
Google Glass was prototyped in one day - with chopsticks - infoman
http://glass-apps.org/google-glass-prototype
======
nostrademons
GMail and Google Now were also prototyped in one day, as was Linux. The hard
part is the years of refinement that come after that.

I guess the lesson to take is that _big working systems are built on small
working systems_. You don't get a big system by envisioning the final result,
finding someone to fund you, and getting lots of people to build it for you.
You take the smallest possible first step, see if it works, and then learn
from it and expand it.

~~~
noblethrasher
What does 'prototyped in one day' mean in the context of Gmail? Was it just
the UI (arguably the most important part in this case) or was it a minimal but
functional POP3/SMTP/IMAP client?

I'm not doubting you claim, just wondering about the scope of it.

~~~
nostrademons
Paul Buchheit has more details in his Founders at Work interview, but
basically the first version of GMail was a Perl script that grabbed his e-mail
inbox and stuffed it into the Groups indexing engine, so that other people
could search his e-mail. Version 2 was to let it search over _their_ inbox
instead of his, and Version 3 added the ability to send e-mail.

~~~
trhtrsh
So it wasn't a "prototype of Gmail" so much as a hack that got people starting
to think about storing mail on google technology stack.

It's really funny, that this is the story of the the beginning of Gmail, when
the part of Gmail that caught the whole world's attention was the AJAX web UI.
I had always assumed Bucheit was a DHTML whiz. Storing and indexing mail
already was rather old hat.

Wait, is this a part of Gmail? "other people could search his e-mail." o_O

~~~
coldtea
> _So it wasn't a "prototype of Gmail" so much as a hack that got people
> starting to think about storing mail on google technology stack._

That's the very definition of a prototype. Prototype != early version of a
product. For one, it's often written in another stack, to make it easier to
iterate. Second, it's more often than not, thrown away on the road to the
actual product code.

> _Wait, is this a part of Gmail? "other people could search his e-mail." o_O_

Well, maybe not people, but their Ad serving service can surely search your
email.

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lessnonymous
> ... we actually discovered something pretty fundamental that never been
> discovered about glasses, period

This is how companies get patents on obvious things. They didn't discover
this.

I've been wearing glasses for nearly 30 years and have known for most of that
that you can press down behind your ears and the weight seems to all
disappear. Your ears don't notice it much, but your nose does.

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poutine
Seems a bit of a bother to use chopsticks and the fishing line contraption.
Since it's to test what the user experience is just get another person to
watch the users gestures and click or touch the computer that's powering the
display to translate those gestures in to pre defined actions. Would let you
test all sorts of crazy things.

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Dylan16807
Oh, the text is a transcript. I was very confused to be looking at text saying
"And here’s what it looked like." with no images in sight.

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napoleond
Interesting point about glasses in general. I wonder if there would be a
market for small weights that attach to the arms behind the ears to make
glasses feel lighter.

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angersock
Interesting thing here: Google Glass could end up proving to be a really
influential product, one that changes a lot of social patterns and app design.

This article seems to suggest that the core UX work could be replicated in a
day, just by having normal engineers playing with clay and having a rough idea
of what they want.

So, it seems to me, we must ask ourselves: how could you possibly justify
patents for such a thing, given how simple it is to come up with?

~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _how could you possibly justify patents for such a thing, given how simple
> it is to come up with_ //

Patents are awarded on novel inventions. An argument goes that if a particular
invention were so simple then why hasn't anyone done it already? Motivation,
ability, recompense?

One response is the right-place, right-time, etc.. That's basically the answer
that everything would be invented at some point.

However the patent system has an answer to that too - the disclosure of the
invention is key to gaining the limited monopoly. Earlier disclosure, as the
premise goes, is beneficial to the people of the state granting the monopoly.
Thus even if the invention is simple - provided it's not "obvious" [in the
domain specific meaning of the term] - then the reward is still being provided
for a benefit.

~~~
angersock
But we then look at the fact that, for something that can take a _single day_
to come up with, do we really think a limited monopoly of five or ten years is
worth granting?

I think not. In fact, I think that the culture of hacking which has done so
much good for this world pretty much demands immediate and unfettered access
to the opportunity to play with these ideas.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _unfettered access to the opportunity to play with these ideas._ //

Generally patent law allows unfettered access for personal or research
purposes, including commercial research, but limits commercial exploitation.

So with [high quality] patents you get access to a vast database of knowledge
which would otherwise be locked up in commercial secrets.

~~~
vidarh
That's the theory. In reality, how many patents are "high quality"? And how
many people actually read them to find ideas, rather than to find ways to work
around obstacles?

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da_n
Sorry to go off topic, but interesting to see "subscribe via feedly" instead
of Reader and "Notify me..." via email done through MailChimp (RSS to
Newsletter) instead of Feedburner. Still makes me sad but good to see
alternatives starting to be put out there.

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infoman
"doing is the best kind of thinking" epic quote

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zampano
My last chopsticks prototype was a "ultra-lightweight" tone-arm for an old
turntable back in college, haha. I think it yielded significantly less useful
results than this. Good ingenuity!

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codex
If you can prototype something in one day, that version is so brain dead as to
not be any benefit as far as lessons leaned. That said, the "prototype" will
still have promotional value.

~~~
PebblesRox
I think the idea here is that by creating and using some simple physical
models they were able to learn things that they wouldn't have thought about if
they had kept everything in their heads. Even making a virtual model wouldn't
have given them the user-experience information that they were looking for.

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infoman
chopsticks??? I need to beef up my prototyping!

~~~
rikacomet
that is something I must learn. (/does a Mae-Pae beard curl) lol.

Anyways on a serious note, I for some reason, feel that though google glass
would be a hit product, the concept is still lacking something important. I
don't know what, but for some reason, I don't see myself, sticking to it,
beyond a certain period of time.

The Attention aspect is being overlooked as well, no matter how good it can
make our life, it would still require a lot of attention from me, like a heavy
mental application of sorts.

<http://www.visualexpert.com/Resources/lawsofattention.html>

~~~
ryanmolden
>feel that though google glass would be a hit product

This will be a very interesting test of Collinridge's Dilemma.

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kbkaiez
chopsticks??wooww!

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coldtea
> _Google Glass was prototyped in one day - with chopsticks_

And it shows. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcYppAs6ZdI>

Come to think of it, still, I'd rather put chopsticks in my eyes than Google
Glass. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcYppAs6ZdI>

