

Google Glass Team: ‘Wearable Computing Will Be the Norm’ - vmyy99
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/06/clear-glass-leaders-googles-wearable-computing-breakthrough-explain-it-all-for-you/

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Cushman
_Some people who have interacted with Glass testers feel that sometimes people
seem to temporarily drop out of a conversation to process something they see
on the display. How does Glass avoid being something that removes us from our
physical environment?_

My feeling is that this effect might fade away as people become more used to
the device. Anyone who wears glasses can tell you that the first time you put
them on, the frames are very distracting in your peripheral vision. You become
accustomed to them rapidly, however-- within days, the frames are invisible,
and you retain this even when you take them off for a while.

A similar phenomenon takes place when driving. Every now and then you realize
that you weren't watching the road at all, just driving along automatically
with your peripheral vision. And the haptic compass experiments have
demonstrated people have the ability to gain an unconscious sense of location
from external stimulus.

Obviously something popping up in focus is always going to be distracting, but
with a notification icon in the corner of your eye, it's entirely possible
that one would grow used to it and stop consciously noticing its appearance--
you'd simply have a somewhat-unconscious "email sense".

And there's no reason that should distract one from what they're doing; when
the mail comes to my door, I don't stop whatever I'm doing and go read it. I
make a mental note to check the mail when I get a chance, and continue the
conversation.

I'm pretty excited about this technology.

~~~
kingkawn
"My feeling is that this effect might fade away as people become more used to
the device."

The effect of removal from the environment will not fade, but the social
ramifications for the user will. People are less pissy now when someone stops
to check their phone during a conversation, but that's more due to the
expectations of those around them rather than our expanded ability to
functionally multitask.

~~~
Cushman
I feel like you didn't really read my post, since I was making a case that the
"effect of removal from the environment" _will_ fade that you didn't
address... That aside, I think you're making a good point.

Part of the promise of the information age is general cognizance of the fact
that we live in an incomprehensibly vast and complex universe, and that we are
only able to perceive the most infinitesimal mote of it during our lives. With
the judicious application of technology, we can expand our perceptions many
times by accumulating information from different parts of physical space. For
thousands of years, it was possible more or less to pretend that there was
nothing else in the universe outside this room, and no one else alive but your
family; thanks to the internet, that is purely impossible today.

It should not be surprising that this frightens some people.

Technophobes frequently protest that assisted communication can't have the
value of face-to-face speech, which is frankly complete horseshit. Most of the
in-person conversations that most people have most of the time are more banal
and purposeless as the front page of Reddit (or 4chan, depending on your peer
group). What is important is the relationships that we have with other people,
and I've seen nothing in my experience or the literature to imply that
relationships are intrinsically less meaningful because they are not
communicated in person.

This sentiment is a form of forceful control exerted by those who have no
other reason to command attention but proximity. This is also crap; attention
is a product of interest and respect. If I am not interested by what you are
saying, you will not maintain my full attention for long; and if you demand my
full attention for no other reason than that you happen to be the human being
closest to me in physical space, neither will you my respect.

~~~
kingkawn
cmon its not complete horseshit, getting to know somebody not just through
their written or spoken idea but their facial expressions, their scent, their
subtle body language is all meaningfully a part of our cognitive experience.
Just because those things haven't necessarily been incorporated into cutting
edge technology does not make them less relevant. We're all very impressed
with ourselves for making cool gizmos that do wonderful things, but the
backslapping and focus we have on our own achievements doesn't lessen the
importance of the parts of our experience that nobody has even begun to
effectively tackle. There are parts of human interaction that are not replaced
by technology, at least not in its presence or near-future form. Period.

I did read your post, I disagree that the tune out will ever end, its just how
it's read by others will culturally shift. you're still gonna be withdrawing
your mental presence from the space, an externally triggered space-out.

------
karpathy
At the risk of sounding silly a few years from now, I'll draw connection to
when personal computers were first coming out. It was hard to predict all the
uses we have today, and spreadsheets were thought to be one of the killer
apps. Similarly, photos and sharing is the obvious killer app with Glass right
now, but that's because it's very hard to see that far ahead. I can't wait to
see what masses of developers will come up with once it's out for a while.

Further in the future, the device will likely shrink to, or work with a
contact lens. At this point, this is not even a question of science, but of
engineering [1].

[1]
[http://wireless.ee.washington.edu/papers/Lingley_JMMNov2011....](http://wireless.ee.washington.edu/papers/Lingley_JMMNov2011.pdf)

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astrodust
Is it just me or is the likelihood of this taking off a little lower than the
Segway revolutionizing transport worldwide?

~~~
Groxx
Segways would need parking / secure storage, or lots more upper body strength
on the average person to get them up stairs. Costly physical barriers to
widespread use.

Something like this pretty much just needs something to charge from. Like your
computer while you work, and the wall while you sleep, from a USB port perhaps
(which you already have).

Not making any claims as to which are more useful / applicable to more people.
Just that there are major physical barriers to anything that requires even a
_pocket_ , much less infrastructure. A small wearable computer just requires
somewhere to sit when you're not using it.

~~~
astrodust
I can imagine people wearing headsets like that all the time would cause
innumerable problems.

They'll be like bluetooth headsets. Reserved for a very _specific_ subset of
the population.

~~~
tomkarlo
You're assuming that you'll even be able to tell who's wearing one rather than
regular glasses. Look at the change in form factors of MP3 players and phones
over the past 10 years, and then look at where they're _starting_ from with
these. No reason they couldn't be nearly invisible by the time they hit
widespread use.

~~~
astrodust
You'll be able to spot those people because they're always walking into things
or muttering voice commands to nobody in particular.

Don't tell me you can't spot someone with a portable music player from a
hundred feet away. If anything the visibility of those has increased as the
popularity of over-sized headphones has grown.

~~~
tomkarlo
Can you spot someone with a hearing aid from ten feet away? Not these days.

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KevinEldon
Google Glass can be divided into (at least) two distinct parts. The camera and
the display. The camera is what Google is pitching very heavily right now. I'd
guess they're doing that because it's something people can relate to... taking
pictures from your perspective, taking them without putting some device
between you and your subject. The tiny camera that takes pictures from your
eye level is a big enough draw to get early users interested. (The killer app
is "real-life" DVR... why should you have to stick your camera phone in front
of your face to take a picture or record a video... how many times have you
thought "damn... if I just would have had my phone ready I could have grabbed
an awesome shot").

The display is harder to understand. What information do you need in front of
your eyes right now that actually helps you? Today you might check Yelp for a
restaurant review or Google Maps for directions, but you rarely ever keep your
phone in front of your face while you walk through New York... it's a
reference, not a constant aide. It's a cool idea but most people (even some of
the geeky ones who visit Hacker News) don't see the value.

I think the big vision here is that you'll have a camera that consumes the
world around you and a system that can process what the camera is seeing, and
give you real useful information about the world around you immediately. You
walk into the office and the system tells you that you're looking at "Sarah"
and you have a meeting with her at 3pm, or that the menu item you're looking
at has 615 calories and most people who order it love it, or that the product
you're about to buy is $50 cheaper at an online store and can be shipped to
you in 2 days. Glass doesn't offer any of this right now... but it will some
day. I want one and if I'd attended Google I/O I'd have spent the $1500 for
the early prototype.

~~~
ippisl
I don't think this device alone would make this big difference. we already
have phone that are able(especially with the cloud) to do augmented reality.
In many use cases we don't need this immediate response. we can "take the
time" and get our smartphone.

We point our phone at that product, or at our lunch, or at the home diy
project we need to do, or at some hobby we're doing, or at the car repair
we're doing. we don't need glass for that.

------
m_myers
Are we supposed to _want_ this? As if it wasn't already hard enough to talk to
people who are constantly whipping out their smartphones.

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r0s
Control input will make or break this thing. I don't think a single button and
touchpad will cut it for general computing.

They're riding the wave of hope that voice controls have now, maybe I'm naive
but it's going to have to improve by miles for anything beyond novelty use.

I could see this focusing on a tighter use case, like content aware eye
mounted cameras with social features, and why not two of them for
stereoscopic?

~~~
roc
Touching it at all is likely a deal-breaker. People would likely prefer using
a 'remote' on their phone to issue commands, rather than using an indirect
pointing/clicking device on their temple.

Mobile is primarily different from Desktop in that the little annoyances are
too much for the form factor and use cases. And indirect pointing and clicking
just doesn't cut it in mobile.

Wearable will only be more extreme this regard.

~~~
panacea
Or a wristwatch shaped device.

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ams6110
I cannot in my wildest stretch of imagination see myself ever buying something
like this.

~~~
sukuriant
Just wait

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halfnelson
"So we decided that having the technology out of the way is much, much more
compelling than immersive AR, at least at this time."

I'm not really convinced by this. "Out of the way" means you have to switch
focus every time you want to see your information, and then switch back
afterwards. To me, this seems even more distracting, albeit less prone to
clutter.

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podperson
I'd suggest they design the device as something that clips on to spectacles. I
don't see why anyone would wear this thing if they weren't going to wear
spectacles (why have the whole stupid frame?) and it's not going to work for
spectacle wearers (which is a lot of us).

As for the comment about making something that doesn't come between the user
and the physical world -- how about not using this device?

I think it's an intriguing concept, but right now it's a solution looking for
a problem. Building software this way is relatively cheap (Google Wave...) but
hardware?

It makes me think that an audio-focused UI that allowed commands via throat
mike might be a good way to go.

~~~
microtherion
I agree that wearers of prescription glasses would make an excellent target
group: We're already comfortable with the mechanics and aesthetics of wearing
a device in our face, and many of us are also used to spending $$$ for
eyewear.

~~~
nym
I would totally do this.

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tomrod
Imagine a world where OLED screens can be worn or even tatooed to the skin,
powered by kinetic motion?

It's a brave new world, aye!

~~~
will_work4tears
Or even powered by excess blood glucose?...

~~~
r0s
Are you implying I'm producing more than absolutely necessary? How dare you.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
Probably referring to this[1], though I'm hoping they come up with a way for
me to power my house. Finally, a reason to pull out the Nutter Butters.

1\. [http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/130923-mit-creates-
glucos...](http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/130923-mit-creates-glucose-fuel-
cell-to-power-implanted-brain-computer-interfaces)

------
stefanix
... like video calls!

