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I used Google Glass
- mtgx 14y agoI hope Google can put OIS for anti-shake and a good camera in there. You're probably going to need as good image stabilizer as possible, as you'll be moving and shaking (when walking) your head a lot more than with a phone that you can still keep more or less still.
- erikpukinskis 14y agoI don't think optical stabilization would really do much for full-on head bobbing. It's more for finer-grained movements, like hands shaking. And I don't think our heads actually shake much. That said, you could do digital stabilization on head bobbing and probably get a pretty good result by jacking up the size of the stabilization window, although you'd lose frame size.
- Someone 14y agoHumans probably compensate for some movements, but they are nowhere near as good at it as birds. For examples, see http://www.cogsci.nl/blog/bird-brains-and-fish-eyes/177-stabilizing-vision-do-the-chicken-head http://www.cogsci.nl/blog/bird-brains-and-fish-eyes/177-stab...
- martinshen 14y agoConsumer product by the end of this year?! Is there a startup focusing on this?!
- mtgx 14y agoThey probably want to introduce them in the same time with the opening of their retail stores, and also for the holiday season.
- rgbrgb 14y agoI know these guys are in NYC but I think there's more of a game focus: http://laughingsquid.com/meta-augmented-reality-glasses-allow-you-to-control-virtual-objects/ http://laughingsquid.com/meta-augmented-reality-glasses-allo...
- WestCoastJustin 14y agoAvid sailor here, and I like to race, typical race is ~6 hours, but longer races too, 24-48 hours. We are continually evaluating, speed over ground, radios, depth, AIS for marine traffic, tide flow (current), GPS, charts, race course, etc. We have many devices that give us a picture of what is going on. I love the idea of Google Glass as a heads up display [1] for everyday people! Sure, we use a computer to compile most of this data, but imagine just peering into Google Glass, and having this compiled without moving around! I'm not too concerned about fashion or image while out on the water. My main focus is winning, or coming close to it! I'm wearing a life jacket, and rain gear most of the time ;) I guess my point is, there is lots going on in life, not just walking around, getting coffee, and reading twitter and facebook. Wear Glass when you need it and it is applicable. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head-up_display http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head-up_display
- owyn 14y agoA friend of mine has some ski goggles with a HUD from Recon Instruments. They do make sense for some applications. In your case, I hope they're waterproof (but I don't think they are...)
- martythemaniak 14y agoThis would be a very good use of it. I do some noob-level windsports and I thought it could be very useful for instruction as well. There a lots of activities (windsurfing, kiteboarding, skiing) that could benefit from the instructor having doing a hangout while you're performing an activity.
- jff 14y agoAs a sailor, you might be interested in Velocitek's products (http://www.velocitek.com/ http://www.velocitek.com/). I used to work for them, although now I have no connection beyond a friendly interest in seeing them do well. Solid products.
- noarchy 14y agoI was thinking that this will revolutionize cycling. Instead of looking down at your mounted cycling computer, you could simply have this built into your glasses (cyclists are almost always sporting sunglasses as it is). Speed, heart rate, cadence, wattage...all of this can be put in front of you, without the need to ever look down, which could increase safety.
- rgbrgb 14y agoIs there any reason to worry about brain cancer with this?
- mtgx 14y agoProbably not since it doesn't have a 3G radio, but not sure how safe or healthy the bone audio conduction is. I hope Google knows what they're doing there.
- macleanjr 14y agoI believe this is one of the main reasons why the device itself doesn't have a data connection. Think of it as wearing one of those bluetooth earpieces that you pair with your phone.
- erroca 14y agoVery nice read, great stuff from the verge as always
- helipad 14y agoA really interesting product, and pleasant looking laid out on a table, but just horrible as a fashion piece.
- yew 14y agoHave we seen pictures of Glass sans human head before? I don't recall. I definitely agree that it looks like 2013 by way of the 1960's. This is starting to look at least as interesting as a piece of hardware as it is as a product. Pity I don't have a few thousand dollars lying around . . .
- bsimpson 14y agoI'm in the Explorer program, but practical issues like fashion/etiquette have had me reconsidering if I'd really be willing to spend money to put a computer on my face. This review has gone a long way towards assuaging those concerns, but I wonder what they can do about anti-theft. Being pickpocketed on public transit is a very real concern in most cities with >500k people. Imagine how much easier it'd be to snatch a device you're not even holding and (hopefully) blends into your life so seamlessly you forget you have it on. It's been well-publicized that these things start at $1500.
- MatthewPhillips 14y agoHow long is the fashion thing a problem, though? Either other companies (Microsoft and Apple, mainly) will come out with their own glasses, and you'll have safety in numbers, or future iterations will make them look more and more like regular glasses. It's not like the segway, which could never have evolved to blend in.
- bsimpson 14y agoSmart phones are ubiquitous, but people still get them snatched on BART, and they're actually holding them.
- MatthewPhillips 14y agoYeah, I don't have an answer for that one.
- Bud 14y agoHow about: "Ok Glass: Record the thief and transmit to police!"
- jff 14y agoI think they look pretty sharp. I especially like the blue color, although it definitely stands out a lot--it's just nice to see a product that isn't glossy black or bright white. The best thing, I think, would be for Google to offer insurance at some reasonable rate, so you can get a replacement if someone steals your device. I'd pay $50/year to protect my $1500 device.
- bookwormAT 14y agoThe thing I didn't get is how you operate glass? I understand you can use your voice, but surly there must be an alternative way: Google voice, as great as it is, is not really reliable enough to use it as its only driver. I also don't think Google will design a device that forces you to talk to it in public. I think I read somewhere that there was some kind of touchpad on the side? But how do you enter text (like search queries) into the device? Or is this supposed to be operated from a connected smartphone? Somehow related, I fear that this will take years until it reaches me here in Europe. Google Voice still only knows who's president of the united states if you ask it in english.
- canttestthis 14y agoIts in the article. Theres a minitouchpad on the right side, you enter search queries through voice, and Glass connects to your smartphone through Bluetooth to use its 3G/4G/Wifi connection.
- tomkarlo 14y agoAt least for English users, Google voice commands are pretty damn amazing these days - it's pretty rare that Google Now on my Nexus 4 misses, aside from heavy background noise and folks who decide to start talking in the car when you're trying to ask it to navigate somewhere. For simple, prompted, two or three work commands, it would work even more reliably.
- mathieuh 14y agoI also just find it plain weird talking to inanimate objects. I can't bring myself to use Google Now in public because I have this irrational fear of people thinking I'm a weirdo.
- stackcollision 14y agoI love the picture of the first prototype. Crazy to see how far it's come.
- jonheller 14y agoWhat distracted me the most was not the glasses, but the weird gazing into the distance look that he did when "reading" the glasses. Kind of disturbing.
- ayla 14y agoExactly, I felt weird looking at the picture. It looks like someone totally stiffening up for a pose, so unnatural.
- nodata 14y agoIs that really the whole device, or is the processing done elsewhere, like a phone or something? (I admit I only skim read the article)
- thedufer 14y ago> losing data or experiencing slow data on a phone put the headset into a near-unusable state This makes me think that the voice processing is done server-side. I wouldn't be at all surprised by this; that's how Siri does it, and I would be amazed if they managed to fit good enough voice recognition into even a phone, let alone this tiny thing.
- rednukleus 14y agoGoogle voice recognition can be done offline on phones now.
- nodata 14y agoThe headset doesn't appear to be as big as a phone: so I'm wondering whether the headset talks to a phone that then talks to Google, or whether the headset really does the lot.
- icebraining 14y agoThe device gets data through Wi-Fi on its own, or it can tether via Bluetooth to an Android device or iPhone and use its 3G or 4G data while out and about.
- liber8 14y agoI'm not sure why I haven't seen this addressed yet, but doesn't the widespread use of something like Glass portend the dramatic fall of the prevalence of street crime? Widespread use of CCTV cameras are one thing, but millions of eye-level recording devices (presumably automatically beamed to the cloud at some point), would seem to me to be a major deterrent to all sorts of street crime. I can see this effecting not just things like person on person crime (muggings, rape, battery, etc.) but also burglaries, arson, or any other crime that requires a getaway. Police or citizens could issues statements like "We had a break-in at 9:30 at 555 Main Street. If you were in a 5 block radius of that address, click here to upload your video feed from 9:00 to 10:00." Obviously this also has terrifying privacy concerns as well, but the extent to which this could completely transform society seems to be undersold here, doesn't it?
- jere 14y agoAsk Darien Long, the "badass mall cop." He works in an area in downtown Atlanta infested with drug dealers and he constantly encounters people who want to threaten him. He has said repeatedly that his two most important weapons are his taser and his chest mounted GoPro camera, even though he carries an assortment of weapons that would make Batman jealous. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/04/darien-long-mall-cop-reddit-video_n_2601615.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/04/darien-long-mall-co...
- drcube 14y agoActually, I think privacy concerns could be alleviated by something like this. It's just so much information, getting anything useful is like taking a sip from a fire hose. Imagine your hypothetical break in is in downtown Manhattan. Do you really expect law enforcement to sift through video data of the hundreds of thousands of people who fit that profile? How would they know if someone's feed was missing? Basically, there's so much noise, the signal effectively gets lost. Granted, big data applications could be brought to bear on the problem, but then it's the same cat and mouse game criminals and police have been playing forever.
- wklauss 14y agoA lot of security falls into that "firehose" analogy. Your door lock is relatively trivial to brute-force. What is preventing thieves from entering your house is that you live surrounded by other targets. Problem with the Glass approach is that we now require police to sit through videos, but eventually it will be easier to mine all the data with algorithms, especially if we get better at facial recognition, etc... Personally, i don't mind a glass-pervasive society. I worry about the fact that all the data goes around a single company's infrastructure and the fact that, for this specific company, hardware is a commodity and data is what they are after.
- terio 14y agoI would love to be able to create apps for a device like glass. There could be many vertical applications for it. The ads don't provide any information regarding apps as they are focused in taking photos and videos, doing hangouts and interfacing Google.
- theboywho 14y agoEveryone keeps saying that it will be weird for people to wear such glasses. I don't think that wearing them is what's weird, I think talking to them is the weird stuff. I mean phones have been around for ages and some people still don't feel confortable talking in them in public spaces. Siri is another example, have you ever meet someone talking to Siri on the bus ? on the metro ? on the street ? Not me. Do you imagine people yelling in the train "Ok glass, show me the weather" ?
- drzaiusapelord 14y agoI really think the wearable glasses format is doomed. Its just clunky and lacks style. I was just watching a video of Sony's newest smartwatch and how it integrated with Android. I could see myself wearing that. Glass? Probably not. I'm not even someone who is into fashion. I just want crap on my face and, my god, it looks super dorky.
- speeder 14y ago" Think of it this way — if you get a text message or have an incoming call when you’re walking down a busy street, there are something like two or three things you have to do before you can deal with that situation. Most of them involve you completely taking your attention off of your task at hand: walking down the street. With Glass, that information just appears to you, in your line of sight, ready for you to take action on. And taking that action is little more than touching the side of Glass or tilting your head up — nothing that would take you away from your main task of not running into people. " This scares me. I mean, notifications are already known to cause a great amount of problems, it is changing our brains, making our attentions spans shorter and more frail, I already hate even the fact I am carrying a mobile phone, it disrupts me, take away my attention from what I should be doing... SMS to me is even worse, it is very intrusive, distracting, and now that I got used in talking to girlfriends with SMS I noticed that I am getting "addicted" to devices, instead of people. To me, Google Glass, and similar technology, is awesome, neat, interesting, but dangerous, very dangerous, it might have very serious consequences on how we work as biological beings.
- turing 14y agoI'm inclined to disagree. When I'm in class or working and I receive a notification I almost always check it. In most cases I wouldn't say that this is because I'm "addicted," but rather because I have a class of notifications that need to be handled quickly (job and fellowship applications, questions from my boss or the PI in my lab, etc). Most of the time I end up pulling my phone out and seeing that it's just a dumb text message or an email from a mailing list. With Glass I would be able to immediately see if any given notification was something that needed my attention.
- jimbobimbo 14y agoFrom my experience, anything that comes as email or text is rarely urgent as we might think it is. If something is really serious, it's either you are working as 911 operator :) or people will call or come in person. You might disagree, of course, but wait 'till you enter the workforce and see how'd you deal with an endless stream of "OMG! Super urgent!" emails.
- ck2 14y agoIs it just me or is anyone else bothered by the uneven design where one side has the display and the other side does not. My mind wants the sides to be the same, they should put a fake one on the other side.
- dntrkv 14y agoI actually think they should have it mounted on just one side without the rest of the frame. If they can get it stable enough to hang off the side of your head without the ugly looking metal frame extending across the top, I would definitely wear it.
- Pyrodogg 14y agoI don't care about the aesthetics but I do wonder about the weight distribution. It looks fairly balanced front to back but all of the gear is on the right side.
- mtgx 14y agoJosh says you can't feel it.
- erroca 14y agothat would be a really stupid idea honestly. No offence.
- nooneelse 14y agoI think having a fake display would be taking it too far. However, having a frame that puts an extra battery and/or the 3G chip & antenna over on the other side would make it nicely less visually lop-sided and have functional benefits.
- huhtenberg 14y agoGoogle should really make a camera-less version of the Glass. Portable eye-level display is insanely useful. But if it's burdened with something that is viewed by many as a source of privacy concerns, it would just hinder the adoption. It will make the Glass banned from corporate environments, planes and basically every place that has "no cameras" signs. Like supermarkets.
- huggah 14y agoEvery single person I have talked to who has used glass for more than a few days has found the instant camera to be the most compelling feature of Glass. The author of this article did as well! In that context, I can't see how it makes sense to offer a camera-less version, at least not at launch.
- huhtenberg 14y ago> Every single person I have talked to who has used glass for more than a few days Are you on the project Glass team or something? :) Have these persons commented on the actual display quality? The resolution, the color depth and so on. There's suspiciously ZERO in-use shots of the display as seen by the wearer. Makes you wonder why.
- kzrdude 14y agoYou can't really photograph it, it's so close to the eye.
- huhtenberg 14y agoYou and I can't probably photograph it, but the Glass marketing people should be perfectly capable of doing that, don't you think? I mean, c'mon, it's an interaction product. With no images of the actual interaction. How odd is that.
- Kiro 14y ago
- hudell 14y agoWhy do people care so much about how they will look with it? I couldn't care less about that.
- ryusage 14y agoBecause most people care very much about social relationships, and like it or not, other people just naturally tend to be put off by things that look strange or unattractive. You might decide you genuinely don't care what anyone thinks of you, but realistically speaking that's a somewhat unusual stance.
- hudell 14y agoI get that, but the way people talked about it, I though it was something really horrible. And it turns out it is just a little different. I have used some way more strange stuff in this life of mine.
- rednukleus 14y agoWelcome to the human race.
- dntrkv 14y agoThat's one of the more important factors you have to consider when creating a device that you want to market to the general public. Tons of people, don't wear bluetooth headsets because of how bad they look. Sure there are some headsets that look decent, but the headsets already have a certain label associated with them. Wearing them is not cool. Google has to really do this right from the start or else Glass will just be another gadget that only geeks wear.
- sigkill 14y agoThe most important part of this entire project in my opinion is the ability of the Glass to function as a head up display. Imagine that you can now wear it while driving, and there's an app that will show you everything about the route and your cars' statistics right in front of your eyes. Heck, if it could project the phone's screen on its own display then applications that have already been written get a new life - Think Torque or CarHUD.
- doctorpangloss 14y agoHave you noticed that we haven't seen even the slightest attempt at a camera shot of the collimated display? It can certainly be done. Why Google Glass will fail: When normal people who didn't sign agreements discover just how positively awful the "screen" is.
- sigkill 14y agoI've tried my best at home with ghetto optics/techniques to get something near a collimated setup. Other than a trip to the optician with very specific values I don't see myself being able to collimate my cellphone's display. Without wanting to spend a couple of thousands AND needing to cut a hole in the dash panel of my car, I think the Glass is my cheapest (terms of money, time and effort) bet.
- mikeryan 14y agoImagine that you can now wear it while driving, and there's an app that will show you everything about the route and your cars' statistics right in front of your eyes Unless you're in one of Google's Self Driving Cars this sounds like a recipe for disaster. If these things take off I'm pretty sure wearing them while driving will be pretty quickly outlawed.
- adeaver 14y agoWhy? Seriously wondering here. I don't see it any different than having wireless phone, navigation, radio, and the countless other things we already have in the cars. Main difference is this would be right in front of us meaning we don't have to take our eyes off the road to change the radio station, check the nav or answer that call.
- bmuon 14y agoI probably wouldn't use Glass in my everyday life, but I totally see it working for tourism. Getting directions is a pretty obvious use case. But learning about what you're seeing is the biggest win. See a building you like? Ask Glass what its history is. At a museum? Get more information about the art you're seeing. Learning while experiencing sounds awesome.
- icebraining 14y agoYeah, Glass + Goggles seems an awesome combination. But even awesomer would be Glass + Word Lens: http://questvisual.com/us/ http://questvisual.com/us/ (Assuming it works well, I haven't tried it)
- bwooceli 14y ago"I kept the Glass video recorder going" yeah, these need a manual physical sliding camera lense cover
- llimllib 14y ago> Google’s X Lab initiative, the lab also responsible for... neural networks. Wait, what? In what sense can google's X Lab be said to be responsible for neural networks?
- missing_cipher 14y agoI think they meant to say "Google's neural network": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_X_Lab#Google_Brain_project http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_X_Lab#Google_Brain_proje...
- molbioguy 14y agoIf someone is being photographed, is there any way for that person to know that Google Glass is recording video? I would feel really uncomfortable if a colleague had Google Glass on at a meeting or at lunch or in my office, unless I knew I wasn't being recorded. The privacy concerns on this are enormous in my view.
- missing_cipher 14y agoYes, FTA: As soon as we got inside however, the employees at Starbucks asked us to stop filming. Sure, no problem. But I kept the Glass’ video recorder going, all the way through my order and getting my coffee. Yes, you can see a light in the prism when the device is recording, but I got the impression that most people had no idea what they were looking at. The cashier seemed to be on the verge of asking me what I was wearing on my face, but the question never came. He certainly never asked me to stop filming.
- straws 14y agoWell that's just awful.
- zwegner 14y agoAbsolutely. I'd also be concerned about the security--what if an attacker gains access to the camera/microphone without your knowledge? Scary stuff...
- dev1n 14y agoFrom a legal context, is someone's right to privacy thrown out the window every time they go outside? If so, then the legal issues with people videotaping other people would be almost zero, which IMO is kind of odd to think about.
- aggie 14y ago>From a legal context, is someone's right to privacy thrown out the window every time they go outside? Yes. You may be photographed or filmed not only when you are in public, but when you are in view of a photographer who is on public ground. The exception is when you are in a place where you have a reasonable expectation of privacy such as dressing rooms, restrooms, or your home. Source: http://www.krages.com/ThePhotographersRight.pdf http://www.krages.com/ThePhotographersRight.pdf
- lukecampbell 14y agoDoes anyone know if the visual component can be setup on the left side? I'm blind in my right eye and the product would be almost useless for me otherwise.
- DanielBMarkham 14y agoI'm not much on telling the future, but I see a huge avalanche of Google Glass stories on the horizon. I got into stereoscopic photography lately, you know, with two cameras. I'll probably be willing to try Google Glass, but I sure would like a version that captured stereoscopic images. We have two eyeballs, we should capture two image streams.
- guscost 14y ago"...this might not be that great at a dinner party, or on a date, or watching a movie." Well, that's rather obvious.
- brown9-2 14y agoWhat happens if someone standing next to you tries to give commands to your Glass? Is there a way for Glass to determine whose voice is the owner's?
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- chipsy 14y agoAfter watching that video, I will now go around with the UNATCO theme in my head all day. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBPK_oXeJgA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBPK_oXeJgA
- nessus42 14y agoI wonder how long it will be before there are Google Glass porn sites. (No doubt someone already has proposed it as an "If I had Glass proposal.)
- tomkinstinch 14y agoIt's understandable but unfortunate that Google has not been saying much about accommodating prescription lenses. Some of us wear glasses already and cannot wear contacts. Later releases may support custom lenses, it seems. The accelerometer in it could be useful from a public health standpoint. Unlikne a phone in a pocket, the head is relatively stable. Glass could detect if someone collapses and then call for an ambulance.