

Ok, glass – new Google Glass concepts - jackm
http://jackwmorgan.com/ok-glass
I had some spare time this weekend, so I created some simple concepts for Google Glass. What are your thoughts on the soon to be released device?
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droelf
I still don't know.. Google Glass feels like these people standing in the
first row in a concert and watching the whole thing through their 2.5"
smartphone screen just to share it on facebook. It's just not the experience I
want to get from life.

~~~
mtgx
But that's the point of Glass. You don't have to stand with your phone in
front of your face to watch the concert anymore. You just have Glass record
it. And you're watching the concert as you've always done it. Glass _frees_
you.

~~~
Spearchucker
Free you it does. But at what cost? With Glass _everything_ I do I'll do with
compromise. Divided attention. When I play with my son I'm keeping an eye on
Twitter. When I'm at a concert I'm making sure I watch the stage. When I'm
visiting friends I'm wondering how they'll feel with a potentially always-on
camera photographing and recording their kids.

Attention. Split. Down. The middle.

~~~
toki5
>With Glass _everything_ I do I'll do with compromise

This is a choice you make. You're making it for the sake of your argument,
then presenting the argument as if everyone will make the same choice.

You shouldn't; I won't.

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grovulent
I think the potential of glass is mind blowing... but it will take a while to
get there. Some of my dreamy musings on the future:

[https://plus.google.com/117405082753493075236/posts/MTrVALTp...](https://plus.google.com/117405082753493075236/posts/MTrVALTp9m7?hl=en)

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davidjgraph
There's some good examples, but also some awful examples that just play into
the hands of the detractors of Glass.

"ok glass, how fast are we going?"

Really? You want to ask Google rather than the driver?

How far to the top of this escalator? Can't we just stand on one for 30
seconds without having to perform some micro-action? And anyway, the app would
just be showing some "failed to connect" message here (plus 3 minutes for an
escalator to move 197 feet (about 65 metres for those of us in the current
century), really?)

I'd halve the number of shots in this pages, but make them the really good
ones, the message is pretty diluted, otherwise.

~~~
tommoor
I like to think that the "we" refers to the wearer and his Glass, at this
point they have become close friends and Glass whispers in his ear

 _we're going 75 miles per hour jack, isn'it it exhilarating_

I would definitely buy that.

~~~
davidjgraph
I wonder how it'd deal with things with double meanings:

"OK, glass, how high are we?"

~~~
jenius
"you are 43.78% as high as snoop dogg is right now, david"

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emillon
A lot of these applications could be done with a smartphone and VR. Most did
not (see the failure of QR codes). I doubt that people will get dedicated
hardware to perform this task.

~~~
Kiro
Maybe the reason they failed was because of friction that Google Glass
removes.

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lnanek2
Neat seeing some things I already wrote on there :)

Music playing: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mrb9Jb5VTLs>

Face recognition: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1aeMJY1AO0>

A friend already wrote the running one too:
[https://plus.google.com/102638891846233998637/posts/TFqoT49Q...](https://plus.google.com/102638891846233998637/posts/TFqoT49QRqn)

~~~
jackm
Awesome, glad to see there are already people bringing it to life.

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cannikin
I got to try out Glass a couple of weeks ago and (for me, at least) there is a
huge problem: the display floats about a foot or so in front of you, up and to
the right. That means you have to shift your focus from what's in front of you
to see it. And not just look to the side, but actually focus closer, which
means the rest of the world goes blurry. It would be very hard to walk down
the street and be accessing Glass without running into things - the same
problem as looking down and being engrossed in your phone.

In the video demos everything (the Glass interface and the background) are in
sharp focus so you don't even think about it being an issue. But when you're
actually using them it's extremely distracting to shift your field of vision
back and forth. Not to mention that when someone else is wearing them it is
_extremely_ obvious when they're looking at Glass instead of you.

The technology is amazing, but for me the interface is just too distracting
right now. Have the HUD appear at the same depth of field as wherever I'm
currently looking and this thing would be unstoppable. But it's going to be
quite an engineering challenge to determine where your eye is focused and
adjust the display to match on the fly.

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Irene
My google glass proposal was to use it as a brain extension for things we
can't do with our brain. For example - remember some of the foods we eat and
how we feel to predict our reactions to new foods and environments - energy
spikes, side effects. Our brain can't always do it as we do not know the
ingredients and do not remember our metabolic abilities at various outside
temperatures, etc. Aurametrix can do it. Interested? Let me know.

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mcdowall
Love the workups, I've sent them round our department (TfL).

~~~
jackm
Thanks. As a daily user of the tube, I would love to hear what your colleagues
think.

~~~
mcdowall
Sure, feel free to drop me a mail and I'll collate and send back.

~~~
jackm
That would be great. Thanks, James.

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iamshs
This is one amazingly good project and the demonstrations are really well done
which bring the whole project to a forefront. I will be curious to see its
usage and adaption upon launch.

The whole project, though, is very much dependent upon a camera, are there
other feasible usage scenarios when operating without the camera? Because
there will be "vitriol" poured privacy issues over coming months.

~~~
estebank
Well, you have access to a GPS, have a display and can produce sounds that
only the wearer can hear. I can imagine a lot of things that can be done with
that alone.

Think Google Now.

The camera just increases the number of (at this time) potential applications.

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adlpz
This mockups are really selling me the whole Glass thing. So many useful
features to be developed!

Too bad the API Google released a while ago is so limited.

~~~
ben1040
Except for not having direct camera and sensor access, the API isn't _that_
limited. It just requires a little bit more thought in terms of how you lay
out the UI and design how your user will interact.

I've seen some pretty impressive stuff with Glass thus far, and Glass has only
been shipping for about 3 weeks. Even now only a small fraction of the 2000
developers from I/O have actually gotten their devices yet.

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jackm
Hi everyone, OP here. I'm currently at work so I can't respond right now, but
I'll reply to you all as soon as I can. I never thought a quick weekend
project would be this popular. I can't thank you all enough for your interest
in this. In the meantime, I'm @jckmgn on Twitter. Thanks!

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xedarius
I spent quite a bit of money on corrective laser eye surgery (which turned out
great). The surgery meant I no longer have to wear glasses, which I didn't
enjoy at all. Sorry Google, put your tech into some other item of clothing and
I might be interested.

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andyhmltn
One feature I'd _really_ love would be the ability to video chat and share
views with other glass users near by without Internet.

I'm aware this won't probably happen for another few years at least, but if I
could go skydiving with my friend and have a viewport of what he's seeing up
in the top right corner, it'd make things really pretty cool

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joyeuse6701
You know, the funny thing is, most scifi movies have something glass like for
military applications as opposed to civilian. I could see militaries watching
this with great anticipation for friend or foe tags, navigation/waypointing
even targeting systems.

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return0
Few of these use cases require actually wearing glasses to perform (namely
only the ones that require taking a photo). Given that phones might in the
future be shrunk down to wristwatch size,it seems a more comfortable
alternative.

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illdave
The translate concept got me thinking - I wouldn't be surprised at all if
Google didn't buy Quest Visual/Word Lens: <http://questvisual.com/us/>

~~~
jackm
That's actually what inspired that particular use case. I would love to be
able to travel to a foreign country and be able to understand every piece of
text I looked at. I think it could also be useful for learning a language.

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rayj
I'd rather not have someone recording video of everything that is going on and
even worse having it uploaded to Google.

Imagine the looks if you had a digital camera out like that and were walking
around with it.

~~~
drdaeman
I may possibly have bad memory or attention span, but sometimes I can't
remember various important details from a dialog that happened just an hour
ago. Or remember and recognize faces from a yesterday meeting. So I'd really
like the feature to record and analyze everything that happens around me, but
I'd certainly want keep it on my own (physically-owned) storage and nowhere
else.

I actually set my phone to automatically record every phone call I make or
answer. Calls are recorded, kept for several hours, then encrypted and moved
to my home NAS for a secure long-term storage. Helped me many times.

This may sound like a privacy issue, but I try to maintain reasonably high
security (<http://xkcd.com/538/> is completely relevant though) and as for
possible disclosure concerns, I believe having a recording changes nothing as
calls are already recorded in human memory anyway.

(Well, I'm fine with storing almost anything on Google servers if this data's
ultimately encrypted on my side with Google not knowing anything about the
keys.)

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ohwp
Since the introduction of navigation systems a lot of people have absolutely
no clue of where they are. They also don't remember the route they took
because there is no need to remember.

With the proposed app you don't need to remember a face. Could it be that in
the future a lot of people just don't remember you because they can always
look you up?

I can understand some fun of this gadget but I don't understand why people
think this is _"to enhance the world around us"_. In my mind these gadgets are
anti-social. They are there to "share" but forget that "listen to" is as equal
important.

There have never been so much lonely people in this age of "social".

Disclaimer: I love what you can do with a computer/device but I don't own a
nav system, smartphone or whatever.

~~~
raldi
On the contrary, nothing has done more to _help_ me get a picture of where
things are than GPS, especially when someone else is driving.

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Uncompetative
Someone is going to be famous as being the first person to die as a result of
being distracted by the intrusive UI of their Google Glass. It will make the
news. They will be thought of as a pathetic fashion victim. Winner of a Darwin
Award.

~~~
raldi
And then the product will become as obscure as the car radio.

