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Google Begins Testing Its Augmented Reality Glasses

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Re: Google Begins Testing Its Augmented Reality Glasses

#111

Post by Kiro »

siavosh wrote: post #103
bayleo wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cultural bias always shifts abruptly and unapologetically with utility. It was once considered "dorky" to own a cellular phone. The question is not whether they can build/market it subtly enough to shirk societal ridicule, but whether they can make it practical enough to rewrite existing mores. The Segway obviously lacked that practicality, as did the Oakleys. True augmented reality glasses would certainly not, but I…

I agree, cultural acceptance or tastes in fashion are hard to impossible to predict. But just on the point of cell phones, I remember they were actually a prestigious thing in the 80's, you remember Zach Morris' brick cell phone in Saved by the Bell?? It was pretty cool

In Sweden cell phones were called "yuppie teddies" and very frowned upon until it catched on.

Re: Google Begins Testing Its Augmented Reality Glasses

#112

Post by jrockway »

FredFredrickson wrote: post #84
andreyf wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a marketing perspective, it's a greater blunder still: asking people to think about what they'd want Glass to do it will quickly set expectations well beyond what's technologically feasible for an initial product. That and the wishful concept video almost guarantee the initial product will be a disappointment. And that's a damn shame, because given Google's talent, it'll nevertheless be a engineering feat of epi…

"And that's a damn shame, because given Google's talent, it'll nevertheless be a engineering feat of epic proportion." You know, I have respect for the people Google employs - they are certainly a very talented bunch. But what has Google ever engineered, at least physically, that has set your expectations so high?

But what has Google ever engineered, at least physically, that has set your expectations so high?

Driverless cars.

Re: Google Begins Testing Its Augmented Reality Glasses

#114

Post by nextparadigms »

indiefan wrote: post #89
hswolff wrote: post #25

>“We’re sharing this information now because we want to start a conversation and learn from your valuable input,” the three employees wrote. “Please follow along as we share some of our ideas and stories. We’d love to hear yours, too. What would you like to see from Project Glass?” Why would you ask that? This type of product is so different from what's available on the market that I doubt the Project Glass team woul…

Typical Google. Treating what should be platforms like products and treating what should be products like platforms.

Are you saying they should license this technology to Samsung and others? If that's the case, I disagree. This is Google's chance to increase their profits and market cap three fold and within a few years, if this product turns out as exciting as it seems to be right now.

Re: Google Begins Testing Its Augmented Reality Glasses

#115

Post by DevX101 »

PanMan wrote: post #93

Unclear to me is how the interface works. In the demo video, how do you select an item? By eyesight? How do you click? The design is more stylish than I expected.

I love the style!

The most elegant (but difficult) solution for selecting items would be to detect the focus of the eye.

Re: Google Begins Testing Its Augmented Reality Glasses

#116

Post by nextparadigms »

Androsynth wrote: post #54
nextparadigms wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Google is smart, they would keep this for themselves, and sell the hardware themselves for a nice Apple-like profit. From the way it looks, I'm sure people will be more than happy to pay a bit extra - especially if it takes a few years for others to catch-up, like it happened versus the iPhone. Also, I assume this is going to work with a data plan as well? Well at least this time I really hope Google will not give…

Google and Apple have fundamentally different business models. One sells hardware and one sells advertising. I would imagine Google's goal will be to put these glasses on as many people as they can, as cheaply as they can and then they have a direct advertising connection to a lot of eyeballs.

I believe Google has higher ambitions than selling advertising for the next 3 decades. They didn't buy Motorola just for patents, and to me they seem to be increasingly more interested in the physical world. I don't think it's a stretch to think that they want to make and sell physical products.

Re: Google Begins Testing Its Augmented Reality Glasses

#117

Post by fudged »

hswolff wrote: post #25

>“We’re sharing this information now because we want to start a conversation and learn from your valuable input,” the three employees wrote. “Please follow along as we share some of our ideas and stories. We’d love to hear yours, too. What would you like to see from Project Glass?” Why would you ask that? This type of product is so different from what's available on the market that I doubt the Project Glass team woul…

Why would you ask that?

Did you hear about how Google dogfooded Google+ for months, and when it was released to the public, people used it entirely differently than they had used it internally?

It seems to me that Google is so stuck in the mindset of "Release a Beta, assess the adoption, iteratively improve" that they don't know how to make a product that people will actually want from the start.

Chrome took a while to be adopted because everyone was still stuck with useful extensions in other browsers. Wave had neat interaction, but failed the adoption hypothesis. Google+ correctly assumed the need for a sharing-centric network to replace Facebook, but botched the actual social aspect of it.

Google is the polar opposite of Apple in this regard. They need to learn to keep things under wraps and understand the userbase for the product before it actually reaches them. In the case of Google+, for instance, it's impossible to change the sharing mechanism that has been there from the start, as fundamentally flawed as it may be.

Re: Google Begins Testing Its Augmented Reality Glasses

#118

Post by tomkin »

doktrin wrote: post #66
Symmetry wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not that Google's automated cars haven't been in an fatal crash, its that they haven't been in a crash at all. The US _crash rate_ is a bit over 5 per million miles traveled, you you would expect about one crash in the 200k miles already covered if it was a human driver. The circumstances probably aren't identical, but what evidence we have suggests that these automated vehicles are at least comparably safe to a…

You can't be serious. The evidence may support it, but the evidence is incredibly limited. Can you imagine the potential liability Google faces if they try to bring this to market without having done due diligence? This is a car , not an iPad.

It really depends on the implementation. You're assuming that all of the functionality has been revealed. For example, it's not completely out of the question that their technology will b, in part, completely mapped and trained co-ordinates (hey, they did it with StreetView). Each road, each corner, each nuance all recorded several times over for redundant accuracy - plus all the sensory, awareness that they have previously shown. There's also the point to be made that the car may know when and where it will have problems (calculating multiple steps ahead) and let you know that a known obstacle is coming up and you'll have to take over. Nothing wrong with that.

Re: Google Begins Testing Its Augmented Reality Glasses

#119

Post by jrockway »

kiloaper wrote: post #86

I wonder how many Google Glasses wearers will become Life Loggers? I meet them at conferences occasionally. Some people actively avoid them. There's something about standing face to face with someone taking a photo of you every X seconds that people find really unnerving. I certainly do. Real time video is worse and it's very different to CCTV. How long before Google collects and mines all this video like they did wi…

All the technology you're worried about exists and is widely used. Walk around the streets of New York City. Chances are, you're being photographed by people sharing photos online. My commute involves riding across the Brooklyn Bridge. I'm sure I ended up in 20 separate photographs today, many of which are now on Facebook. Likely with a comment about how I'm an asshole for riding my bicycle in the bicycle lane :) The underlying technology is not going to change once people start wearing cameras. If anything, the sheer volume of photographs being shared will make it less likely that the picture is of you.

As for facial recognition, anyone who can write a few lines of Perl could easily scrape social network profile photos and start matching pictures of people on the Internet to names. It's trivial. And doing this sort of thing manually is popular: search for "human flesh search engine".

Privacy in public just doesn't exist.

Re: Google Begins Testing Its Augmented Reality Glasses

#120

Post by pfraze »

genu1 wrote: post #76
pfraze wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm buying first gen. Then second gen. All the gens.

I want the API, now. All I can find on Google is Androids AR http://code.google.com/p/andar/ source. Any ideas about languages, frameworks, etc etc. I want to get ready now to start open sourcing.

Terminal emulator is what I want. SSH into my server, turn on my bluetooth keyboard, I'm 100%.
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