
Google Glass is coming back - tuyguntn
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/business/2016/01/04/reports-of-death-of-google-glass-premature-according-to-fcc-filing.html
======
lips
Isn't this old news? I can't find the specific article I recall reading
w/Google talking about renewing efforts to integrate with industrial and
medical uses, but there are tons of recent links out there:

[https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2015/02/medical-
stude...](https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2015/02/medical-students-
startup-uses-google-glass.html)

[http://www.thenational.ae/uae/health/uae-doctors-use-
google-...](http://www.thenational.ae/uae/health/uae-doctors-use-google-glass-
for-surgery-advances)

and the developer page shows at least 3 medical-oriented partner cos:
[https://developers.google.com/glass/distribute/glass-at-
work...](https://developers.google.com/glass/distribute/glass-at-work?hl=en)

Here's a craigslist job ad for a co using Glass:
[http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/tch/5353555299.html](http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/tch/5353555299.html)

And this article says that the "Glass at Work" program was started in April
2014: [http://www.eweek.com/mobile/next-google-glass-version-
could-...](http://www.eweek.com/mobile/next-google-glass-version-could-be-
display-free-report.html)

Sooo.. clickbait and old-news.

------
qq66
I hope they target this iteration more towards people who already wear glasses
-- these are people who have already resigned themselves to placing a plastic
object on their face every single day. The amount of change from there to a
Google Glass is much less than for someone who doesn't wear glasses.

If you could order Google Glass with prescription lenses, you'd probably find
a lot more takers than people who are suddenly willing to put a computer on
their face.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
The funny thing is, I finally got the prescription frames for Glass... about a
month before I stopped wearing them. Even with their frames, the cost to buy
lenses specifically for a device I may not use all the time... It's a big
cost.

They'd likely be far better off figuring out how to clip Glass to existing
frames, or at least ensure if they do offer specific prescription frames for
Glass, that the Glass device itself can be removed from them.

~~~
randycupertino
... as if prescription frames and lenses aren't already pricey enough! I got
my new frames from this cute shop in the Castro and between the lenses and
frames WITH insurance it was still $800. Oof.

~~~
mattdlondon
Not sure if that was bait or not, but you can get normal (i.e. not google
glass) lens + frames for less than £10 delivered in the UK from many different
online retailers.

The quality is not amazing - they probably won't last more than a year or so,
but then neither does a prescription.

Glasses don't need to be expensive.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Maybe things are handled a bit different in the UK than they are here.
Generally getting any glasses starts with a visit to your optometrist. Very
few people actually get the prescription settings of their lenses handed to
them (maybe that's different in the UK?), but place their order through the
same vision place as their eye doctor.

Lenses are usually a couple hundred dollars, and your frames will probably be
a hundred or more as well. Usually if you have insurance with vision coverage,
it helps pay for some or all of that, for a single pair, on a semi-regular
basis.

------
ereckers
If they can prevent the image of Robert Scoble in the shower becoming the
public perception of Google Glass this time around, they might just make it.

------
danso
Was there any doubt to this? I like spending my day at the command line and
never tried out the Glass but I find it pretty easy to see the advantages of.
I mean, the concept of its advantages seem at least as good as they do for
having an extra monitor.

Perhaps Google's big mistake was to release it as a consumer product first? If
it dominated enterprise, particularly in hands-on fields like surgery and
repair...seems like consumers would adopt it out of technoenvy.

~~~
stewartbutler
I don't think they intended to release explorer edition for consumer use at
all; however, when the news hit and everyone was trying to get their hands on
one they ended up trying to pivot a beta development platform into a consumer
product and failed. Seems to me they have simply rolled back to their initial
release plan.

It is also worth noting that Google is known to sink money into projects where
the main payoff is data for another project; see Google 411, which was used as
training data for their voice recognition.

------
dexwiz
Google Glass is just the natural evolution of the wearable. It will not
replace smartphones, but will extend it. Everyone talks about the camera, but
there were some fundamental issues with the Glass that have been addressed by
wearables and advancing tech.

Do I have to touch my face to use it? Talking to it seemed awkward at the
time, and voice interfaces for smartphones were still new in 2013. But now
with Siri/Ok Google/Alexa, talking to a computer seems more natural. And it
just works better.

What do I do with the screen? Wearables have shown that you don't have to
choose between a smart phone in and a watch, and they work better together.
Expect better apps that display notifications or core information (like
navigation) on the Glass but advanced features and configuration is still on
the phone.

Do I look like an asshole? The first generation showed that people don't want
to wear something so alien. Wearables don't look like Leela's communicator.
They look like watches.

Everyone saw this coming. The Glass was a bit early still for the tech, and
people's acceptance of it.

~~~
x3n0ph3n3
The big problem with The Glass is that people don't like being overtly
recorded in private spaces. Bars started banning them for good reason.

~~~
potatolicious
Quite honestly I just don't see a good reason for the camera. There was never
a useful application for them - attempts at augmented reality were shitty, not
useful, or creepy (or all of the above).

e.g., that app that would show you someone's LinkedIn profile when you looked
at them. Yeesh.

Add that to the (IMO at least somewhat fair) criticism around private spaces
and IMO there's not a good case for keeping it. I'm personally hoping the next
iteration at least has the option of being camera-less, and that they add in
the requisite indicator light if the camera is on.

~~~
elif
The creepy facial recognition apps were demos or proof-of-concepts. Part of
the conditions for developing for glass (at least when i was an explorer)
include agreeing to not do facial recognition at all.

I strongly disagree with your assessment of the camera as being "never
useful."

The best experiences I had with glass revolve around "OK glass. record a
video"

Whether it's catching someone's license plate in traffic, doing something
really cool and sharing the first-hand experience with my friends, or
recording a pool shot or curling throw so that i can later review it to work
on my form.

The cards were far too limited. Any meaningful engagement involves pulling out
your phone. In fact, I would argue that without the camera, There is
absolutely no point to google glass. You can do google voice commands and use
headphones with any new phone.

~~~
potatolicious
> _" Whether it's catching someone's license plate in traffic, doing something
> really cool and sharing the first-hand experience with my friends, or
> recording a pool shot or curling throw so that i can later review it to work
> on my form."_

Only the first use case is actually improved by having the camera on your face
rather than your phone.

I'll gladly admit that having the camera already strapped to your face makes
it faster to use than something you have to pull out of your pocket - the
problem is that this speed has very little marginal benefit 99% of the time,
and pulling the phone out of your pocket isn't really that big of a pain in
the ass.

I see Glass similarly to how I see most Smart-Things - they solve a problem
that most people don't really regard as problems.

It's either strictly inferior to pulling out your phone (via
limited/inaccurate/slow input like voice or the swipe-pad), or it's slightly
superior but only marginally so. And it's 95/5 the former vs. the latter. Not
a compelling case for a product at all.

> _" Part of the conditions for developing for glass (at least when i was an
> explorer) include agreeing to not do facial recognition at all."_

I'm aware, which makes the device even more pointless. At least the LinkedIn
Recognizer had some semblance of a use case, albeit creepy. I don't think
anyone was able to come up with anything mass-market using the camera that was
actually useful - niche enterprise uses most certainly, but mainstream mass
market?

> _" In fact, I would argue that without the camera, There is absolutely no
> point to google glass. You can do google voice commands and use headphones
> with any new phone."_

I half-agree with you - I don't see much point in Google Glass outside of
niche enterprise/industrial context, camera or no. That said it might be the
less shitty smartwatch (itself a product that solves a problem most people
don't really regard as problems) - I'd prefer a little screen at the corner of
my vision over a buzzing vibrating blob hanging off my wrist demanding I raise
my arm every time.

So yeah, maybe Google Glass can rival smartwatches in terms of usefulness.
Fine company it keeps, then.

------
chuckcode
It seemed to me like it was the camera that provoked a backlash from general
public. People still like to know when they are being photographed or in a
video and I'm not sure putting a light on it is going to solve that. Wish
Google would make the camera a separate and obvious accessory for those sort
of social interaction concerns as I'd actually be interested in a quick heads
up display.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
While the wink-to-take-a-photo feature added much later might've been a
concern, the two primary (and most reliable) ways to take photos were to
physically raise your hand to press the shutter button, or to say "Okay glass,
take a photo". Neither of those two methods are remotely subtle.

It's unlikely this is any less obvious of an interaction than anything you
could accomplish while holding a smartphone.

I wasn't a big user of the camera feature on my Glass because of Google's
mandatory policy of Auto Upload, so it certainly wasn't a key requirement for
me. But I don't see that backlash as legitimate. I also never got concerns or
complaints while wearing it for over a year, most people who took issue
online, when asked, admitted they'd never seen the device in real life.

~~~
chuckcode
I think you're absolutely correct that Google Glass users taking lots of
unwanted and unnoticed pictures wasn't a big issue. I do think that most
people won't understand those nuances and just don't like having a camera
pointed at them all the time. It will be interesting to see if social norms
catch up to the current law that people in public can be photographed/recorded
freely. From a product standpoint I'd like to see Google launch a camera free
version, get people used to it and then put a camera on it.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
I had an on the cheap solution, that I never had to use: I have a 3D printed
slip cover (designed and printed by a fellow Explorer) which fits snugly onto
the Glass frame and covers the camera.

Why have a camera-free version, when you could simply put a cap on the camera?

------
tracker1
Given the likes of Amazon, FedEx, UPS etc, I would think that inventory
management would be a huge use for something like Google Glass... drivers,
part pickers, packers, etc... anyone that needs to move the right products
from A to B, mapping where A and B are, etc. The time savings could be
significant.

------
mentos
I think Google should solve a problem with this hardware internally, baking it
until its something every employee wants and then look towards the consumer.

~~~
randycupertino
Between glass and google plus, I don't get why they try to force these lame
things nobody wants on their customers. Shouldn't google be smarter than
that??

~~~
Mahn
It's called experimenting. You can't always get it right without getting it
wrong sometimes.

------
cjfont
> Then again, consumers might not be the main focus for Glass anymore.

So, that's like saying it's dead for the consumer market, and isn't this the
playing field we're talking about? It shouldn't be a surprise that a product
like this would cater to a niche market, but that doesn't qualify it as
"coming back".

~~~
Navarr
I'm not sure Enterprise is niche. There are, of course, the "privacy concerns"
against glass that make it not much of a consumer product - but it has shown
to be fantastic for certain use cases.

So maybe it's not "coming back" but it's not "dead"

~~~
theklub
What use cases is it fantastic for?

~~~
rickyc091
It's been used a bit in the medical industry. Just do a google for it and a
lot more articles come up.

[https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2015/02/medical-
stude...](https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2015/02/medical-students-
startup-uses-google-glass.html)
[http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/01/google-glass-
enters...](http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/01/google-glass-enters-the-
operating-room/)

------
ntumlin
Does adding a light to Glass really solve the problem of covert recording?
Does getting rid of Glass even do that?

Cameras are tiny. Privacy is dying.

~~~
icebraining
The difference is what's called "normalization". Sure, everyone can get a
covert camera. But few people are going to buy and use one, because they'd
feel like a creep and/or they can't use it as a fashion statement and/or it's
not as useful by itself. So unless you're being specifically targeted, the
chances of being filmed are small. But if using a device with a camera always
pointed at others (unlike cellphones, which usually remain in pockets and
bags) and which uploads everything to "the cloud" becomes normal, it becomes
almost impossible to avoid the pervasive monitorization.

As the US Privacy Study Commission wrote in 1977, _" the real danger is the
gradual erosion of individual liberties through automation, integration, and
interconnection of many small, separate record-keeping systems, each of which
alone may seem innocuous, even benevolent, and wholly justifiable."_

------
chippy
I think they could tap into "The Selfies Craze" \- in other words, turn the
camera to face the wearer.

Edits - so instead of "World, here's what I'm seeing" they should focus on
"World, here's me looking at cool stuff". Sad, but probably more consumer
friendly.

~~~
Balgair
I mean, that's not a BAD idea. It's crazy and a total abuse of a great tech.
But the selfie stick inventor and cardboard sleeve around the coffee inventor
dude probably both thought the same thing.

------
alfiedotwtf
Post Snowden, I don't think Glass can ever happen

Downvoters: don't just hit down... let me know why I'm wrong!

~~~
knorby
Phones continue to be a bigger or equivalent privacy threat to the individual
user and others than Glass ever was. The ability to discreetly take photos and
short, low-quality videos also continues to be something highly possible with
phones and other consumer tech.

~~~
krapp
One can at least assume that most people carrying phones don't have their
microphone and camera on all the time - with Glass, that intrusion into
privacy is designed to be unavoidable.

~~~
knorby
There is again absolutely no difference between phones and glass in this
regard... Android phones now have trigger word detection ("OK Google")
available as well, which is all that glass did. Again like a phone, the camera
is only on when triggered.

The only real difference is positioning, but you can hold a phone up, and most
people won't notice.

~~~
marshray
Why don't you go spend a day with your cellphone taped to your forehead
recording video and see how many people notice?

