
Glass Enterprise Edition 2 - daegloe
https://www.blog.google/products/hardware/glass-enterprise-edition-2/
======
TuringNYC
I was an original Glass Explorer, owner of ~15 units, we spent 9mo full-time
with our startup (DocHuddle, Inc.) working as CTO+Developer on glass use
cases, and I can say this:

Real progress wont be made until there are great developer tools. Google,
feeling that simulators ruined the true experience, didn't make simulators for
the Glass SDK, which made development impossible. It meant you had to debug
with the thing plugged in or on your face (or via Android Mirror).

Thankfully, the overheating problems have been fixed, but real progress also
wont be made until you can work on it 18hrs a day (not just until the unit
heats up.)

It was surprising to me how much money was spent on the Glass program yet how
little was spent on the folks who would actually be coming up with the app
ecosystem.

All that said, I still believe in the concept and think the Enterprise use
cases are enormous. I just hope the opportunity isnt bungled again.

~~~
TremendousJudge
>It was surprising to me how much money was spent on the Glass program yet how
little was spent on the folks who would actually be coming up with the app
ecosystem.

You can say that about pretty much every google product. Stevey's Platform
Rant[0] is still as relevant as it was years ago.

[0]
[https://gist.github.com/chitchcock/1281611](https://gist.github.com/chitchcock/1281611)

~~~
AceJohnny2
Tangentially, I regularly wonder what Steve Yegge would have to say about that
rant nowadays.

~~~
jsmeaton
He just wrote a blog post that refers to it briefly, tongue in cheek.

[https://medium.com/@steve.yegge/google-to-grab-one-year-
late...](https://medium.com/@steve.yegge/google-to-grab-one-year-
later-3e1e4df321f3)

------
nmstoker
Much as it's maligned, the original did attempt to solve some genuine problems
and narrowing the audience / focus seems sensible.

Given a lot of the negative points were around the reaction of others to
having a camera pointed at them, I never got why they didn't make it easy to
flip up the camera part as a way to physically indicate it wasn't in use.
Perhaps a little less of a concern in a professional use environment, but it
still helps if you have an easy way not to wind people up, eg if you nip away
from the place you actively use it in but don't want to take them off
completely; would be a Glass equivalent of not going to talk to a shop
assistant with your headphones blaring away or whilst on the phone neither of
which are particularly polite!

~~~
Sir_Substance
>Given a lot of the negative points were around the reaction of others to
having a camera pointed at them, I never got why they didn't make it easy to
flip up the camera part as a way to physically indicate it wasn't in use.

That actually doesn't really solve the problem. People sometimes use cameras
in the most inappropriate of places. If a friend of mine has a motorbike
accident and breaks an arm and someone from the side of the street goes
"coooool" and pulls out his phone and starts streaming, I can storm over there
and slap the phone out of his hand.

You may or may not like the idea that I might do that, but I think it's
appropriate and if that person disagrees then fuck 'em, they can argue it in
front of a judge in small claims court.

The problem with glass, even with a flip down camera, is that /I have to hit
you in the face/ to do the same thing. There's no way to make a glasshole stop
filming except to stick my mittens near their eyes, and I'd totally agree with
any judge that said my going for someones face to make them stop filming is a
far more aggressive action than slapping a phone out of their hand.

But therein lies the problem. If you don't have the social awareness to know
that you shouldn't be filming someone, if you're using glass I can't force you
to stop filming without severely escalating the situation.

It's a socially inappropriate design.

~~~
judge2020
Aren't sidewalks and streets public spaces? Unless you're on private property
(that you own), you can't legally slap someone, nor can you slap their phone
out of their hand.

~~~
Sir_Substance
Would you still feel the same way if someone was filming your child?

~~~
larkeith
"Won't someone please think of the children!"

There are legitimate privacy and rights concerns to the legality of filming in
public spaces (especially in this era of "big data"). None of them are
exclusive to children.

Also note that parent was discussing the legality of filming, which is
independent of the... interesting social moires you espouse.

------
minimalist
It's possible to install GNU/Linux on Explorer units thanks to Google
following the GPL and releasing kernel sources[0]. It's also possible to get
AOSP running on an Explorer unit, and it works well enough on Android Lollipop
at least[1].

Some people at PostMarketOS have even gotten recent Linux kernels to work on
Glass[2], although the last time I tried (last year), I wasn't able to get
anything to draw to the framebuffer after about 6 hours of effort.

Finally, the original GlassOS was Android based. The stock kernel and
applications have been extracted and are floating around[3].

[0]: [https://developers.google.com/glass/tools-
downloads/system](https://developers.google.com/glass/tools-downloads/system)

[1]: [https://forum.xda-developers.com/google-
glass/development/ro...](https://forum.xda-developers.com/google-
glass/development/rom-aosp-google-glass-t3356234)

[2]:
[https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Google_Glass_(Explorer_Ed...](https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Google_Glass_\(Explorer_Edition\))

[3]: [https://github.com/GlassHack](https://github.com/GlassHack)

------
TeMPOraL
What Glass was supposed to be in the first place. I just hope it finds its way
to regular people too at some point - would be cool to have such a tool in
hobbyist space, not just in structured professional employment.

Side note: throughout the video my inner critic tried to scream, "they're
definitely overstating the impact", but it was drowned in excitement generated
by the music. It's one of the few times in my life when I felt the music is
purposefully manipulating me. Now I wish for a switch that could cut off
background music from a video and leave just the speech.

~~~
wmf
Focals is trying the consumer market.
[https://www.bynorth.com/](https://www.bynorth.com/)

------
vlunkr
Does anyone know of cases in "logistics, to manufacturing, to field services"
where this is being used? I'm not being skeptical, I just hadn't heard of this
and it seems interesting

~~~
hangonhn
My doctor wore Glass when I had an appointment with her. It was part of some
experiment or trial being run at the medical center where I'm a patient. She
asked for my permission first. This was at least a year or two ago.

~~~
jacquesm
I'd turn right around, even when asked for permission. Too creepy to describe,
a doctor has absolutely no business pointing a camera at people unless there
is a very specific reason for it.

~~~
IggleSniggle
Why is everyone so ridiculously focused on the camera? I've never cared about
the camera. I want a cheap HUD, even if the controls are hand-operated instead
of creepy-computer-vision-operated. Most of the Glass projects I saw were
HUDs, not vision-aware HUDs.

~~~
jacquesm
> Why is everyone so ridiculously focused on the camera?

Because possibly recording someone you are facing in ordinary circumstances is
more than just a little bit rude.

~~~
IggleSniggle
So don’t record people? And/or cover your Glass camera with tape like everyone
does with their webcams. In the context of the comment chain, I am perplexed
about why everyone seems to saying that the primary utility is from the
camera, when that seems clearly secondary in utility to the HUD

------
Sujan
The usage examples in the promotion video embedded below the headline look
pretty neat. Live streaming, hands free manuals, personalized information.

~~~
duncanawoods
> Live streaming, hands free manuals, personalized information

I was very skeptical about all of these:

\- live-streaming : why $3k glasses and not a much better $50 camera on a
headmount?

\- manuals : an unreadable, hard to navigate postage stamp? Meh.

\- information : is hard to navigate tiny info obscuring your vision really
better than an ipad?

~~~
larkeith
According to Wikipedia, the display has the same relative size as a 25in
screen 8ft away. Still small (and lowish res), but larger than it originally
sounds for reading info.

------
amanzi
I have always said that Google were wrong to launch this to consumers first.
There are so many business uses for this technology, this is what Google
should have focused on first. Since this originally launched, there is a lot
more competition in the VR and MR spaces, especially with Microsoft targeting
corporates with its HoloLens. But Google's Glass is such a smaller, lighter,
more practical product than the competition. It just needs great developer
tools and support now.

~~~
Theodores
I think they opened the platform to everyone, not just a select group or
'consumers'. The thinking behind this was commendable, however, the press made
people think about the product wrongly.

The product was also ahead of its time, nowadays people would not care if a
delivery driver dropped off a parcel wearing the things and did all the
scanning and whatnot with a 'head mounted camera' instead of what looks like a
ruggedised PDA.

They forgot the lessons learned from gMail where the word of mouth, invite
only approach worked well for getting early adopters. Google Glass should have
been a bit more like that, plus they could have entered different markets on a
app basis, e.g. in galleries and museums the product would work well with
mapping. Or sports events where the product told you who the competitors were
and provided commentary.

I wish that we would identify the press as the culprit on these cock ups of
marketing, they take a novel product and get the masses to imagine a use case
for it that is unrealistic.

------
toss1
Anyone have a link to some more detailed specs?

I do carbon fiber related design & fabrication, from molds to final parts. I
could find a version of these immediately useful in my work in several ways,
including logging work progress by camera/video/hyperlapse, logging notes with
voice-text, quick lookup of material specs.

With some development, I could see display of correct sequence and orientation
of layers, and really cool would be recognition of key points and dynamic
display of exact placement of next layer of pre-cut material.

Good to see continued development.

------
debacle
For those of you who have worked with Google Glass, is the "corner of the eye"
design better than if the display were projected in some way onto the lens of
the glasses?

~~~
ukd1
Not tried the projected on to glasses way; but the corner of the eye works
great - not super distracting but also easy to view.

~~~
7ewis
Yeah I agree, it's kind hard to explain - you can sort of ignore the display
unless you look at it, but when you do look at it, it's big enough to see what
you want to see.

------
Nokinside
Going after consumers first was and still is wrong approach in AR and VR.
Technological leap is too big for that. Technology is not mature enough to
produce high quality with consumer range price.

Remember how mobile phones took over? Their original market was business use.
Those bricks were very expensive and heavy, but they sold well to business
customers on the move. Then they became a status symbol for high income
consumers and from there they gradually overtook the world.

Augmented reality and Virtual Reality should follow the same path. High end
science, medicine, architects, CAD, military uses should come first. After the
technology matures and prices drop, consumer products can emerge. Top notch
commercial VR product like Varjo VR-1 costs $6000 and it's peanuts if you need
VR for professional use. It's cumbersome to use long periods of time but the
image quality beats Rift or PSVR easily.

------
k__
I think it would be a good consumer product if it didn't have a camera.

The display and voice control would be enough.

~~~
mankyd
Interestingly, I used the original for a week. The hands free camera was the
only thing that I found useful about it, by the end.

This of course, might be partially attributable to the limited processing
power of it.

However, if all people need is a screen in the periphery, smart watches and
similar wearable tech is probably cheaper and easier.

~~~
the-rc
I loaned one for a few weeks and camera was the most useful feature for me as
well.

The much maligned camera had a more useful outcome still: it's the first (kind
of) public device using Google's computational photography, paving the way for
Pixel phones. Glass took better pictures than what the weak sensor and CPU
were capable of on paper.

------
MassiveOwl
As a cyclist and a motorcyclist, I love the idea of Glass. Being able to have
a HUD that shows your speed and basic directions is a brilliant tool. You
don't have many options for mounting your phone on the handlebar, and doing so
requires you to look down, something car driver don't have to suffer from

~~~
barnabee
Garmin make a device called Varia Vision that does this.

------
pcurve
Does this work for people with aging eyesight? I can’t focus on things that
are closer than 10 inches

~~~
jonas21
I believe the display is focused at a distance of about 8 feet so you
shouldn't have an issue.

------
mgamache
I work with EE1 and EE2. Does anyone have specific questions? I think I can
answer now that it's public. My experience with EE2 is limited as I've been
very busy with other tasks.

~~~
mgamache
Some Basics the screen is 640x360 resolution the EE1 runs custom Android 4.4
(Kitkat) The EE2 is running Marshmallow (I think) with stock UI.

------
zhxhaq
Are there any other providers in either the Enterprise or the consumer space
with a better/better-priced offering than Google Glass or is this all we have
for now?

------
protomyth
Is the old prohibition on having facial recognition still in effect?

~~~
OrgNet
they keep the facial recognition results server-side

------
micheljansen
With Google killing off so many of their products, which company is still
willing to bet on this being around in a couple of years? Seems really risky
to me!

------
RmDen
Wondering if Scoble will get one to try out in the shower and kill this one
too :-)

------
tracker1
Prescription lenses?

------
nippler
Glass is literally meme tech and time spent on it is wasted.

------
dominotw
i would not feel comfortable with my doctor wearing one of these contraptions
during consultation.

------
lgleason
How long until they cancel the product?

------
Havoc
So basically still quite far away from useful. I reckon MS will get there
first on AR

~~~
xvector
> So basically still quite far away from useful.

Except for the plethora of ways both the blog and the video describe how it
has been very useful?

------
perfmode
Hey! Could you pass me my Glass Enterprise Edition 2, please?

I'm a big fan of the technology so I'm happy to see that it has survived the
various speedbumps.

~~~
ceejayoz
People say "hand me my laptop" instead of "hand me my Dell XPS 1023a(c) v2"
already. It'll be "hand me my glass/glasses".

~~~
penagwin
I'm just glad the name is clear about what version it is!

Hated the "New iPad Air" and "New 3DS". Like, how am I supposed to communicate
that to people? People don't know what is "new" and what isn't unless they've
been following the releases. Plus, in 5 years we can't say "new" because there
were future releases! God it makes me so angry!

Edit: At the very least put a number in there, and increment it with every
major revision. Then even your grandma can tell the difference between "Widget
Gen 1" and "Widget Gen 2". Unless you pull a USB... Those people aren't right
in the head.

------
strin
Used Google glass for a project three years ago. The biggest question for
going to Enterprise is demonstrating the value the solution provides, rather
than showing some cool gadgets. I still don't see a killer use case of Google
glass.

------
elpakal
Am I misunderstanding their glass "partners", or am I not able to build my own
software for this without using one of their cronies?

------
bovine3dom
Rare treat to spot a typo on a Google page:

> It provides hands-on workers and professionals with glaceable, voice-
> activated assistance...

[https://www.google.com/glass/tech-specs/](https://www.google.com/glass/tech-
specs/)

Perhaps V3 will come with a built-in spelling and grammar checker. They could
call them SPAGgles.

~~~
adrianmonk
Typos abound these days. My personal guess is, since people communicate in
written form constantly now, they don't see it is as "special" anymore, and
they just don't think it's very important to proofread.

But if you're looking for minor errors, there are three in this blog post
alone:

1\. In the first sentence, there is a stray non-breaking space before
"manufacturing". Along with the regular space character next to it, the effect
is to put extra whitespace between the words words.

2\. "We’ve also added USB-C port" should have an "a" before "USB-C".

3a. The first sentence of the last paragraph ends with "work better, smarter
and faster". So they've elected _not_ to use an Oxford comma, which would be
an OK choice except for the fact that in the first sentence of the paragraph
before that they _do_ have an Oxford comma. (They have "... Sutter Health, and
H.B. Fuller.") So it's not consistent.

3b. Oh, they're also inconsistent with Oxford commas within a single sentence!
The last sentence of the first paragraph is this: "Workers can use Glass to
access checklists, view instructions or send inspection photos or videos, and
our enterprise customers have reported faster production times, improved
quality, and reduced costs after using Glass." No Oxford comma before "or send
inspection" but there is one before "and reduced costs".

~~~
adrianmonk
And of course I wrote "words words" above, providing yet more evidence in
support of
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry%27s_law)
.

------
petra
Cool technology. But...

Once being a taxi driver was a skilled job. You really needed to know your
streets well.

But than came GPS. An augmented reality for drivers.

And now everybody can be an UBER driver. Anywhere. No knowledge is needed.

So now taxi drivers are easily replaceable. And the pay is shit.

And soon, we'll have augmented reality for Every profession.

And we'll see a similar shift happening: Good professions that once combined
hands-on skills with knowledge, won't need that anymore.

You won't need to think. You don't need to know much. Just follow instructions
well, and fast.

So now you'll be easily replaceable. And the pay will be shit.

And this will be everywhere.

~~~
tlrobinson
This argument has been made since at least the industrial revolution. Replace
"taxi driver" with any job that has previously been partially or fully
automated away.

~~~
jawilson2
This argument was made by the ancient Greeks when they started writing their
epics down and didn't need to memorize them any more.

[1][https://books.google.com/books?id=XzYX0T-ZqTcC&pg=PA34&lpg=P...](https://books.google.com/books?id=XzYX0T-ZqTcC&pg=PA34&lpg=PA34&dq=greek+epics+ancient+written+memorization+plato+phaedrus&source=bl&ots=wOZIz0c2Fn&sig=ACfU3U3yu_dIX1R_YzFhle3h-cYTT2arqw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjbi8nI9ariAhVS0KwKHYgqALoQ6AEwEXoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=greek%20epics%20ancient%20written%20memorization%20plato%20phaedrus&f=false)

[2][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaedrus_(dialogue)#Rhetoric,_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaedrus_\(dialogue\)#Rhetoric,_philosophy,_and_art)

------
outside1234
Enterprise Edition! What is this Microsoft from the mid nineties?

Also, is there a cancellation deathpool yet?

~~~
rwc
Clearly it's signaling that this isn't a general purpose consumer product like
the original Glass was positioned. Sounds like people are going to snipe no
matter what they call it, or who they sell it to.

------
mindgam3
The only notable improvement is switching to Android. (Which I kind of assumed
they were built on originally.)

I can't fault Google for trying to salvage something from the epic fail of v1,
but that product video still has the faint whiff of cluelessness about human
factors that brought us glassholes in the first place.

Case in point: I'm not sure I buy the video clip of the doctor speaking to the
"Actor portraying patient" with glass on displaying medical history. I don't
know if the medical benefits of having my doctor seeing 3 lines of medical
history ("tremors, arthritis, hearing aid") outweigh the weirdness factor of
having to speak to a guy about sensitive medical issues with a freaky-looking
wifi-enabled video recording device strapped to his face.

Also noted that the only black person in the video is an actor playing the
role of a patient, as opposed to a professional playing him or herself like
everyone else. I'm sure Google's intentions for more diversity are positive,
but this particular implementation feels a bit hasty. It couldn't have been
that hard to find a black professional in order to complete the diversity
checkbox.

[edit: removed sarcasm about diversity, added context]

------
gamblor956
Still just as ridiculous-looking _and as useless_ as the first, and thus a
non-starter outside of a very small group of Silicon Valley techies.

It's like Google saw all of the criticism about the device, and decided that
the best way to address it was by just beefing up the components instead of
the actual flaws with Glass V1. For starters, the display is too small and too
low resolution to actually provide enough useful data to affect the workflow
of front-line employees. This is a marginally useful tool for managers to
check a line-item or two--something they can do with their phones. For anyone
actually requiring the use of their hands, Google Glasses still just gets in
the way by distorting part of the visual field.

I give the entire Glass project about a year before it dies (again,
permanently) when the executive in charge of it either gets the promotion he
was aiming for or moves on.

~~~
bowmessage
I'm not sure you understand their intended usecase for the product - didn't
seem to be much of a fashion accessory.

~~~
true_religion
OP said the resolution was too small, the field of vision too narrow, and the
equipment itself too cumbersome to be used by people engaged in manual labour.

Those are all technical critiques. What am I missing? Where was it said
_Enterprise_ product failed as a fashion accessory?

I mean certainly they might be wrong and all the above critiques false, or
dealt with via progress to version 2.... but no one mentioned fashion.

~~~
bowmessage
OP edited their comment after I replied - fair points.

