact same problem. We need software to be trained with more intelligent context awareness — hey, Nathaniel put his phone on silent, but he is at the airport and here is a notification about a delayed flight, so the phone should vibrate a little bit to make sure he sees it. We're getting better at this, as an industry: I walk into the Apple Store, it asks me to check into my genius appointment. If I walk into the movie theater, my phone pulls up my ticket as a QR code. But we still have a long way to go, and I think it's a far more interesting and important problem than whether the information shows up on my glasses or my phone.
    - 7952 14y ago
      Absolutely agree. Perhaps what is lacking is an effective feedback loop. When Google Display an incorrect search listing it is obvious based on user click patterns and can be factored into the algorithm. If Google don't tell you that your train is delayed there is no feedback loop.
leoc 14y ago
I think the biggest application for Glasses is hands-free, head-up, relatively inconspicuous outdoor on-foot turn-by-turn navigation. That is the nearest thing you can get on-foot to the pleasure of in-car turn-by-turn navigation, with no need to walk around holding a mobile phone screen in front of your face. (The same kind of navigation indoors would be almost as wonderfully useful - especially for finding your way to the bloody airport departure gate! - but I assume that neither airport interiors nor v1 Google Glasses are ready to provide that today.) Combine that with the secondary application of convenient, hands-free, heads-up, relatively inconspicuous first-person photo and video recording and I think you have two pretty attractive and non-niche uses for Glasses to add to the long tail of more specialised applications. I'd say that the things most likely to hold back Glasses are price, privacy concerns (the wearer's and others'), possible social stigma, and fear of being mugged. (You could do a decent poor-man's approximation to Glasses' turn-by-turn navigation if you had a Bluetooth handset that did head tracking and the right software for your smartphone: you'd have the audio navigation directions in your ear, plus a turn-by-turn map display on the phone screen to glance at when you wanted to. I haven't heard of any such system though.)

by 7952 14y ago

DrDreams 14y ago

I agree. I think, like cell phones, they will add more value in specific occupations, like package deliveries/warehouses, than everyday life. Once enough niche apps are developed and people start to feel the need to bring those apps into everyday life, then people will use them.

jgrahamc 14y ago

Flight times at the airport are a great example. I don't need to know the time of my flight, but I do need to know if it's been delayed or if the gate changes. I don't need to know those things I already know them in some other way.

7952 14y ago
But the flight example could work just as well or better with text messages from the airline. Your example is just a more annoying way of displaying notifications.
- nthj 14y ago
  I was about to disagree with you, but I realized the real problem I wanted to address was the importance of context. Text messages from an airline aren't great because by default they have the same "ding" as random jokes and "hey what's up." messages. But Google Glasses could easily start having the exact same problem. We need software to be trained with more intelligent context awareness — hey, Nathaniel put his phone on silent, but he is at the airport and here is a notification about a delayed flight, so the phone should vibrate a little bit to make sure he sees it. We're getting better at this, as an industry: I walk into the Apple Store, it asks me to check into my genius appointment. If I walk into the movie theater, my phone pulls up my ticket as a QR code. But we still have a long way to go, and I think it's a far more interesting and important problem than whether the information shows up on my glasses or my phone.
  - 7952 14y ago
    Absolutely agree. Perhaps what is lacking is an effective feedback loop. When Google Display an incorrect search listing it is obvious based on user click patterns and can be factored into the algorithm. If Google don't tell you that your train is delayed there is no feedback loop.

leoc 14y ago

I think the biggest application for Glasses is hands-free, head-up, relatively inconspicuous outdoor on-foot turn-by-turn navigation. That is the nearest thing you can get on-foot to the pleasure of in-car turn-by-turn navigation, with no need to walk around holding a mobile phone screen in front of your face. (The same kind of navigation indoors would be almost as wonderfully useful - especially for finding your way to the bloody airport departure gate! - but I assume that neither airport interiors nor v1 Google Glasses are ready to provide that today.) Combine that with the secondary application of convenient, hands-free, heads-up, relatively inconspicuous first-person photo and video recording and I think you have two pretty attractive and non-niche uses for Glasses to add to the long tail of more specialised applications. I'd say that the things most likely to hold back Glasses are price, privacy concerns (the wearer's and others'), possible social stigma, and fear of being mugged. (You could do a decent poor-man's approximation to Glasses' turn-by-turn navigation if you had a Bluetooth handset that did head tracking and the right software for your smartphone: you'd have the audio navigation directions in your ear, plus a turn-by-turn map display on the phone screen to glance at when you wanted to. I haven't heard of any such system though.)