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Google relaunches Glass for businesses

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Re: Google relaunches Glass for businesses

#181

Post by Helmet »

gfodor wrote: post #39

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.

I think having a piece of nonfunctional plastic on the other side would be silly and, by definition, useless. I think they look pretty sleek, especially in an industrial setting - also, asymmetry doesn't always look bad. I'm reminded of BMW motorcycles:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9SIS4izLqE

and:

http://www.motorcyclenews.com/news/2009/march/mar2709-histor...

Re: Google relaunches Glass for businesses

#182

Post by Falling3 »

toxican wrote: post #125
kbenson wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likely because the platform he is on is not static, and is likely a standard part for multiple technicians, and possible with more than one on it at a time. It looks like the engine is stationary, and the station moves to where he is needed. If that's the case, they could use some semi-specialized platforms for different uses, some with tables for manuals and parts, some without to accommodate more people at once. Th…

Or maybe they're exaggerating a minor issue to make the product look better like a late night infommercial.

>Or maybe they're exaggerating a minor issue to make the product look better like a late night infommercial.

Most of those infomercial products are actually designed for the disabled. I don't bring that up just because it's a really important lesson (which I think it is), but it also has a parallel here. Minor issues for people in one situation may be huge encumbrances to someone else. What's more likely is products have their audience exaggerated and widened, but very often a real problem is being solved. It just may not be a problem all or even most of us have.

Re: Google relaunches Glass for businesses

#183

Post by tpeo »

UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #140
erikpukinskis wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't a consumer product it was a dev kit.

Glass isn't a consumer product either, it is just a dev kit.

I think he meant that Glass was a dev kit, which is fair enough. But it intended to be eventually released as a consumer product. Somewhere along that path, the idea lost it's charm to the execs at Google.

Re: Google relaunches Glass for businesses

#184

Post by izacus »

valuearb wrote: post #178
enjo wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't that the point tho? Basically Google went: "We have this cool thing, but we're not sure were it's most applicable. Lets just put it out in the world and see what people do with it!" Which is what they did. The data they gained from that experiment no doubt led to this.

The king of successful consumer products, Apple, doesn't ship out public prototypes to developers to figure out what it can do. it's a terrible strategy for launching a consumer product and one reason Google sucks at consumer products.

Good thing this isn't a consumer product then.

Re: Google relaunches Glass for businesses

#185

Post by valuearb »

ryanobjc wrote: post #87
payne92 wrote: post #27

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.

Except you don't really know that. Hindsight 20/20 means that the current place seems inevitable. Here's an alternate future: - People were initially apprehensive of the high price, but a small dedicated fan base bought it up - Shortly after launch, Google drops the price by a $200 - People deride it's feature set, commenting on the things it "should" have included - Despite that, the interface is very good - A year…

The difference is the original iPhone was actually useful for things people actually wanted to do, and reasonably priced for those uses. They sold 1M units in the first quarter, making it one of the most popular phones in the world at launch.

Apple spent many years creating the iphone. First they created a tablet computer, Jobs rejected it as not ready, not good enough. They then built a phone based on ipod touch wheel. Jobs rejected it as not good enough. He let the tablet team try to build a phone and eventually after much work and improvements, finally shipped it because it actually worked well for consumers, and could do many things consumers wanted (phone, texts, music, web, etc)

Google got glass working and said, what's will consumers use it for? We don't know, so let's dump prototypes on developers and have them figure it out!

Eventually some company, probably Apple, will build something like Glass that consumers will want, but it won't be Google. They don't get consumers (except for high functioning types) and their product development/approval process is a mess.

Re: Google relaunches Glass for businesses

#186

Post by valuearb »

spinlock wrote: post #116
payne92 wrote: post #27

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.

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 becaus…

Not sure why you got down-voted, everything you wrote is true.

Re: Google relaunches Glass for businesses

#187

Post by giobox »

Buge wrote: post #100
giobox wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.…

It isn't just outside of tech that people cover their webcams. Mark Zuckerberg does it[1]. EFF sells webcam covers[2]. James Comey does it (although maybe he's not exactly tech)[3]. I've seen articles claiming Snowden does it, but I can't find a good source, that might just be rumors. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/22/mark-zuck... [2] https://supporters.eff.org/shop/laptop-camera-cover-set [3] ht…

I probably should have been clearer - I have no issue with the practice of covering webcams, it's simply a great example of how "camera conscious" many people are.

Re: Google relaunches Glass for businesses

#188

Post by methodin »

acdha wrote: post #180
erikpukinskis wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Promoting it to a room full of developers is not a "big push to consumers". Robert Scoble is not really a consumer tech reporter either. He's more like a futurist. Most of the things he likes to talk about are things you can't buy. Maybe because you got marketed to you are thinking it was consumer marketing, but consider that you were being marketed to as a developer not a consumer.

If you followed the news at the time there was a ton of coverage in mainstream media with bold claims about how society was going to be transformed and it was way outside of just developer circles. For example, the New Yorker is not typically considered a developer site and yet they have a bunch of articles like http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/glass-before-google and http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/08/0…

Of course those articles were written with the goal of getting people to read it so it's not like they were grounded in reality.

Re: Google relaunches Glass for businesses

#189

Post by valuearb »

arbitrage wrote: post #29
kharms wrote: post #8

>>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…

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.

The engineers at Google also don't seem to understand how the vast majority of people want to be treated.

Re: Google relaunches Glass for businesses

#190

Post by Nyubis »

xxs wrote: post #49
gfodor wrote: post #39

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.

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

That's how the Snapchat Spectacles work: one side contains the camera, bluetooth and other electronics, the other side contains the battery.
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