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Why I'm Returning Google Glass

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Re: Why I'm Returning Google Glass

#91

Post by tempgoogleglass »

ambiate wrote: post #30
lnanek2 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Android SDK works fine with it. Turn on debugging mode on the Glass and code away. Sensors are no problem: http://neatocode.tumblr.com/post/49807659612/secret-sensors-... Google even flat out stated at Google IO that the upcoming GDK will just be the Android SDK plus extra classes you compile against.

OK, now you have got me interested. I really have not heard anything about this. You may have just made my week. I was getting quite depressed about the money I wasted. I can only run APKs on Glass while in USB debug mode? There is no way to actually execute the program again without being in the debugger, correct?

There is a custom launcher on github called launchy.

Re: Why I'm Returning Google Glass

#92

Post by larrik »

rsl7 wrote: post #84
pkfrank wrote: post #2

>It feels very prototype-ish and I can't help but feel that it's the precursor to something better Google might even be working on now as we try these. ^^ This is totally the point of this run of Google Glass. While this is a fair and worthwhile personal essay, I don't think it's a particularly impactful statement about the potential of the product. He's basically saying that, for $1500, he wants to be blown away now…

> While this is a fair and worthwhile personal essay, I don't think it's a particularly impactful statement about the potential of the product. This is an unfinished product and he wants his $ back because the user experience leaves him cold. He's not investing in Google - he's buying an actual product. And clearly he is skeptical that this particular product will ever live up to its potential. Contrast to the iPhone…

> Contrast to the iPhone, yet again (the original). It showed both incredible potential and was an excellent actual product.

Which was over twice the price at launch, and then fell off the face of the Earth once the iPhone 3G was announced, and dropped from support a year later or so. (The 3G was SOLD longer than the original was even supported) I think the original iPhone is exactly what he wants to avoid, since no one thinks Google will give him a retroactive refund like Apple did.

Re: Why I'm Returning Google Glass

#93

Post by aptimpropriety »

In the summer of 2007 I was doing a bunch of research as to whether or not to buy a few shares of $100-$130 Apple stock. I knew the iPhone was coming, and I thought it was going to be big. The reason I eventually decided the iPhone was going to be a loss? Rumors of a Google phone, which I thought would be the end-all.

Heh. A few years later working at Google, my boss discussed with me about how Google is just not a very good products company. Big consumer products require a polished launch, with products that speak to the consumer. Google on the other hand, rolls things out slowly, iteratively, and rarely takes them to a polished, user-friendly state. If this ever happens, it's usually over a very long period of time, and quietly. And that's just with software products - you could say this is even more the case with hardware.

I don't think glass will be the silver bullet of wearable computing. It will be the concept definer, the 'what', but the 'it' will come from somewhere else.

Re: Why I'm Returning Google Glass

#94

Post by Goronmon »

rsl7 wrote: post #84
pkfrank wrote: post #2

>It feels very prototype-ish and I can't help but feel that it's the precursor to something better Google might even be working on now as we try these. ^^ This is totally the point of this run of Google Glass. While this is a fair and worthwhile personal essay, I don't think it's a particularly impactful statement about the potential of the product. He's basically saying that, for $1500, he wants to be blown away now…

> While this is a fair and worthwhile personal essay, I don't think it's a particularly impactful statement about the potential of the product. This is an unfinished product and he wants his $ back because the user experience leaves him cold. He's not investing in Google - he's buying an actual product. And clearly he is skeptical that this particular product will ever live up to its potential. Contrast to the iPhone…

>Contrast to the iPhone, yet again (the original). It showed both incredible potential and was an excellent actual product.

Or as someone else mentioned, contrast this to a console devkit. Imagine someone making a blogpost about how they are returning their Xbox One devkit because there aren't any good games for it.

Re: Why I'm Returning Google Glass

#95

Post by maffydub »

psbp wrote: post #63
alxbrun wrote: post #41

I think the biggest problem is this swiping thing. Imagine Apple had released the first iPhone with a mouse plugged to it. It's a pure betrayal of the original Glass vision, where all user => machine communication goes through voice.

I really want to see glass interact with your phone so that you can perform minute actions like pinching and zooming or turning on certain camera features with your phone still in your pocket.

The touch pad on the side of the glass is multi-touch-capable, so it can detect pinch and zoom. You can't use this function via the Mirror API, but you could do it by side-loading an APK.

Re: Why I'm Returning Google Glass

#96

Post by KeliNorth »

robg wrote: post #55
robg wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Call it a professional environment and I think that's where we will see the first true impact of wearable computing. Your examples are two good ones. And of course people have mentioned hospitals. Just consider every profession where a desk jockey is not the norm. That's police, firemen, first responders, military, teachers, etc. Heck, why not cashiers and even bar tenders? Then again, I'm biased. We're building and…

Also consider that in professional environs, various pros get away with all sorts of silly attire and add-ons - from scrubs and stethoscopes to other uniforms and utility belts. You look ridiculous, but you have a job to do.

Exactly, pros do it all the time. Eventually it becomes cool. I never buy into the hype about it looking bad for a few reasons:

I wear glasses. Years ago people thought all glasses looked silly. And they were, with giant thick lenses. Now people buy non-RX glasses to look cool, even.

I saw an animated sci-fi show from around 10 years ago (Denno Coil, Japanese anime) where in order to see the AR/VR world, you wore glasses. Every single kid wore glasses. You had to in order to see the VR/AR. Once something is common, the look factor doesn't matter.

I think we're just seeing people being disappointed that Reality is still decades/centuries/possibly impossible behind Fiction, and Fiction is only pulling further away as Reality gets better computers to render Fiction with.

Re: Why I'm Returning Google Glass

#97

Post by Schuback »

maffydub wrote: post #87
Schuback wrote: post #75

I had the unique experience of borrowing a pair of Google Glass for a multi-day hackathon. The very first thing I did was figure out how to develop and install actual Android apps on it, because the "card" system isn't conducive to developing interesting applications. Frankly I'd rather go with a smart watch if cards are all I could do. During my time with Glass I prototyped 3D interactive software where you could lo…

How were you implementing the Canny edge detector? As a GLSL shader or on the CPU? I implemented a (simple, not quite Canny) edge detector in GLSL and it runs fast enough not to be distracting ( https://github.com/matt-williams/Optometrist ). I've tried using OpenCV (which isn't GPU-accelerated on Glass because I think OpenCV is only accelerated on Tegra) - this _was_ too slow.

Yep, via OpenCV. If I still had access to Glass I'd love to try out your library. Do you have any first-person videos of your application? If you have an iPhone 5 you can hold it up to the prism in good lighting and record first-person (it's a real pain though).

Re: Why I'm Returning Google Glass

#98

Post by maffydub »

Schuback wrote: post #97
maffydub wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How were you implementing the Canny edge detector? As a GLSL shader or on the CPU? I implemented a (simple, not quite Canny) edge detector in GLSL and it runs fast enough not to be distracting ( https://github.com/matt-williams/Optometrist ). I've tried using OpenCV (which isn't GPU-accelerated on Glass because I think OpenCV is only accelerated on Tegra) - this _was_ too slow.

Yep, via OpenCV. If I still had access to Glass I'd love to try out your library. Do you have any first-person videos of your application? If you have an iPhone 5 you can hold it up to the prism in good lighting and record first-person (it's a real pain though).

I don't have any first-person videos yet, but I should give it a go. (I don't have an iPhone 5, but I can try with my HTC One X.) I'll link to it from the project's github page.

Re: Why I'm Returning Google Glass

#99

Post by baddox »

Goronmon wrote: post #94
rsl7 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While this is a fair and worthwhile personal essay, I don't think it's a particularly impactful statement about the potential of the product. This is an unfinished product and he wants his $ back because the user experience leaves him cold. He's not investing in Google - he's buying an actual product. And clearly he is skeptical that this particular product will ever live up to its potential. Contrast to the iPhone…

>Contrast to the iPhone, yet again (the original). It showed both incredible potential and was an excellent actual product. Or as someone else mentioned, contrast this to a console devkit. Imagine someone making a blogpost about how they are returning their Xbox One devkit because there aren't any good games for it.

Is Google Glass marketed as a developer kit, or even as a prototype or "first run" device? All the FEM I've seen is very polished (leading me to believe the company wants me to think the product is polished) and seems to be catering to a mainstream audience.

Compare this to the Oculus Rift, which explicitly sells a "development kit" and even requires checking a box that says "I understand this hardware is intended for developers and it is not a consumer product." And, as an aside, the Oculus Rift development kit is a much more polished and functional product than the current generation of Google Glass.

Re: Why I'm Returning Google Glass

#100

Post by baddox »

pkfrank wrote: post #2

>It feels very prototype-ish and I can't help but feel that it's the precursor to something better Google might even be working on now as we try these. ^^ This is totally the point of this run of Google Glass. While this is a fair and worthwhile personal essay, I don't think it's a particularly impactful statement about the potential of the product. He's basically saying that, for $1500, he wants to be blown away now…

> This is totally the point of this run of Google Glass.

Is there any indication that this generation of Google Glass is intended as a prototype rather than a consumer-ready product, other than the reviews which overwhelmingly seem to describe it as such?

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