
The Glass Bicycle - relation
http://dcurt.is/the-glass-bicycle
======
VengefulCynic
To my mind, the Google Glass is far more like the Microsoft Tablet, the Tesla
Roadster and the Palm Treo: the initial realization of a concept that, before
now, didn't exist in the world at all. It seems incorrect to compare it to the
iPhone and the iPad because both of those were taking technology that had
existed in the tech community for years and reimagining them in a way that
appealed to the general public.

As a member of the tech community, I'm excited and looking forward to getting
Glass for myself, but I don't see widespread adoption to the scale that the
non-tech community can handle until we've innovated at least some of the uses
and worked out the 1.0 bugs.

~~~
DanBC
> Google Glass is [...] the initial realization of a concept that, before now,
> didn't exist in the world at all.

I don't understand. Heads up displays have existed in various forms for years.
We've had versions that cover one eye, or that use lasers onto the retina.

~~~
untog
The concept isn't just the technology. This is the first time such technology
has ever been considered for a consumer application.

~~~
blhack
No, it isn't, it's just the first time that you're hearing about it because
it's the first time that the tech has been pointed at your particular subset
of consumer.

~~~
untog
Alright, what other consumer products like Google Glass have been released?

~~~
blhack
<http://www.reconinstruments.com/>

<http://www.oakley.com/airwave>

~~~
alxhill
This is very much specialised stuff however - would you ever see your average
consumer walk around in public with it? No - because these are ski goggles not
normal glasses.

~~~
joshschreuder
I think blhack is playing semantics with 'consumer'. They are skiwear
consumers that bought them. I think it was pretty clear that you meant
something like widespread public use.

------
manaskarekar
I personally don't know many people who are dismissing it off as "ugly,
useless, and un-productizable."

Almost everyone understands this is the room-sized ENIAC equivalent of our
times.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ENIAC>

~~~
sukuriant
I don't know why you were downvoted. You simply said that these machines are
going to be getting smaller, cleaner, less obtrusive.

And they will.

~~~
GHFigs
The inevitability of miniaturization notwithstanding, it's slightly
challenging to imagine a less obtrusive version of something whose defining
property is that it sits on your face.

Maybe in five years we'll all be wearing smart-monocles. Who knows?

~~~
wonderzombie
I (and a great many other humans) _already_ wear an accessory which sits on
the face. :)

When spectacles were first invented, they may well have been obtrusive and
required some social adjustment. Now they're thoroughly assimulated. They are
unobtrusive, and one's choice of frames/style often serves as a fashion
statement.

~~~
GHFigs
I wear glasses, too, but I think of it as a bug when there's something on the
lens or when I talk to them. It feels like the very unobtrusiveness that makes
them useful.

Maybe it's Google's habit of showing off Glass without lenses that makes me
think of it as 'as screen on your face' rather than 'fancy glasses'. It reads
as 'Bluetooth earpiece' more than 'hearing aid'.

Also, I kind of just want a monocle.

------
cwilson
I wish Google would focus on using Google Glass within the workplace before
trying to take it to the streets for casual use.

I can imagine using them within the office, because anything that makes me
more productive is totally acceptable "socially". Outside of the office
however I have serious doubts to if I'd wear these around daily. My colleague
will know why I'm essentially talking to myself to use Google Glass, where as
people in public will think I'm batshit (much like people talking on bluetooth
headsets).

Once I become very comfortable with them inside the office it's much more
likely I'll start forgetting I should even remove them when I leave to go get
lunch, coffee, etc.

Plus I'm much more interested in enhanced productivity than I am checking the
weather.

What I will give them is the "record" feature could be incredibly useful
within the office from day one. I can't count the number of meetings or
brainstorming sessions I wish I had on video.

~~~
skeletonjelly
What has started in the workplace and ended up a common item though? I feel
like something that starts off in the workplace immediately loses it's "cool",
which is needed for rapid uptake

~~~
ZeroGravitas
PC, laptop, mobile phone ...

~~~
skeletonjelly
I mean more accessories. How many tweens do you see with a bluetooth earpiece?
It looks hideously business.

~~~
nooneelse
Why would a tween want an earpiece of any kind when texting seems to be the
main communication method they use on a phone?

------
joeld42
The closest analogy I see is with the segway. Something that could be useful
and even world-changing but overhyped and dumped on a market without
justifying it's existence. Apple could have released the iPad first but they
waited to teach the market what it was with the iPhone first. Thus each step
(iPhone, tablet) was a new form of a familiar thing rather than a new thing
altogether.

If I were in Google's shoes, I would start by introducing the glass into
existing items such as workplace safety goggles. Imagine a pair of carpenter's
safety goggles that could measure a piece of wood, or track a list of
supplies, or show a work plan as you go. It's not the big play, but you can
try it in a bunch of contexts until it catches on. It will generate press and
awareness, and then once the novelty wears off you can make a "smart goggles
for everyone".

Google's mistake continues to be that the believe value is in novelty, when
really it is in taking something people are already familiar with and
reinventing it, better.

~~~
markdown
> Apple could have released the iPad first but they waited to teach the market
> what it was with the iPhone first.

Amazing. They had both products in mind, considered them both, and thought
that it would be best to lead with the iPhone, aye? And Steve told you this,
did he?

~~~
shirro
Jobs has been quoted saying the concept for the iPad came first and there have
been pictures come out in the Samsung case showing a prototype from 2002. The
iPhone likely did help establish the market for the iPad which would have been
a niche device otherwise.

------
bane
If anybody wants to get a good idea where something like glass could go, read
the Phaethon series starting with "The Golden Age". It's a bit of a tough
read, but the author spent some serious time considering the implications of a
civilization built around always wearing these kind of devices at all times.

Glass acts like a layer on top of the real world, consider then that as the
technology improves and the number of people using it increases, you can get
rid of things like street signs as the glass will simply show you the
pertinent signage for wherever you are looking, going shopping and the device
will recognize the product you are looking at and tell you if it's a good
deal, people can "project" their idealized image of what they want you to see
to your glass, simply looking at somebody will pull up relevant information
you need to know like their name and occupation and so on and so forth.

Now project this forward and add more similar layers on top of this. Imagine
you can select from several layers according to your philosophy or needs. A
Libertarian layer might allow one business to buy the virtual signage of
another business and broadcast their brand instead. Or a Maslow Hierarchy
layer may strip all branding from your view and simply distill down what
they're selling to its bear essentials "food" "clothes" "shoes".

You could select filters in your layers to simply block out things that you
don't want to see. "New Derelicte-Block omits undesirables from your world!"

Why build fancy metamaterials when all you have to do is hack the local View
Layer broadcast frequency and hide yourself from everybody around.

Why hack it when you can simply unjack completely and rely on everybody's
standard install of Derelicte-Block v3.2 to keep you suppressed from their
notice?

~~~
sp332
It doesn't really project itself over your field of view. It's a smallish
window in the corner of your vision.

~~~
pazimzadeh
Hopefully this is just the MVP.

~~~
bostonvaulter2
No, replacing what you see instead of adding to it is a much more difficult
and tricky problem. I wouldn't expect it in the near future in a consumer
application.

~~~
jokermatt999
To expand: [http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/latency-the-sine-
qua-n...](http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/latency-the-sine-qua-non-of-
ar-and-vr/)

The whole blog has a lot more about AR/VR from an informed technical view, but
I recall this being the most relevant post.

------
adam
It's interesting that in HN comments, most people are very excited for the
arrival of glass. They think of it as something that will enhance their
lifestyle, their productivity, etc.

If you read comments about glass in other forums such as at the bottom of
NYTimes articles or other more general public media, most comments seem to be
just the opposite: fear and paranoia about the arrival of glass in terms of
privacy, or "naturalists" who abhor the thought of technology being a
ubiquitous layer in front of real world experiences.

This makes me think it will be awhile before glass will be universally
accepted. Just like certain restaurants and cafes are declaring themselves as
cell phone free zones, will they also make you take off your glasses before
being seated?

~~~
randallsquared
Actually, it's been surprising to me that there are many, many folks on HN who
view this the way you mention non-HNers do. I would have _expected_ what you
say to be the case, but lots of HNers also seem to be dismissive and afraid of
this. :(

~~~
Apocryphon
All technology is worth careful examination.

------
morsch
It only solves one side of man machine interaction: the machine-to-man part.
For many interactions, its solution for man-to-machine is voice, which is
anything but unobtrusive in public.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Some of my favorite fictional technology is subvocal speech recognition. (For
examples, see the motes in A Deepness in the Sky, and Jane's interface with
Ender in the Speaker for the Dead series.)

~~~
gwern
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subvocal_recognition>

------
codex
It's unclear from the article whether or not the author has actually used
Google Glass. It's pretty vague, so I assume not. It's easy to wax on about
the greatness of a device if, having never used one, you're free to project
all of your hopes and fantasies onto it.

------
stevewilhelm
I would like my next car Google Glass enabled. It could display turn by turn
directions, warn of upcoming traffic, and let me know what services are
available at the next exit.

I can also foresee Google Glass being very useful for complex, domain specific
tasks that require your hands: surgery, automobile repair, home construction,
cooking, learning to play an instrument, dealing cards, sowing, tying flies
etc.

~~~
blhack
Your car doesn't need anything to do this. This functionality is all already
party of android.

~~~
skore
Except for the HUD, which is the entire point of Glass.

------
clemesha
If Google can avoid the "Segway curse" of extreme dorkiness, I can only then
see Google Glass having a chance at being revolutionary.

~~~
blhack
Segways didn't "fail" because they were dorky, they didn't see wide adoption
because they were [and are] extremely expensive.

~~~
julian37
I can't imagine Google Glass will be exactly cheap either.

Also, just like Segway has been facing regulatory issues [1], Glass deployment
might be hampered by safety and privacy issues, at least initially and in some
markets.

Not too far-fetched of a comparison really.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segway_PT#Restrictions_on_use>

~~~
blhack
Retail price is about $1500 on the glass.

~~~
driverdan
That's early adopter price. Final retail price will be much lower.

------
RandallBrown
There's a company that's been making HUD technology for ski goggles for a few
years. <http://www.reconinstruments.com/>

Something like this is far more accessible to consumers since you won't look
weird in the goggles. Unfortunately it's VERY expensive (4 or 5 times the
price of a regular pair of goggles).

~~~
6chars
Warning: that page automatically starts playing a video with audio on load!

Obnoxious.

------
Cardeck1
The biggest problem with Google Glass is privacy.Anyone can record you without
you knowing it. And it's not just walking down the street. There are so many
bad scenarios. Usually we embrace new tech here but this device would bring
privacy to a whole new level. Not to mention that Google is starting to be too
powerful for our own good.

~~~
zevyoura
>Anyone can record you without you knowing it.

Isn't this already the case with small cameras?

~~~
the_french
For the aver person a small camera is a smartphone, which needs to be
obviously held up when filming. Google Glass would be omnipresent so you
wouldn't notice when a camera is turned on.

~~~
Cardeck1
There is a red light glowing when the camera is on. But what happens when you
have 10 people with Glass?How will you stop everyone from recording?And 10 is
a small number in a fast-paced environment like NYC.

What happens when someone zooms in on sensitive data in a company or home or
anywhere you can think of.

The more Glasses you have, the less control you get.

~~~
driverdan
I'm not aware of any mobile phone in the USA that has a light that turns on
when recording (not including the flash). Glass won't have any special zoom
capabilities. It's the same as a phone. If you're afraid of someone zooming in
on sensitive data don't put it near a window where others can see it.

~~~
Cardeck1
You are right.No phone has that but you can see a light in the prism on Glass
when the device is recording. I am sure they can add zoom capabilities to the
device.

The point is that no matter what alert signals you get, you can't just
beat/accuse someone just because he is recording.It's a two-way street.

We will see.

~~~
driverdan
Zooming requires an adjustable lens which will never be added to Glass.
Digital zoom isn't real zoom, you can just do that with a photo editor.

Just because Glass' prism is lit doesn't mean someone is recording. They could
be looking at something else.

------
joedev
The image shown in this article does a good job of highlighting the usefulness
of Glass. It's not just a heads up display. It's the smarts of knowing where
you are, what you are doing, what you plan to do in order to provide relevant
information in an automatic and unobtrusive way.

"Oh, I see you're at the airport and you have tickets on flight 644. Here's
some useful departure info." Instead of finding a departure screen or tap-tap-
tapping on your phone - it's just there.

<http://img.svbtle.com/dcurtis_24516029389500_raw.jpg>

~~~
_delirium
I can see the contextual bit, but I'm not really sold—at least, not yet—on the
HUD form-factor. Why can't I view the smartly-pulled-up, contextual
information on a smartphone screen? There are a handful of situations where
no-hands usage would be nice, but for the most part a screen works fine for
me. There are lots of things I'd like improved about quick, non-frustrating
access to information, but they're mostly the
software/indexing/querying/"smarts", not the display technology.

~~~
martythemaniak
> "Why can't I view the smartly-pulled-up, contextual information on a
> smartphone screen?"

You can, it's called Google Now.

------
cscurmudgeon
Maybe I am an idiot for not understanding this sentiment expressed below:

"Google glass will make everyone smarter"

Is it in the same way that a car makes an obese un-athletic person faster?

~~~
randallsquared
Yes, as we all know, only obese, non-athletic people can be made faster by
cars. Sigh.

Seriously, though, I know that my effective memory is thousands or millions of
percent better than it would be without search and the internet. Google Glass
just makes this faster and easier, and makes my life that much better
remembered.

~~~
cscurmudgeon
Sigh, you completely missed my point. There is technology which makes the
human organism better and there is technology which just acts a crutch.
Bicycles fall into the former category but not cars. Coursera/Udacity fall
into the former category but Google glass does not.

Read "The Shallows."

Also, we are nowhere near the Singularity and all this tech will just make us
intellectually obese in the end. Don't you agree that a car while making you
faster in one sense does not really make you faster in another sense? Once
again, we don't have artificial legs which we can seamlessly integrate into
our bodies to actually make us faster. We don't have chips that can integrate
with our brains seamlessly. I don't see that happening anytime soon.

------
hnriot
The hn crowd are of course a very tech minded group and more tolerant
technology in their lives. My friends who watch the google glass video seem to
come away thinking "what does it do?" - this is normal people, not geeks. They
all laugh when I say you wear them and talk to them. Do we really want to
start talking to our clothing. I immediately switched off Siri for much the
same reason (other than it doesn't work at all except for canned demos) -
People use their smartphones in the elevators, on buses, etc, they don't want
to look like dorks saying "ok, glass, show me my schedule for tomorrow",
instead they silently and discretely click on the app.

A walking still camera and video camera will immediately put people into a
defensive frame, knowing that anything they say or do can end up on
twitter/facebook etc within moments. Especially when google enable retroactive
videoing, by keeping the camera looping until told to record, then it keeps
the last X seconds of the video loop. The obvious use case for google is to
collect more data about you to sell more ads, and guess where those ads will
end up.

Of course this is ignoring the legal issues of recording in courtrooms,
corporations, photography on private property, what happens when someone's
reading their email while driving and crashes into the self-driving car in
front of them.

I applaud google for trying to invent the future, and maybe in 100 years
society will be a different place with new zero-privacy expectations and laws
have caught up with the world, but until then, my prediction is this is the
new segway.

------
mxfh
Can't offer any predictions about Google glass, yet I think the Surface
analogy just falls flat. It's not about Microsoft's 10k surface it's about
failing to get the critical momentum going in the mass market.

There was such a thing called the Tablet PC[1] introduced by Microsoft in
2001, you could get one for below 1500 USD in 2003†. They were marketed as a
niche product if at all. For about a decade they were the only available
portable devices that offered decent screen resolutions/pixel densities. The
software was partly premature yet mostly usable. Some things just take time to
mature to be seen as marketable to the consumer market.

In case if screen resolutions just too much time, its just kind of sad that
you always seem to have to wait for Apple to push those technologies into
bigger markets (touch interfaces/ high resolution displays) it's good to see
that there finally is some competition is this area (Google Pixel, Retina
Screens) and operation systems with with resolution flexible UI's are finally
the norm.

† got a one back then which is still doing its fanless & meanwhile stylusless
work as a trusty small home server.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Tablet_PC>

------
dougk16
The voice interface and the forced fashion statement will probably greatly
contribute to the death of this product as it stands, but I think it's the
next necessary step to something truly revolutionary.

I would like the next step to solve these two issues using something like
subvocalization to replace voice commands, and having more say in the fashion
statement, so you can custom order your Glass to make it look (more) like
you're wearing normal reading glasses, or sunglasses, or whatever. The latter
is just a brute force matter of getting hardware sizes down even more over the
coming years.

Then eventually we'll just splice the display into our optic nerves, and drive
the interaction with our thoughts, and the borg takeover will be complete.

------
mehrdad
Personally I am offended by Google glass! and I refuse to talk to anyone
filming and recording my voice me on Google glass. It's offensive on many
levels. Google should work on a social etiquette for their product. Showing
you a small screen on your end is your business, pointing a camera toward me,
recording me and my voice is my business, and it can only be done with my
permission, and it is "no". The only scenario that makes sense is that I am
wearing Google glass and I can set a permission on my glass that others can
film me with their glass or not.

~~~
PeterisP
If you value privacy, you don't want me looking at your private stuff. Don't
show it to me or ask me to leave.

But if you allow me to look at you, then I can remember what I see. I am
allowed to remember _everything_ that I see and hear, every single last
detail, forever, and without requesting permission from anyone.

If I have trouble remembering, I may write it down or draw pictures of what I
saw and heard, and also store these forever without asking for permission or
forgiveness.

Glass is just a widget that helps me do it slightly more accurately.

~~~
mehrdad
And tell me again why customer service agent informs me that my voice is being
recorded? I don't thing he/she just wants to be polite.

~~~
warfangle
Because they're required to by law, as telephone conversations are not
considered public.

Walking down the street, on the other hand--

~~~
EvanAnderson
Some US states have audio recording laws that can still apply even "walking
down the street". Look at some of the cases of individuals attempting to
record police who were charged under wiretapping laws.

------
cromwellian
The key problem with Google Now is that you have to remember to look at it,
and so, most people don't get the benefit as much as they should. The act of
having to physically remove the phone, unlock it, to see contextual Now card
notifications IMHO is a transaction cost that makes it less likely you'll use
it effectively.

You need to be able to see and dismiss a contextual notification within a
second, like a warning light in a cockpit. It should be effortless and almost
second nature.

That's one reason why the glass, or going further, direct-mind-machine
interface, would be better - speed. Latency matters. I am often deterred by
the time it takes to unlock a phone to perform an action. For example, I once
witnessed a car accident and wanted to snap a picture, but it took too long to
get my phone out, and I missed the moment. Other times, I want to translate
something I'm looking at, but bringing up an app to do it is just too
annoying. Look at the way the characters in Star Trek the Next Generation call
on the computer to answer questions as if it is always just there for the
asking. That's the kind of responsiveness you want.

I think a lot of people assume that a device that sits on your face would be
"always on", constantly distracting you, but I'd argue that the ideal device
is one that is out of your way, but activates extremely quickly on demand, or
contextually as appropriate, like a subconscious subroutine or personal
assistant.

Too much effort I think is focused on immediate mass mainstream adoption. It's
as if, you can't have an iPhone level sales volume, it's not even worth doing.
But there are lots of things worth doing that the masses don't necessarily
adopt out of the gate. Someone needs to lay the foundation that the future is
built on, that other people can build on. Google Glass doesn't need to "kill"
the iPhone to succeed.

------
ficho
The true genius and revolution of Glass is the interaction system. It's the
first large scale, consumer product which will really provide a much faster
interface with our phones / computers. We have small computers that can do
anything in our pockets, but the bottleneck for the past years has been
passing commands onto it, typing them, taking it out etc.

Glass will provide a much more embedded experience, where you have constant
access, where you never have to ask yourself is it worth taking my phone out
of my pocket etc.

The scary part is what that will do to our memory, we'll slowly move towards a
shared memory that sits on the net. When every question's answer is a ms away,
will we still use our own memory? Maybe we'll use it as RAM :)

Anyway I'm very excited, I'm sure the interactions and seeing people with
glass will be fairly odd, but the intrusive part of it will be resolved in
time.

------
jameswilsterman
I think I agree with the Torrez/Gruber take that "If you see the computer,
they blew it"

[http://notes.torrez.org/2013/02/if-you-see-the-computer-
they...](http://notes.torrez.org/2013/02/if-you-see-the-computer-they-blew-
it.html)

That doesn't mean that a wearable device embedded in your glasses cannot
eventually become a 'bicycle for the mind' but I think the fact that the
computer is so noticeable and strange looking means that this version 1.0 will
not be too successful. Google is positioning itself well to be the one who
figures it out first, but I don't think Glass will take off as a mass-consumer
device on a smartphone scale for a while. First, the computer will need to
become 'invisible'. Until then, Glass will be highly useful to a few
professions (and a toy for nerds), while Google will gain invaluable data and
continue to iterate.

~~~
Kylekramer
Torrez/Gruber seem to be arguing smartphones are superior cause you aren't
always focusing on them, but what is stopping you from not always using the
glasses?

~~~
nooneelse
I've searched a little but can't find a picture of someone wearing them pushed
up onto their head like people often do with sunglasses. But I too don't
understand why people seem to be ignore that option in their objections. Or
put a lanyard on them and wear them around your neck when you want to show
everyone around that you are not splitting your attention.

~~~
jameswilsterman
I kind of like the lanyard idea.

------
TheBiv
Glass is such a personal experience that is not able to be shared with the
world and can really only be explained by "you just have to try it". I am
rooting for glass, but I have no idea how it will overcome the d-bag who
always has their bluetooth in their ear.

I use bluetooth as a social analogy, not as a technical one.

------
Zigurd
Wearable computing, in general, is unlikely to be as successful as a tablet
with a great capacitive, finger-friendly touchscreen and a UI designed for
fingers.

The modern tablet is a true breakthrough. Wearables are potential new market,
and there is some excitement around the fact that both Google and Apple will
enter that market soon. But wearables are far from a sure thing.

For one thing, Google Glass has a voice user interface. Google's speech
recognition is the best there is, but on alternate days it still veers from
astounding to laughable.

The most compelling application, face recognition, has a high creepiness
factor, and Google probably won't touch it even though I would be first in
line to buy if I could pick everyone in my contact list out of a crowd.

------
swalsh
Personally i'm cautious with my expectations as I approach glass. It's clear
that instant accessibility of information changes literally everything. For
example as I drive to work, i like to listen to lectures from Itunes U. Today
during the lecture the professor mentioned a concept I wasn't familiar with.
Unfortunately there was no way for me to stop, and find out what that was.
Which means there was some clear missed value on my part.

Google glass is an attempt to bring additional context related information
into your life. That's a game changer, but until I see it, I have a really
hard time believing glass can deliver this quite yet. But it might get us
started in the right direction, and that alone is significant.

~~~
jwoah12
_I have a really hard time believing glass can deliver this quite yet._

I would've agreed, except that I've been extremely impressed with what Google
Now is already doing on my phone. Still in its infancy, it's often creepy how
relevant the context it brings is to what I'm doing.

------
damian2000
In the same way that most people now associate Apple with the iPhone, in the
future Google Glass may become Google's piece de resistance ... the product
for which they are most well known for. Google search will just be a service
embedded in everything.

------
sytelus
I'm still guessing how Glass would stand up to the performance shown in the
demo video. For Glass to work like as shown it would need to have Internet
connection everywhere (including ski slops and dessert roads) and batteries
need to last for a significant portion of the day. One way it can do is to
offload processing + connection to cellular via Bluetooth to phone in your
pocket. In which case Glass becomes just interface device for phone like
Bluetooth headsets but with camera and tiny projector. The projector could be
LED based low powered device with a lens. I think whole thing can be made very
cheaply, probably under $199. It would be a very cool thing for sure.

~~~
boundlessdreamz
The internet connection is already external. It uses wifi or tether with your
android/iphone. So no, it is not going to be cheaper. You can't offload
processing because then it totally depends on the phone.

------
6ren
Google Glass solves output. But voice input is still problematic, it's
generally only usable when the set of expected words is heavily circumscribed.
Though, most people can talk faster than they can type, around 150–160 WPM, so
in principle, it's better than a keyboard.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_per_minute#Speech_and_lis...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_per_minute#Speech_and_listening)

The first-to-market with new category of device doesn't always dominate the
category. Consider the PC (Apple was first). Given an ugly version and a cool
version of wearable computing, which will people prefer to wear?

------
chuhnk
Google Glass is the next step in the evolution of technology. It is the next
generation of mobile technology, a stepping stone from cell phones. There was
a time when the idea of carrying around a phone seemed ludicrous, now we all
have one. In fact now these devices are more powerful than previous
generations of desktop computers. So yes, give it 5 years and we'll all have
something of the sort. I'll even go as far as to say devices like Glass could
out sell mobile phones in the future.

------
GhotiFish
I am a very cynical man. The current phones are toys, not tools, and I see no
reason for google glass to be any different. Toy's make more money than tools.

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tferris
Some nice thoughts but dcurtis missed the point: people do not criticise the
concept or idea of Google Glass -- they sneer at the implementation. Once we
have mores subtle devices or even contact lenses with embedded screens we'll
see a breakthrough of this new medium but until then it's more kind of a R&D
thing with a use case for just few niches.

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mtgx
dcurt.is is overrated. Didn't he tell us about 2 years ago how 3.5" is the
perfect size for smartphones and how brilliant Apple was for making it like
that? (never mind that people have different hand sizes, and they are willing
to compromise on "thumb perfection" to get a larger screen). And then Apple
introduces the 4", taller, iPhone.

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akurilin
I think a first big step is going to be conquering usability of Glass with
respect to NLP. It's truly going to embody the vision that Dustin is talking
about once I can get things don with my voice with no error and minimal
overhead. Ideally we wouldn't even have to talk to the device, that would be
the Holy Grail.

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fusiongyro
Yeah, it could be that, or it could just be the Xybernaut Poma:

[http://www.complex.com/tech/2011/04/the-50-worst-fails-in-
te...](http://www.complex.com/tech/2011/04/the-50-worst-fails-in-tech-
history/xybernaut-poma-wearable-pc)

~~~
AnIrishDuck
I'm not sold on Google Glass yet. But if you don't see the difference between
[1] and [2] ... I don't know what to say

1\.
[http://cdnl.complex.com/mp/620/400/80/0/bb/1/ffffff/bed82b8e...](http://cdnl.complex.com/mp/620/400/80/0/bb/1/ffffff/bed82b8ebc517d7eaf18460d883acf04/images_/assets/CHANNEL_IMAGES/TECH/2011/04/50-worst-
tech-fails/Xybernaut-Poma-Wearable-PC.jpg) 2\.
[http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim/2012/06/27/20120627_Google_...](http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim/2012/06/27/20120627_Google_I-
O_Project_Glass_001_610x459.jpg)

(it looks like the guy wearing the Poma is having trouble even keeping a
straight face).

~~~
fusiongyro
The difference between the two is just marketing and time. Glass's success
crucially depends on convincing normal people that they won't look like dorks
wearing it. It doesn't matter if it's a million times better than Xybernaut,
if you can't get normal people to feel normal wearing it, it won't succeed. A
million times better isn't good enough if it's still worse than not wearing
it.

Technologists have always thought the problem with wearable computing was that
the technology wasn't good enough. Nowadays, I think the real problem with
wearable computing is fashion.

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Sidnicious
OT: I just kudos'd with my hand over a foot away from the mouse by hitting the
spacebar and scrolling into the button.

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smegel
I don't like to wear glasses. Please explain how this will be more useful than
an "absurd" table or a iPad to me.

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lobo_tuerto
I can't wait for the contact lens version of Google Glass.

------
thoughtcriminal
Yes, technology is certainly advanced nowadays. We're so clever of a species.
Google Glass and Google driverless cars prove it.

Too bad we're destroying the planet and every living thing therein to prove
it.

------
themstheones
So if the glass is a bicycle then a desktop is what, a bus?

~~~
hugs
Trucks. [http://allthingsd.com/20130109/steve-jobs-was-right-
tablets-...](http://allthingsd.com/20130109/steve-jobs-was-right-tablets-are-
cars-pcs-are-trucks/)

