

I used Google Glass - erroca
http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/22/4013406/i-used-google-glass-its-the-future-with-monthly-updates

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liber8
I'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?

~~~
oinksoft
It's awful. For ages, we've worried about The Government mounting cameras
everywhere until the only private space was one's own home, and away from
windows at that. _1984_ famously envisioned a world where this surveillance
extended to the domicile, but even then it was stationary and had blind spots.

Seems that in the near future, there will be little need for any of this, and
there will be no coercion; rather, most of us will vie for the most powerful,
feature-loaded head-mounted camera.

That's not to say that such an invention can or will only be used for evil.
But there's no denying that this is huge progress for anybody dreaming of
global surveillance or something like it.

~~~
randallsquared
Most of the evil that was thought to come from universal recording was because
of the centralized nature of the recording. Widespread public feeds do not
have the same inhibiting effect on desirable behavior, but might well have
that inhibiting effect on undesirable behavior (where global society
increasingly defines what "undesirable" means). Universal sousveillance is the
best of both worlds! David Brin called this one early.

~~~
dman
Being a dissident becomes harder with every passing day.

~~~
dataminer
Getting your ideas out is getting much easier.

------
WestCoastJustin
Avid 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>

~~~
blhack
FYI there are HUDs that are made for snowboarders and skiers that you might be
able to adapt for sailing if you don't want to wait for glass!

Like this: <http://www.reconinstruments.com/>

~~~
npsimons
Second this; while they don't have a camera or the Glass software, they are
goggle mounted (choice of goggles) and have barometer, thermometer, plus are
Android devices all on their own. Also, they don't cost as much, plus, you
know, you can get them _now_.

------
bsimpson
I'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.

~~~
tomkarlo
Pickpockets depend on the fact that you won't realize what they've done until
they're long gone. What you're talking about is more like the old 1980's-era-
New York-type chain / purse grab, and that doesn't seem to happen as often any
more because it's so blatant.

~~~
bsimpson
It depends. They also rely on the element of surprise. Everyone I know who's
been mugged or seen one happen on public transit has had something grabbed
right as the doors are closing, so the thief slips away before you have time
to squeeze through the crowd to run after.

~~~
tomkarlo
When someone does that, everyone on the subway car sees it. When someone gets
pick-pocketed, nobody sees it. So there's a major sampling bias.

That said, I've also seen some NYT articles saying the true "pick pocket
artists" are a dying breed, because younger criminals don't want to spend the
time learning it and the potential take from a wallet has gone down as folks
carry less cash.

------
theboywho
Everyone 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
I 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.

------
huhtenberg
Google 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
Every 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
> _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
You can't really photograph it, it's so close to the eye.

~~~
huhtenberg
You 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
What? Have you missed the new Glass homepage? It's filled with GUI images and
a video too.

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molbioguy
If 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
Yes, 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
Well that's just awful.

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bmuon
I 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
Yeah, Glass + Goggles seems an awesome combination.

But even awesomer would be Glass + Word Lens: <http://questvisual.com/us/>

(Assuming it works well, I haven't tried it)

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lukecampbell
Does 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.

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sigkill
The 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.

~~~
mikeryan
_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_

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
Why? 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.

~~~
fixedd
And it's voice activated.

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bookwormAT
The 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
Its 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.

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terio
I 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.

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hudell
Why do people care so much about how they will look with it? I couldn't care
less about that.

~~~
ryusage
Because 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
I 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.

------
martinshen
Consumer product by the end of this year?! Is there a startup focusing on
this?!

~~~
rgbrgb
I know these guys are in NYC but I think there's more of a game focus:
[http://laughingsquid.com/meta-augmented-reality-glasses-
allo...](http://laughingsquid.com/meta-augmented-reality-glasses-allow-you-to-
control-virtual-objects/)

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ck2
Is 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.

~~~
erroca
that would be a really stupid idea honestly. No offence.

~~~
TillE
Not really. Having all that gear on just one side looks kinda cyborg-y.
Symmetric is more natural.

Also, think of the possibilities for crazy 3D stuff if you have displays on
both eyes.

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llimllib
> 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
I think they meant to say "Google's neural network":
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_X_Lab#Google_Brain_proje...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_X_Lab#Google_Brain_project)

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tomkinstinch
It'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.

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erroca
Very nice read, great stuff from the verge as always

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nodata
Is 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
> 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
Google voice recognition can be done offline on phones now.

~~~
eavc
Is there some way to activate this option? Sometimes it seems my voice input
is bottlenecked by the connection when I'm driving in a low-coverage area.

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guscost
"...this might not be that great at a dinner party, or on a date, or watching
a movie."

Well, that's rather obvious.

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yew
Have 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 . . .

~~~
adhipg
There are quite a few pictures here: <http://www.google.com/glass/start/what-
it-does/>

~~~
yew
Ah, there they are. Thank you.

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speeder
" 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.

~~~
oftenwrong
If you are able to, try disabling notifications on your phone.

I predict there will be regulation of hudphone use, especially where the
operation of vehicles is concerned. A notification pop-up sapping a person's
concentration at the wrong moment could be dangerous.

~~~
diggan
That's not a problem when you got a self driving car.

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chipsy
After 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>

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stackcollision
I love the picture of the first prototype. Crazy to see how far it's come.

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nessus42
I 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.)

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jonheller
What 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
Exactly, I felt weird looking at the picture. It looks like someone totally
stiffening up for a pose, so unnatural.

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brown9-2
What 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?

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helipad
A really interesting product, and pleasant looking laid out on a table, but
just horrible as a fashion piece.

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bwooceli
"I kept the Glass video recorder going" yeah, these need a manual physical
sliding camera lense cover

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rgbrgb
Is there any reason to worry about brain cancer with this?

~~~
mtgx
Probably 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.

~~~
michael_h
If it had a 3G radio, the cancer risk would be exactly the same.

~~~
TillE
That's far from proven. There have been a variety of inconclusive cell phone
studies, but definitely none about having a 3G radio glued to the side of your
head and active for most of the day.

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DanielBMarkham
I'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.

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mtgx
I 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
I 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
Humans 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-stab...](http://www.cogsci.nl/blog/bird-brains-and-fish-
eyes/177-stabilizing-vision-do-the-chicken-head)

