
Google Glass is getting a second life in the manufacturing industry - happy-go-lucky
http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2017/03/18/514299682/google-glass-didnt-disappear-you-can-find-it-on-the-factory-floor
======
4258HzG
It's kind of clear that their quoted expert Tsai didn't interview anyone while
they were using Google Glass.

"With Google Glass, it may look like you're listening to the person in front
of you, but you could actually be watching a movie or looking up sports
stats."

Unfortunately the problem is the opposite and more offensive. It's very
obvious if you're having a conversation with someone while they're using Glass
while looking at you from their eye movements, and it makes the user look
really weird ignoring any fashion issues. I found the experience quite a bit
more offensive than having someone reading emails on their laptop while you
talked to them. Unlike the laptop case, with glass you get a very clear direct
view of their eyes as they scan whatever glass is showing them, while there is
the obvious false pretense of giving you their full attention.

I think one of the big problems with glass was that they picked the wrong sort
of people to be early public users that then set the tone for the product. A
process that ensured only super-enthusiastic users would bother applying is
also the sort that would select for the least willing to notice how other
people might find certain uses of it rude and annoying.

~~~
npunt
> I think one of the big problems with glass was that they picked the wrong
> sort of people to be early public users

Totally agree. As awesome a technical achievement as Glass was, it was the
product of 20 years of work from some very odd people (MIT's borgs) that
literally wore desktop computers on their backs prototyping it, ignoring all
social convention in the process. While their insights were valuable for their
particular approach to wearable computing (HUD-based, data recall oriented,
etc), that approach _isn 't the right approach for the mainstream_, nor are
they the right brand ambassadors.

Google's perennial issue is they're a technology factory that thinks they're a
consumer company. The goto market strategy Glass should have adopted was in
enterprise, where there are many valuable use cases like ones in this article,
and Google could have refined it there. But Google isn't good at picking
markets or any form of understanding marketing, so they decided that a bunch
of geeks walking around cafes, bars, and restaurants was the right way to go.
_sigh_

~~~
M_Grey
I'd be a lot more understanding if Neal Stephenson hadn't foreseen and
lampooned the concept in 'Snow Crash'. Seriously, how many people on HN took
one look at Google Glass and though, "Oh shit, gargoyles!"

~~~
rhaps0dy
I didn't do it until now, when I looked at the actual borgs :)

[https://c.o0bg.com/rf/image_960w/Boston/2011-2020/2012/07/15...](https://c.o0bg.com/rf/image_960w/Boston/2011-2020/2012/07/15/BostonGlobe.com/Business/Images/rehmi_post_2.jpg)

------
jerryr
Using Glass in a factory environment surprises me. Factories are notoriously
loud, so unless Glass is _really_ good at filtering out background noise, I'd
imagine that voice commands wouldn't work very well. My experience has mostly
been consumer electronics factories in Asia, but I also see the following
problems that may or may not apply to domestic factories:

* Equipment with clear resale value has a tendency to "walk away". We worked hard to avoid using consumer electronics such as PCs or phones on the line. When we did need to use them, we had to establish strict policies and secure storage for when the equipment was not in use. Glass seems like it'd fall in this category.

* Even dedicated, laser-based, handheld barcode scanners could be finicky with part labels. Camera-based scanners were unusable due to poor accuracy and latency.

* Internet connectivity is poor or non-existent. WiFi coverage is usually terrible due to physical and electrical interference from factory equipment.

AR work instructions would be a dream--especially if the technology could flag
errors. The environment just seems especially hostile for consumer-oriented
technology such as Glass. I don't have firsthand experience with Glass, but
I'm really surprised this company is reporting success with it.

~~~
coredog64
Several years ago I was trying to solve the problem of voice recognition in a
noisy environment. After brainstorming with some colleagues, we came up with
the idea of using a throat mike. The only problem was that we couldn't find
reasonably priced hardware that would work with commodity computers.

~~~
jerryr
Jawbone Bluetooth headsets actually contact your jaw to use the conducted
vibrations to cancel background noise, similar to your idea. Disclosure: I
worked on their first generation Bluetooth headset. I'm not certain the
current generations still work this way.

~~~
Karunamon
Noiseassassin - yup, the later gen ones do as well, but as I understand it,
Jawbone is basically dead at this point.

~~~
Already__Taken
Could get a second wind with voice recognition because the problem with comms
is everyone sounds the same through that style of mic.

------
ansgri
I wonder, how does one approach Google for such business tech? Or do they only
find customers themselves?

I couldn't find the landing page for prospective enterprise Glass customers,
though there's Glass at Work partner list with companies which do have real
contact address.

[https://developers.google.com/glass/distribute/glass-at-
work](https://developers.google.com/glass/distribute/glass-at-work)

~~~
Veratyr
After having a quick look at the site, my understanding is that you don't
approach Google directly for this, you either approach a Glass Certified
Partner to do the work or you become one yourself. There are no apparent links
for becoming a Glass Certified Partner though, so my guess is you simply can't
right now.

~~~
delinka
A colleague recently interacted with Google in an attempt to acquire Glass.
The takeaway I got was Google was only interested in selling if the project
was "cool" (no definition in sight) and if the quantity was substantial
(minimum 100 units I think.)

------
Apocryphon
There's something ironic and lovely about the much-maligned Google Glass
becoming a blue-collar tool.

~~~
dunderdunder
It's funny, I'm an industrial electrician and my smart phone is my handiest
tool. I can take pictures from awkward spots like up a pipe behind some bus
bars, even thermal, download a manual and keyword search my issues. Video chat
with more/less experienced employees to problem solve. Use my phone to trouble
shoot cellular issues (m2m iot). Remotely configure network systems. Use OTG
cable to serial interface with rs232/485\. Scan a barcode of existing
hardware,compare it to new hardware and order it online. A LOT of mobile
technology is wasted on company's thinking I want this to snap a highlight
reel of my weekend and other trivial shit ....When what I really want to do is
take a picture with my device, save the location of picture and send it to all
parties concerned and document my time.

~~~
Nition
My piano tuner uses an iPhone app called TuneLab.[1]

$500.00USD. For an app. Interface that looks like the dev Googled all the
images needed and used the first result. First line of the app store
description is _Do not buy this app unless you are a professional piano
technician._ Yet it's a highly powerful tool and professionals use it.

[1] [https://itunes.apple.com/nz/app/tunelab-piano-
tuner/id335568...](https://itunes.apple.com/nz/app/tunelab-piano-
tuner/id335568329)

~~~
ladzoppelin
Wow this is amazing. It really shows how powerful the app store has become.

~~~
Larrikin
If anything is exactly what the app store should be. Cell phones are
incredibly powerful but it's rare they're used for anything besides a dumb ui
for a server or games

~~~
csydas
To be fair, there's an equal amount of trash software available from your
laptop/desktop as well, the only difference being that there isn't a
centralized repository that it all must go through; the trash heap that rests
under the app stores was inevitable, since such junk was always going to exist
and people would find a way to sell it.

~~~
Nition
What I find interesting is that everyone's trying to make the next big game or
consumer app, a market that's already insanely saturated.

Meanwhile a single decent professional piano tuning app can sell for $500 (I
don't know the sales numbers of course) with the most amateur-looking UI ever
and a description that's a warning not to buy it.

Considering that most games get lost in the heap and sell basically nothing,
maybe looking to see if there's some niche tool you could make instead isn't a
bad idea.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
Well to be fair, it's _priced_ at $500, and aside from the single point of
reference, I wonder how many have been sold.

------
benjaminjackman
This reminds me of the Manna story by Marshall Brain:
[http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm](http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm)

~~~
zem
that was my first thought too! but this does genuinely seem assistive rather
than controlling

------
captainmuon
I'm a bit disappointed that Google didn't continue Glass as a niche product.
If I had money, I'd maybe buy one :-)

Does anybody know if there are any "inconspicuous" AR glasses (meaning that
they look like e.g. sunglasses and not like the Borg)? Preferably full visual
field?

And are there any glasses that work on holographic / light field principles?
(AFAIK Hololens doesn't, despite the name!) A few years ago at university, I
looked into computer generated holograms. We generated holograms of simple
objects on the CPU, printed them out, and shone a laser throught them. Viewing
them at a slight angle (so you wouldn't be blinded), you could see the object
floating in space - as if the hologram was a window. Back then, we thought
maybe you could use a GPU to generate the holographic pattern, and a LCD
matrix to display it - but the technology was not there yet. Now you have
shader GPUs, and high-DPI LCDs, I feel it's almost just a matter of combining
the pieces and you'd have immersive glasses, or a holographic screen.

------
glitcher
Seems like a great opportunity to use video capture from all employees' GG
cameras in order to train their robot replacements.

------
sand500
Google Glass is nothing compared to real AR like Microsoft Hololens. And for
Enterprise solutions, 2k for these glasses vs 3k for a hololens Dev kit is
nothing.

~~~
baby
> Google Glass is nothing compared to real AR like Microsoft Hololens

You can't wear Microsoft Hololens outside of your office, far from your
desktop.

Also I'm saying that, but it's a bit silly to entertain this discussion as
they are two completely unrelated products. Mircosoft Hololens is AR as in
Augmented Reality while Glass is a UI floating on your face.

~~~
modeless
> You can't wear Microsoft Hololens outside of your office, far from your
> desktop.

This is not true. Hololens is untethered and there's nothing preventing you
from using it anywhere. Well, nothing except the fact that it's bulkier and
heavier than Glass and obscures your face too much for use in social
situations.

The real reason why AR isn't better than Glass for this kind of thing is that
AR tracking and recognition of objects is not good enough for real
applications yet. On Glass as reported in the article you have to scan a code
to identify an object you're holding. In people's imaginations, an AR device
would magically recognize the object and overlay useful informational displays
on it as you turn it in your hands. In reality Hololens is not even close to
being able to do this, so you would be reduced to scanning codes just like on
Glass.

~~~
deanclatworthy
This is the second misconception I've read in this thread so far. I was at a
conference in finland this year and a huge company called ABB was there with a
holo lens demo. They had a hololens you could wear to see how to repair some
mechanical unit. The hololens was able to recognise the unit from its previous
mapping of the object and project AR on to it. They moved the unit and it
still was able to almost instantaneously detect it.

The technology is here. It's ready. And it's already in use.

~~~
sillysaurus3
It's probably best to be skeptical of a demo.

~~~
IshKebab
Perhaps but I've used both a Hololens and Google Glass, and the Hololens is
light-years ahead. It is easily capable of the 'AR repair' application. Glass
on the other hand was very 'meh'. The voice interface was horribly unreliable
(think 2010-level speech recognition), and it is really just a convenient
small display, not proper AR.

------
mondoshawan
Glass didn't die because of privacy -- it died because the teams walked out
after being threatened with their jobs.

~~~
segmondy
We need more details. Why would they be threatened when they had momentum?

------
std_throwaway
Was Google Glass ever actually meant to be a big success in the short term?

It looks like typical Hen-Egg-Problem where you first have to build it in
order for them to come (slowly). Then you have to wait it out until the
actually useful applications arise from the dust.

While the smartphone has established its place in everyday life (after years
and years of trying and mostly failing with similar approaches), the glass
probably will be a tool for a thousand niche applications mostly in the
corporate world who need a finished solution before they start acting.

------
kovacs
I'll be expecting my RSUs from Google for telling them this exact strategy in
my PM interview 2 years ago when I was asked "What would you do with Google
Glass?". Then again enterprise is a fairly obvious answer even before they
tried the consumer angle. But, if they offer Gmail for people that colonize
the moon, (another interview question I got), then I'm definitely going to
need some retribution for telling them how to do that too :-P

------
MarkMc
The only problem with Google Glass was that it was ahead of its time. I fully
expect Apple to release a 'revolutionary new product' in 10 years time which
will essentially be Google Glass with more advanced tech and better styling.

~~~
kkoomi
More like premature. The display was too low-res as to be useless for anything
other than reading 9 or so words at once.

------
goatsi
Another area where Google Glass has shown to be very useful is in medicine.
You can put a pair on and have a specialist walk you through a interview or
examination. The poison review toxicology podcast had an interview with a who
had significant success using glass in this manner.

[http://www.thepoisonreview.com/2016/03/19/tpr-podcast-
episod...](http://www.thepoisonreview.com/2016/03/19/tpr-podcast-
episode-11-google-glass-and-the-toxicologist/)

Obviously it needed to be de-googlified to make it HIPAA compliant

~~~
arkades
According to that page:

"Google Glass has the potential of giving us a new perspective on
telemedicine. However, the use of this device presents several problems,
especially involving data security, patient privacy and HIPAA compliance."

"Using Google Glass, the consultants were also able to send and receive high-
quality pictures of EKGs, pill bottles, etc."

"Although it is possible to send and receive photos using cell phones,
computers, and tablets, Dr. Chai made the point that such technology is not
HIPAA compliant."

So, they used it to Skype with their attendings, and it has the same
compliance issues as ... normal cell phones, computers, and tablets - which
absolutely _are_ HIPAA compliant, if you're using secured hardware provided by
the hospital (like all the laptops and blackberries used by insurance company
employees carrying around identifiable patient data). Hospitals cheap out,
though, and make you BYO - which is not a problem I envision Google Glass
being a solution to.

Going to the cited publications didn't show any additional benefits.

~~~
ryanmarsh
HIPAA compliance is not some unacheavable data security standard. It's so
basic that probably all industries should follow it. The problem is that it's
surrounded in verbose policy-speak so it just looks completely opaque. There
used to be a table on the HHS website that gave a concise explanation of the
rules. It's things like what PII is, that it should be encrypted at rest and
in transit, how to get explicit permission to transmit it, authorization and
authentication is required for viewing the data, and there must be an audit
log. Having worked in the financial sector this is all basic stuff.

------
fencepost
I could be misremembering this, but haven't head-mounted displays of one sort
or another been used in industrial settings for something like 20 years? I
don't remember when it was, but I seem to recall something with monochrome
(and lower-resolution) displays like this being used in things like airplane
repair[1].

[1] After a little searching, I may be remembering reading about the 1996
Boeing conference:
[https://www.media.mit.edu/wearables/lizzy/timeline.html](https://www.media.mit.edu/wearables/lizzy/timeline.html),
or it could be any of the other late-90s systems listed here:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_head-
mounted_display](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_head-mounted_display)
that got press at the time.

Edit: Looking at another page, I may actually be remembering something from
computer magazines back while I was in college or shortly after - the Private
Eye from Reflection Technology (1989)
([https://glassdevelopment.wordpress.com/2014/04/17/hmd-
histor...](https://glassdevelopment.wordpress.com/2014/04/17/hmd-history-and-
objectives-of-inventions/)) - which would fit, because that plus the Twiddler
chorded keyboard became part of the MIT Wearable Computer stuff and I remember
wanting one of those keyboards.....

------
nojvek
Is there an affordable Google Glass like floating screen. With the number of
people walking looking at their screens, it makes sense to just gave a
floating screen in a nicely design spectacle. No camera, just a ui to see your
phone screen and something to track finger movements and tap.

We already have people who have Bluetooth speakers, no reason to also not have
a tiny screen near the eyes.

~~~
mimming
This is the best option I've seen:
[https://www.vufine.com](https://www.vufine.com)

------
NamTaf
This is where it always should've been. The ability to look at engineering
drawings, etc. as you work on something, or being able to look through work
instructions without having to down tools and clean off your hands is
invaluable. This is always the dream product I had for something like Glass.

------
saycheese
Beyond me why Google just simply did not add a red LED on the consumer edition
to show if the camera was recording in an attempt to address the privacy
concerns many people had.

~~~
detaro
While I'm not sure how much it actually was the case with the apps that were
available, a lot of the ideas around it seemed to be things that require the
camera running, so the LED would be on in a lot of situations where creating a
recording would be inappropriate.

(And making a trustworthy indicator that only shows if a recording is actually
being created is basically impossible, so "camera running" is the only thing
they could show)

~~~
saycheese
Right, which is why it failed, Google tried to be sneaky, it was
inappropriate, and instead of realizing they needed to figure out a way around
the issue, they abandoned it.

Another option and even more trustworthy would have been a camera cover that
was usable & durable and clearly & visibly expressed the status of the camera.

------
digi_owl
No surprises there, Vuzix have been selling a less stylish version of it in
the same market for years.

Frankly i see little use for the likes of AR and VR in civilian life. Hell
even the smartphone of today is something of a bleak shadow of the business
tool it once was, thanks to every OEM trying to cater to consumers that barely
message and access social media.

~~~
captainmuon
I can see a lot of uses for AR.

\- A killer feature for me would be (pedestrian) navigation. Highlight the
road I have to take with a subtle color. That would even work on a very low-
res display. Or at the train station, highlight the part of the train were my
reserved seat is.

\- If you have a higher-res screen, you could add additional information to
the walls of places, like restaurant ratings etc.. Making it look just like a
physical sign is key.

\- One thing that is controversial, but would be huge for me, is face
recognition. I sometimes have a hard time remembering what face belongs to
what name. A option to show name tags for people I've seen before would be
really convenient.

\- How about an app that shows plans when fixing a bike or a car? Or one that
tracks where you left your screws? If you have a very good camera, it might be
able to even find screws you lost :-)

\- Of course AR/VR games could also be a huge thing. Time will tell if that
really catches on or not.

------
gkanai
Same thing with the Segway. Remember that device which was going to
revolutionize how we travel? Now it's for park police and airport staff and
whatnot. Segway is now owned and made in China iirc.

------
delbel
a similiar idea is romanticized in the 2008 mexican sci-fi movie sleep dealer,
only the concept was exploiting cheap labor in full immersion controlling
remote robots.

------
taurath
Whatever happened to their big cargo ship docked in the bay?

------
xbmcuser

       I am not surprised Google Glass was a product way ahead if it's time. It can still be useful in closed environment like a factory floor. To be really successful in the consumer market it needed an AI capable of identifying every object it sees which we haven't reached yet. I am personally of the opinion that augmented reality is the future of computers rather than virtual reality. People keep pointing towards privacy as the reason it was not successful which is I feel is wrong. They don't have the tech yet of making it truly useful in the consumer market.

------
dannylandau
I wonder how this compares to Lumus --
[https://lumusvision.com/](https://lumusvision.com/)?

------
toodlebunions
Medicine still seems like the best use case to me

------
qrbLPHiKpiux
Do we have to worry about the wifi antenna being right next to ones head for a
full shift?

~~~
pharrington
No, and certainly not when you consider all the significantly higher power
gigahertz spectrum light we're already filling the air with.

------
hkmurakami
And medical offices.

