
Google relaunches Glass for businesses - tsycho
https://blog.x.company/a-new-chapter-for-glass-c7875d40bf24?e=f
======
aresant
This is so !@%!@ cool.

Check out the A/B test of a technician with / without the software referenced
in the article:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5gXuZp25f0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5gXuZp25f0)

Then here's a video that gives a sense of the software's interface:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5HOHNECW20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5HOHNECW20)

Very workflow oriented with nice communication and lookup features.

This is the kind of small optimization stuff that is going to be revolutionary
to driving macro productivity.

Amazing!

~~~
losvedir
Wait, isn't that the same person in both videos? In that case, this is just a
marketing spot demonstrating how it "could" work, not an "A/B test".

~~~
skinnymuch
Looks like it could be the same person, but wouldn't that make more sense? If
it's different people then you're not just changing one aspect, the glasses in
this case.

The worker presumably has to do the same work many times. So he isn't doing
the work in the video for the first time regardless. It's something he does
regularly. They could do the work with glasses a couple of times and compare
it with non-glass work times. I think this is (as in the video) is the best
A/B test way.

~~~
hbosch
If the worker did the Glass test _after_ he did the non-Glass test, his
productivity/efficiency increase could be attributed to memory and not just
Glass.

~~~
skinnymuch
Yeah. Hopefully they would do it multiple times. To not have memory be much of
a factor.

~~~
ChrisBland
This is aviation work, you always always always check the work you are doing
with the manual. One mistake could be someone's life. The entire aviation
industry is checklist and procedure driven.

~~~
Spooky23
They even have a specialized English dialect called simplified technical
English to help eliminate confusion.

~~~
dmix
Have they done any studies on the benefits of using the simplified language vs
the time investment it takes to produce the manuals to spec?

I'd imagine most of the gain comes from companies with a high number of ESL
workers - but it sounds like it may be a tool that a bureaucratic, control
obsessed, management culture likes but is largely just busy work parading as
productivity gains.

It could also make the technical manual writers lazy or use less editing
because they lean on the language instead of investing real thought into
making their communication effective and easy to understand.

As machine translation of english continues to improve, I'm curious how useful
it will be. And the feature of "Reducing ambiguity" (according to Wikipedia)
is something that can be solved in many different ways without having to
invent a whole new simplified language subset for _all_ communication.

Either way that's an interesting example of how serious they take this stuff.

~~~
Spooky23
I'm not sure.

I don't work in aviation, but you can produce much better documentation by
following at least the spirit of this vs. the specific grammars and
vocabulary.

Engineers and IT people are often not very strong in writing ability, and
there are many non-native speakers in technology. I've seen situations where
"Cute" documentation with TV references (infrastructure placement was captured
by types of disney vs. looney tunes characters) and lots of implied context.
Having a style guide that forces simplicity can be a high value.

------
payne92
It's easy to armchair quarterback this stuff after the fact, but this is where
Glass should have started. The price point, social stigma/issues, and use
cases all screamed "business applications!".

Consumer tech may be where the glamour and scale are, but it's not always the
best market entry point.

~~~
spinlock
Ha! I interviewed at google and told them glass was a horrible consumer
product and that they should have started with a market that wouldn't mind
looking stupid (or skiers who already wore goggles so they wouldn't look
stupid at all). The point I made to them was that they engineered an
incredible device but hadn't validated the market. I suggested it would have
been better to start with something like skiers because they already wore
goggles and helmets. So, you wouldn't need to get the product so small to see
how people reacted to it.

Needless to say, I didn't get the job. It was really funny to watch Glass
(which is a cool technology) totally fail because it's a stupid consumer
product. And, I'm no Steve Jobs. It was absolutely predictable that Glass
would never work as a consumer product.

And, if you want to make it work for manufacturing, I think you'll need to
scale up the form factor. Why wouldn't you make it a safety goggle too? Think
about all of the engineering effort that went into shrinking this into a
small, completely impractical, package.

Anyway, I think that this was not only predictable but it also shows a company
culture where people can't tell the emperor that he's naked. It's not like I
was the only person that took one look at glass and knew you couldn't leave
the house wearing one. But, that message was pretty actively suppressed at
Google.

~~~
nojvek
I can't say whether you failed the interview because of that but Google is a
company that believes that their superior technology validates itself.

Sometimes it's the pressure "if you can't sell them in millions, we don't want
to do it at Google". This means Google is a great company to make acquisitions
that they can scale e.g docs, maps, YouTube, Android.

Google has so much money than they know what to do with it. They can't
experiment like a startup because failed products hurt their brand.

Their best bet is to invest in startups that use their stack and if
successful, acquire and scale the shit out of them.

~~~
spinlock
> Google is a company that believes that their superior technology validates
> itself.

This is a good point. I bet the team that made glass looks at what a technical
achievement Glass is and rate the project as a complete success. I don't know
how many millions they spent to get the form factor so small but I really
would be surprised if anyone caught any flack for it.

------
gfodor
I've never understood why they insist on having the device be visually
asymmetric. Just put a piece of plastic on the other side that is non-
functional, and the "cyborg effect" basically goes away. The human brain hates
asymmetric faces. Such a stupid oversight, may have been enough to save the
consumer effort if they did this from the get-go.

~~~
xxs
Leave that 'piece o'plastic' stuff, the extra room can be utilized as extra
battery.

~~~
notatoad
that'll increase the weight though.

~~~
function_seven
I think it’s better to have balanced weight, even if it means more. While it
might be annoying to have more weight on the bridge of your nose and over your
ears, it’s even more annoying to have an off-center moment of force.

It’s like carrying one 12-pack of beer rather than two.

------
kharms
>>Glass is also helping healthcare professionals. Doctors at Dignity Health
have been using Glass with an application our partner Augmedix calls “a remote
scribe”.

My primary care doctor has a human scribe. The scribe is a recent graduate
(BS), planning on going to med school next year. Being physically in the room,
watching the doctor work is a great benefit to her. I'm not sure she'd benefit
as much from watching a live stream.

Additionally, as a patient I wouldn't be comfortable being recorded.

~~~
arbitrage
I would be totally cool with being recorded. I think its beyond time we get
past the ridiculous false modesty that seems to be considered a virtue, but
with no real benefit.

~~~
gnaritas
The desire for privacy is not "false modesty"; given the sentence you just
uttered, I'm not convinced you even know what false modesty even means. People
have a hard enough time even talking to doctors about embarrassing or
sensitive issues, put a camera in the room and they simply won't, privacy is a
need for most human beings, it's not false, it's not fake or done out of a
desire to appear a particular way, it's a psychological need. Most people are
not exhibitionists, they do not like being watched, they do not like being
recorded, and it's not remotely something they do for appearances, a.k.a.
false modesty.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
Right, and it also prevents positive outcomes. People chronically lie to their
doctors about their actual lifestyle behavior and then are surprised that the
Dr. didn't catch all the warning signs for some disease.

More data = better outcomes.

~~~
gnaritas
Cameras won't add more data as they'll simply discourage people from admitting
anything or even going to a doctor. I would not allow my doctor to film me,
nor would I imagine most sensible and normal people who have an ordinary sense
of privacy. Your doctor works for you, not the other way around, you decide
what is acceptable behavior, not them.

------
jessriedel
> The mechanics moved carefully, putting down tools and climbing up and down
> ladders to consult paper instructions in between steps... Fast forward to
> today, and GE’s mechanics now use Glass running software from our partner
> Upskill, which shows them instructions with videos, animations and images
> right in their line of sight so they don’t have to stop work to check their
> binders or computer to know what to do next.

The article makes it sound like Google glass is the first to do anything like
this, and it was all paper manuals before that. In fact, aircraft
manufacturers have been using smart glasses for years to augment workers.

[http://www.engineering.com/AdvancedManufacturing/ArticleID/1...](http://www.engineering.com/AdvancedManufacturing/ArticleID/14634/Airbus-
Uses-Smart-Glasses-to-Improve-Manufacturing-Efficiency.aspx)

Maybe Glass is a significant improvement, but it's not unprecedented.

~~~
THE_PUN_STOPS
Smart glasses in aviation manufacturing was actually a key plot point in
Michael Chrichton's 1997 novel Airframe. [1]

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airframe_(novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airframe_\(novel\))

------
randomf1fan
I'd be really interested in hearing from someone who uses this on the floor.
Is it really all they say it is? The marketing and PR looks good, but do
mechanics really love it?

~~~
colechristensen
>"It took a little getting used to. But once I got used to it, it's just been
awesome," Erickson says.

From a pretty good NPR article from a while back.

[http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2017/03/18/514...](http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2017/03/18/514299682/google-
glass-didnt-disappear-you-can-find-it-on-the-factory-floor)

~~~
skinnymuch
I was wondering the same thing as the person you answered to. Thanks for the
article + audio snippet. I know the tech isn't as new anymore, but still
exciting the more it gets used. Can't wait to see what comes about in a couple
years for broader usages (i.e. how someone like me could utilize glasses to
work better)

------
ajmurmann
This feels like it's getting us one step closer to the vision of the early
stage control by AI that is described in Manna:
[http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm](http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm)

Obviously the AI part isn't there but we now have a fabulous interface to have
complex tasked aided/guided by AI. This in combination with what's already
going on in Amazon warehouses and we are pretty close to the description of
how fast food restaurants are run in the story.

------
oliwarner
Some of this stuff is so obviously cool but remember the cost of efficiency.
30% time saved means one person does more in their day. This has a personal
toll because working less intensively gave you time to think and physically
rest. You're at it non-stop now.

And that also means you need 30% fewer employees to manage the same workload.
That's going to be the trade-off here. How many people will have to go _just_
to offset the hardware and software costs?

I don't know what I'm arguing here... I'm finding it hard to avoid quoting Ian
Malcolm in the context but I think we have to remember there are definite
downsides to treating people like underutilised machinery.

~~~
aeontech
> working less intensively gave you time to think and physically rest

I don't buy this argument, honestly. By extension, you're saying we should go
back to manual book-keeping instead of computers to do accounting, because it
would employ more accountants, and let them work at a more relaxed pace.

Looking up documentation, for example, is not an intellectually demanding
task. Instead of going back and forth between printed reference, being
distracted, forgetting what you read and having to re-check it, this helps
reduce the feedback loop and that makes work more intellectually engaging and
interesting because the worker can focus on things that actually require
thought, rather than menial tasks.

People will still take breaks and slack off, it's human nature, and they
should be able to, if you demand continued unbroken attention, you will end up
with people who make a lot more mistakes, I expect (citation needed).

I am much more worried about automated performance metrics and gamification of
work, those do offer levers for the employers to push the employees beyond
sane limits.

~~~
oliwarner
No, I think automation helps humanity a lot in certain places. But my
(tangential) experience and main concern really applies to healthcare.
Especially in the UK. I should have added this before but couldn't find the
words to explain it without going off on one.

To put it briefly, the utopian "we get to go home and see our kids on time"
world Augmedix is selling is just the sort of stuff that gets bought by the
NHS to make GPs handle double their workload.

There supposedly are protections in place (contracted _and_ EUWTD) to stop
doctors and nurses working without protected breaks, but you find me a single
competent (eg) med-reg who manages to regularly take theirs.

There _is_ a ton of quite low-hanging fruit... But half of it is a poison in
some professions and most of that relies on the reason it was bought.

Really, chasing this thought process can get pretty philosophical, especially
when you consider the widespread skills we have already lost because we
outsource and automate. They are things to consider too but immediately I'd
worry about the people being told their workload is doubling because they've
got a fancy gadget now.

------
djsumdog
This is cool and all, and I'm glad the concept didn't totally die, but will
consumers ever see this type of wearable tech again? Some people shelled out
over $1k when Google initially offered glass prototypes, only to be left with
unmaintained devices.

I honestly though Glass would have done better if it had no recording
capabilities built-in. It would have substantially reduced the creepiness
factor.

It's sad that no one has come in and tried to tackle the heads-up wearable
market. Sony has some glasses that looked terrible, and I guess the battery
life issues are still too big for many manufacturers to overcome?

~~~
giobox
> I honestly though(t) Glass would have done better if it had no recording
> capabilities built-in. It would have substantially reduced the creepiness
> factor.

Outside of the tech community this is a distinction I imagine few would make -
most people upon seeing a camera are going to not unreasonably assume it can
record. I still see large numbers of people taping over their laptop webcams
even when they are turned off.

I think the simpler explanation is that strapping a camera to your face is
simply inappropriate or off-putting in some social settings for many people.

~~~
pm90
> I think the simpler explanation is that strapping a camera to your face is
> simply inappropriate or off-putting in some social settings, at least with
> today's typical social norms.

Didn't help that the only people who did/could/would buy the first glass
prototypes were nerds who apparently started using them in bars and clubs.
That solidified its image as "creepy".

Contrast it with Spectacles, a product _designed_ to record as much as
possible. But since it was marketed/targeted towards "cool" people, it never
got the creepy trait.

~~~
giobox
The typical use case for Spectacles, at least as I see it, is a little
different though. Spectacles is much more like a Go Pro, in that I will be out
doing some kind of activity I want to share with friends. People also
typically don't wear sunglasses indoors, my expectation of privacy is very
different outdoors vs indoors.

The approach with Google Glass was very different, where Google were arguably
prototyping a device intended to be worn all the time, including indoors and
in scenarios were people typically would not normally expect to be
photographed or filmed.

~~~
saurik
Such as "in the bathroom", which was the experience at Google I/O a few years
ago when a quarter of the people there had Google Glass.

------
NamTaf
This is precisely the application I first imagined when I saw it. Being able
to pull up exploded views of an assembly, having reference information for
something you've got both hands inside, etc. is invaluable.

I can't count the number of times I've had to extract both my arms from inside
a machine (in doing so losing the information of where precisely i'm holding
stuff and the bearings that provides you), wipe off all the grease, dust,
grime, etc., thumb through a pile of papers that still get dirty and then
mentally translate a 2D drawing to what I'm working on, only to then lose my
place and have to work it all out again. Having something voice controlled and
_right there_ in front of my eyes would be invaluable.

Industry really is the perfect environment for this. Safety issues
notwithstanding (which you can work through), it's really the best application
of this technology and you can quickly quantify a RoI from its implementation.

------
mafuyu
Sounds like they've found a great enterprise usecase, and I hope they can keep
improving the device to bring it to consumers once again.

I was able to snag a Glass for a good price when they killed support (before
selling it off again after a couple months). I enjoyed using it, and being on
a college campus at the time reduced some of the social awkwardness. I could
push notifications to my face with IFTTT and the voice recognition worked
reasonably well. Ironically, I found the most useful feature to be the camera.
It's liberating to be able to wink and get a snapshot of whatever is in your
field of view, whether it's some info you want to remember or a small moment
you want to share. I'm on vacation now and find myself fumbling with my phone
to take snaps of interesting things I want to share way too often.

~~~
kbenson
> I'm on vacation now and find myself fumbling with my phone to take snaps of
> interesting things I want to share way too often.

I just got back from vacation, and I agree. The whole process of taking
pictures with my phone feels so cumbersome and annoying, especially for short
lived scenes. It's locked and in my pocket for security and safety because I
don't like to walk around holding my phone when I'm trying to enjoy the
moment. It feels like I could either have the phone be an appendage and then
have fairly easy picture capability, or actually be present in the moment but
then it's substandard for taking impromptu pictures.

I wouldn't have as much of a problem with a dedicated device, as I wouldn't
necessarily be as worried about breaking or giving someone access to the
device that contains details about every aspect of my life.

Alternately, something designed to be an appendage but in an unobtrusive way
(to the user, at least) might be just as good or better, as you suggest.

~~~
jerrylives
I believe the device you seek is called...a camera

~~~
kbenson
Yes, but I was being generic to be inclusive of both a camera and Glass. Not
to mention, camera has became almost as fuzzy a definition as phone,
considering all the features they pack into some of them these days...

------
e12e
I'd be more exited if it looked like Google had addressed some of Steve Mann's
critiques from the initial announcement, but as far as I can tell, the
critique is still not addressed:

[http://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/profiles/steve-mann-my-
au...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/profiles/steve-mann-my-augmediated-
life) (For discussion on Glass design, look for the paragraph starting: "I
have mixed feelings")

FWIW it appears Mann is working with a company on a different system for
mediated reality:

[https://www.metavision.com/](https://www.metavision.com/)

~~~
joshuamorton
Those appear to critique glass as an AR system, which it doesn't appear to be
marketed as.

------
dfee
I was an early member of Pristine (the Google Glass company that Upskill
recently acquired) where I began as a developer, and then landed our first
paid deal at the end of 2014.

We used to buy the glasses for $1500 a piece and had a probably 50 pairs of
them lying around by early 2015.

The engineering team was great - while I was there it felt like we were flying
blind wrt Google’s official support. From a business perspective, I’m not sure
product market fit was really ever achieved, though after I left the company
expanded its horizons beyond healthcare / telemedicine.

Good luck to Upskill :)

------
0xfab1
That makes me want a pair that's installed with an app that shows relevant
stackoverflow answers as I code.

~~~
e12e
But why would you want to wear something like this, for that? I can see how an
editor/IDE plugin might be useful (a la racer for rust etc) - that would
update a section of the screen with tips - but I don't think I'd like to have
this on a completely different device.

Now, with a full vr headset, it might make sense to be able to place such
things outside of the normal field of vision (where your text/code editing
resides) - but so far I don' think working full time in VR with text is a
great idea, with the current generation of headsets.

~~~
sigstoat
> But why would you want to wear something like this, for that?

can't have other folks knowing you're looking things up on SO. it'd ruin your
mystique.

------
morley
Has anyone here worked on a Glass app? How is the UI programmed? Does it
require a special programming paradigm like VR, or are these instruction
manual HUDs basically just PDF viewers?

~~~
lnanek2
Initially you could just write Android apps. Every OS release broke the
standard features more and more, however, and you were pretty much forced into
their special programming paradigms, yes. For example, originally swiping
emulated the d-pad buttons, but that was removed. For a long time you could
pair Bluetooth keyboards, mice, and trackpads, but then they broke that for a
long time. It may have been added back recently.

Modern era there is a "Mirror API" that's a very limited web based API for
serving "cards" to the device and there's a a native SDK with a few hooks for
registering for pre-selected voice commands and showing activities with
various amounts of liveliness or graphics capability vs. static cards.

So if you are just publishing cards with standard menu actions you can write
server side only in Python and several other languages and just communicate
with Google's servers. If you want a more native experience you write in Java
using an SDK originally based on Android.

~~~
glenneroo
Someone else posted this somewhere in here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14608894](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14608894)

Basically they pushed an update out a couple weeks ago (after almost 3 years
of nothing) which added Bluetooth device support.

------
tlb
It seems disingenuous to pitch it as an improvement over a ring binder of
documents. The question is whether it's an improvement over an iPad on a stand
beside your work.

------
Zhenya
No info on the HW, that's the interesting part. How did they solve battery
life issues etc

~~~
kharms
In an industrial setting they don't really need to solve that problem. Battery
low? Swap out the glasses for another pair.

~~~
spenczar5
I'm not sure that's true. One of the examples has a tech working at the top of
a wind turbine. Maybe he's supposed to bring up a backup battery pack?

~~~
euyyn
Just plug it to the wind turbine's output for a couple seconds :P

------
tqi
For the manufacturing example, why is this better than having a simple 7-10
inch tablet? For the doctor example, why is this better than a simple body
cam, or even a camera that is wall or desk mounted?

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _For the manufacturing example, why is this better than having a simple 7-10
> inch tablet?_

Hands-free operation.

Honestly, I'd love to use it all the time, instead of my smartphone. There are
so many cases in which you want to have the screen in your FOV, but your hands
free, not just at work...

> _For the doctor example, why is this better than a simple body cam, or even
> a camera that is wall or desk mounted?_

It probably isn't, unless the doctor can also utilize a display for something.
Otherwise it's just an expensive (and quite likely crappy, compared to other
available options) camera.

~~~
projektfu
It's nice to have a camera that follows your perspective, because you might
need two hands to be able to see what you want. For example, if you're parting
someone's hair or looking into their mouth with a tongue depressor.

~~~
mgamache
hard to overstate the importance of POV for some applications (including
remote medicine).

------
amelius
A few questions:

\- Can only businesses buy Glass?

\- What is the pricing model? Is this sold as a product, or is it paid for as
a subscription service?

\- Will there be a "play store" equivalent for software for Glass?

~~~
mgamache
it will be through VARs (there is no play store).

------
phyller
Nice. This is what the original launch should have been like. Help doctors use
this to provide better care and no one is going to be calling anyone a
"glasshole"

~~~
intjesus
Exactly what I thought

------
tastyfreeze
I have always thought that the perfect application for wearable head mounted
displays would be mechanical repair. I would love to be able to pull up the
maintenance manual for my vehicle and have the glasses overlay part names,
fastener sizes, and torque settings for whatever part I was looking at. This
is a step in that direction.

------
irrational
I'd love to have something like this to show me step by step how to do repairs
on my car or an appliance. Recently I was fixing the turn signal lever in my
car by referring to youtube videos. It would be awesome if I could just
download to the device a file for whatever thing I need to fix and it just
walks me through the steps.

------
bhnmmhmd
It's probably not related to this article per se, but isn't it weird that
"x.com" is owned by Elon Musk while the actual company - which is a branch of
Alphabet - has to use "x.company"?

------
beebmam
I actually am really sad Glass didn't take off. When it was available, I was
unemployed. I'd love to get my hands on a new version of it, if google were
ever to release a new version for the public.

------
theptip
This seems to me the obvious use-case for AR technology, but Hololens looks
further along than Glass; I'd be interested to see where they have got with
any comparable Hololens projects.

~~~
sbarre
Hololens, in its current state, is much bulkier and more expensive to
deploy...

It's probably also way more expensive to design & build the experience and
content for Hololens' interface..

Glass just needs video, text and a 2D navigation interface (I'm being
reductive here but you get my point)..

You could of course do that kind of interface for Hololens too, but then why
not just use Glass?

------
zxcvvcxz
Super excited, that top image is literally me in the garage sometimes, albeit
with safety goggles.

Can these provide eye protection from bits of flying metal while one is
drilling?

Will keep digging through the page.

------
LyalinDotCom
Kudos to Google for continuing to invest into this product, it really has
long-term potential and we need all the big players in this space to drive
competition forward.

------
ensiferum
I'm sure standard software TOS apply. I.e. Software vendor is not responsible
for any errors omissions or mistakes it presents to the mechanic.

------
pessimizer
This was completely predictable, and what everyone suggested as Glass failed
for consumers; the fact that they're doing this now doesn't necessarily
represent any success or particular efficaciousness discovered during the
pilot programs. The fact that it took this long to roll out and announce
publicly is a bad sign, though. They may have just run out of time, and were
forced from above to make their best try at it.

------
BatFastard
SAD, its black and white! I recall Mondo2000 challenging every color scheme
ever created. Lime greens and oranges!

------
omot
I don't know what it is about it, but the design is so cringey. Even on a
professional, it just looks... bad.

~~~
marsRoverDev
In a world where people are forced to wear hi-vis and safety goggles, I don't
think people on a shop floor are going to particularly care about looking good
if it makes their job easier.

~~~
LeifCarrotson
Don't forget those formal white (OK, heavy canvas or leather) gloves to
complete your outfit, nor the essential steel-toe boots! They're at the peak
of high-fashion footwear. You can look even better if you're only on the shop
floor part-time and get to don colorful Oshatoes _over_ your dress shoes:
[https://www.oshatoes.com/collections/toe-
protection/products...](https://www.oshatoes.com/collections/toe-
protection/products/visitor-steel-toe-classic-pvc)

------
projectramo
I know Glass, or something like it, will be great. But I don't know which
combination of features + killer app will unlock the thing.

HN has probably mentioned this before but is there a reason Google makes
announcements on Medium and not on Blogger?

I would do the same thing if I had a choice, but Google could just make the
formatting on Blogger better.

~~~
eterm
For me it would be facial recognition crossed with something like linkedin. I
really struggle with recognising people and it has a large impact on how well
I can network at informal events such as tech meetups. Others will recognise
each other from similar events and sometimes might recognise me "Oh weren't
you at <X>?". At which point I look very rude when I have no idea whatsoever
who they are.

So some tech to aid recognition and the ability to add a few notes such as
their line of business would be something I'd happily spend a lot of money on.

But early on glass said "no access to facial recognition APIs" which killed my
interest in it's first incarnation.

~~~
TeMPOraL
The problem is - most of the cool and useful personal applications of glass
fly in the face of various social expectations. The very idea you could be
recording someone caused a backlash the last time, and that's nowhere near
doing facial recognition...

~~~
eterm
Is facial recognition creepier than recording?

If it's done in real-time, i.e. the scanned images aren't saved then surely a
"This is person <X> you've met and tagged as X" is less creepy than actually
videoing someone? You wouldn't get any information you haven't yourself added
to the device (although it would probably need to lean on external data-sets
for the training).

I wouldn't suggest facial recognition should recognise anyone you haven't met
yet, I think that would be a bit weird (although I think it is the future
anyway), but a way to effectively add a tag on someone you know would be
great. Most people can do this without the technology to varying levels of
accuracy and and breadth of their acquaintances.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I think it is creepier by definition, through the very fact that the other
person can't verify you aren't recording. A camera is a camera. Even if the
product officially doesn't record anything, who's to say I didn't mod my
glasses' firmware to dump the video buffer? Not to mention that once video
stream goes into cloud, you lose control over what happens to it.

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dragonwriter
Headline is neither source headline not technically accurate; while X started
life as Google X before the Alphabet reorg, it's a separate subsidiary of
Alphabet from Google.

This story is about X, not Google.

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singularity2001
x.company interesting domain name! one letter 'domain' six letter TLD

~~~
egfx
interestingly x.com is owned by Elon Musk. He tweeted about it four days ago..
[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/885776126148083712](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/885776126148083712)

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mshiran
very cool!

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stutterSpeaker
I hated it when they abandoned it, because I was so excited about the tech for
so long. I think maybe the public just wasn't ready for it then. They probably
still aren't now, but this could be an excellent way for them to get more
comfortable with it.

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megamindbrian
This is such bullshit. I applied for their private beta and never got a
response.

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sharemywin
Aw...how cute they look like little borg lite.

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j_hall_in
Looks like they are using the strategy of Microsoft HoloLens here which I
think makes sense. There isn't enough wide-spread value add in these augmented
reality headsets for general consumer use yet, but businesses will help drive
innovation until that time comes.

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MBCook
A lot of fluff here, but not much substance. I see how having large manuals or
paper lists in your field of view could be very useful.

Does it work well for employees with classes?

I assume they've updated the chip inside to something less power-hungry. Does
it get reasonable battery life now?

Why do doctors need Glass to record notes in the background? Couldn't _any_
computer run that software?

~~~
djsumdog
> Why do doctors need Glass to record notes in the background? Couldn't any
> computer run that software?

I'm guessing this might have to do with voice recognition tech and the doctor
being able to see the notes visually. If it picks up something incorrectly,
maybe the doc just turns to the computer and corrects it?

~~~
jfoster
Still sounds as though a laptop would be better. Perhaps it's now improved,
but the Glass screen wasn't nearly as clear to read from as a MacBook Pro
screen.

