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Google Glass

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Re: Google Glass

#511

Post by pilooch »

PeterisP wrote: post #417
pilooch wrote: post #92

Question that comes immediately to my mind: I'm wearing glasses (short-sighted), so an augmented pair seems like an easy step, can I wear GGlass on top of my prescription glasses ?

The officially suggested way is to put prescription lenses in a GGlass "frame" and some of the publicly seen GGlass usages have been with such frames/lenses.

Been discussing this with a friend today. Considering a short-sighted person, wearing prescription glasses: the problem is where to put the GGlass "screen".

* it makes sense to put it inside, i.e. before the lens, because as short-sighted, vision is fine at this distance. Problem is that there's not much space between the lens and the eye / eyebrow

* putting it outside, i.e. after the lens, appears more feasible but awkward as the distortion from the lens may be difficult to bear

* putting it on top of the prescription glasses frame makes sense again, but the lens usually covers a good chunk of the eye range, so this may put the GGlass to far on the periphery.

Not sure what makes the most sense here.

Re: Google Glass

#512

Post by dolphenstein »

jmsduran wrote: post #166
artursapek wrote: post #150

I am seriously concerned about this. I was in a long-distance relationship this summer. We would take turns visiting each other in our respective cities roughly 5 hours apart. It was a pretty long journey for a weekend - it would sometimes take 10 hours one way since you had to go through New York. Of course, it was worth it. But whenever we would go on a walk, or I'd take her out to dinner, I got as much face time w…

I myself have made the personal decision to not use smartphones. I dislike twiddling with phones in general, and would prefer to use my simple flip phone for nothing more than calls or the occasional text message.

Your comment reminds me of this onion article. http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-man-constantly-mention...

Re: Google Glass

#513

Post by vacri »

krapp wrote: post #503
vacri wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're speaking a lot of romance. "we stood on another world for the first time"... and shortly after, we packed up and went home, never to return. Sure, it was a milestone in human history, but it's not like it really changed the way our societies work. Please give some examples of some fundamental changes if you disagree - "Seeing the moon landings on television changed people's lives": How? What was new in the way…

> You're speaking a lot of romance. Epic events tend to lend themselves to romantic speech. I would stand on a soapbox but then my keyboard would be awkward to reach, and they don't make soapboxes anymore, except out of cardboard. > and shortly after, we packed up and went home, never to return. True. That doesn't at all negate the impact of the initial event though. Just means one we got to the moon we discovered it…

So, when asked "how it's changed people's lives", the best you can come up with is "they watched it on TV"? That's one of the most banal examples possible of 'changing lives'.

But I guarantee fifty years from now nobody's going to be telling their grandchildren where they were when Google came out with anything

Which is part of the romantic thing, not the merit thing. I can tell you where I was when Lady Di died, but that doesn't mean she was of any particular note in my life :)

I'm not arguing that it necessarily changed the way our societies work

This is exactly what "watershed moments of civilization" means. If you didn't actually mean that, then we've got little to debate, really.

Re: Google Glass

#516

Post by krapp »

vacri wrote: post #513
krapp wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're speaking a lot of romance. Epic events tend to lend themselves to romantic speech. I would stand on a soapbox but then my keyboard would be awkward to reach, and they don't make soapboxes anymore, except out of cardboard. > and shortly after, we packed up and went home, never to return. True. That doesn't at all negate the impact of the initial event though. Just means one we got to the moon we discovered it…

So, when asked "how it's changed people's lives", the best you can come up with is "they watched it on TV"? That's one of the most banal examples possible of 'changing lives'. But I guarantee fifty years from now nobody's going to be telling their grandchildren where they were when Google came out with anything Which is part of the romantic thing, not the merit thing. I can tell you where I was when Lady Di died, but…

No, you're right.

Seeing humans walk on the moon changed people's lives in the same way seeing 9/11 on tv changed people's lives, or seeing JFK get shot on tv changed people's lives. In that it was a monumental, historic and transfixing event.

Not at all like the first time you opened maps and saw street view.

I concede the point.

Re: Google Glass

#517

Post by Karunamon »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #477
derekchiang wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vision. Don't you see it? If we can pull this off, technology thereafter will be embedded into our consciousness. The reality, as we see it, will be transformed. We as human beings will literally become "supermen", in the sense that we will be able to "see" so much more than we could ever imagine. To an extent, this is a human evolution.

I understand what you're articulating as the vision, but I'm not seeing it in the promo video. I mostly see people recording a lot of activities. What specifically in the video excites you?

Off the top of my head, instant sharing of anything without futzing around with a discrete device. How many moments are missed because a camera wasn't ready or the app took to long to load?

"Ok glass, record a video"

Bam.

If it works in real life at the same speed as in the video, I don't think this effect can be overstated. It allows you to share while still being a participant in the experience (as opposed to the guy just holding a camera).

Instant knowledge extension is the other one. Google's getting quite good at the whole "answering your questions on page one" thing already, but now you don't have to fish around in your pockets for it. Settle arguments with your friends instantly ;)

It's just there. Always in the corner of your vision. There when you want it, easily ignorable when you don't. It's part of your senses, you don't have to think about it, and I can see it becoming as intuitive to ask glass to search for something you want to know on the spot as it is to reach for Google when we want to find something on the internet.

I don't think people understand how big a deal this ease of access is. You've just tied two of your senses into the largest collection of human knowledge ever collected. On a more direct level than has ever been accomplished in the past.

Think about it. How many more questions would you ask if you could just ask on the spot and have an answer right there? How much more would you share if it was truly effortless?

Maybe I'm just drinking the kool-aid here, but I really, really think this will be big.

Re: Google Glass

#518

Post by rayiner »

vacri wrote: post #509
rayiner wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Again, you're only giving credit to google for the first year of their product. NASA was nowhere near the moon in 1959. Right. But the .com bubble was ending the first year of Google's product in 2000, while commercialization of space technology through things like Space X (which are leveraging NASA's developments) is happening 50 years after 1959. If you're going to give Google credit for internet uptake, you have…

Do a thought experiment. Sure, do one of your own. Have the developers of all your things use only the resource searching of the mid-90s. Watch all those technologies slow down considerably. This is part of what I mean when I say catalyst . Got a weird problem? I hope you happen to be in just the right group or forum that happens to have a willing expert. Personally, I like how you completely disallow me any influenc…

> This is part of what I mean when I say catalyst. Got a weird problem? I hope you happen to be in just the right group or forum that happens to have a willing expert.

A catalyst, in common parlance, is something that gets a reaction going under circumstances which it would not otherwise proceed. Google cannot be a catalyst if the "reaction" was already roaring by the time it had any influence.

Does Google make life easier? Sure. But I'm not sure how that earns it the title of "greatest tech company in history."

> but you are more than willing to subsume any steel-using work into the provenance of US Steel. Apparently other steel companies - even other countries, don't exist.

I think you underestimate the total domination U.S. Steel and how instrumental its production was to building the U.S. as we know it today. Controlling 2/3 of all steel production is somewhat more significant than controlling 2/3 of search engine traffic.

That's the heart of the distinction I'm trying to make. Google is something that makes life online easier, but U.S. Steel was something that made industrial America possible.

Re: Google Glass

#519

Post by graeme »

Lagged2Death wrote: post #498
jgroome wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear what you're saying, and I appreciate that you put the time in to write that out, but honestly I'm hearing this kind of argument from so many quarters ("we never look up!" "we all talk, but we never converse !" etc etc) recently that it's starting to get obnoxious. Conversation is not dead. People have been moaning about how we're all becoming socially isolated since the publication of the first novel. The art…

People have been moaning about how we're all becoming socially isolated since the publication of the first novel. The art of socialising has been declared dying ever since the first VHS was available to buy and watch at home. You're not offering anything more than an assertion that they're wrong, though. That is, you're using the same anecdata standard of evidence that they are: "My friends and I have cell phones but…

Good point. I just finished a social history of Montreal in the 40's and 50's. TV had a lot to do with the closing down of cabarets and theatres.

You didn't have to go out for entertainment anymore. But the latter is inherently more social than TV.

Re: Google Glass

#520

Post by Karunamon »

lifeformed wrote: post #351
abraininavat wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? > Books are intentional - you've committed to a topic, and there's a finite amount of information to digest. When you're checking social media, you don't know what you're going to get, but it'll probably keep you occupied. This is a bizarre argument. 1. In what way is a book more intentional than Facebook? How is visiting Facebook an unintentional act? I don't think you're using the common definition of 'intent…

I was trying to make the argument that zoning out on Facebook, flipping through TV channels, browsing Reddit front page for 2 hours, is all like eating mental junk food. It's tasty but not very nutritious - it should be consumed in moderation alongside a healthy diet of enriching foods/mental activities. My main point isn't really about the technology, but the content - it doesn't matter if the material is on a cell…

The problem with your argument though is that the amount of "junkiness" (if we're going with the food analogy) is directly equivalent to how well you curate your experience.

If your Facebook friends are people who share useful and enriching content and make insightful comments, for instance. Nobody's going to argue that the default front page of Reddit is anything but junk, but imagine you've unsubscribed all of those and now follow things like r/programming and r/books - you are getting more useful content.

Basically I take issue with denigrating all of social media as some kind of crap. It's precisely as crap as the person using it wants/allows it to be.

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