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Google Glass is Ridiculous

nickfranc.is

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Re: Google Glass is Ridiculous

#141

Post by driverdan »

calinet6 wrote: post #40
kevinconroy wrote: post #11

People said the same thing about the huge, bulky cell phones that came out in the 1980s. Who would want to carry around a phone with them all the time? And one that large? It'll never catch on! Some folks said the same thing about the iPad. Who needs a tablet when I've got a laptop and a smartphone? What strikes me is that this person is lambasting a product that he hasn't tried first hand. He hasn't lived with it fo…

They also said this kind of stuff about Videophones, and those actually did die.

The implementation died but the idea is everywhere. Skype, FaceTime, Hangout, etc. I have a daily video call on Hangout and last night had a speaker for a meetup talk over Skype. We're using "videophones" all the time.

Re: Google Glass is Ridiculous

#142

Post by driverdan »

The author isn't very imaginative. He can't think of how he'd use it so the product must be shit.

I ride a motorcycle. Having a HUD for navigation, weather alerts, and phone notifications would be awesome and make my life so much easier.

I'm terrible with names. If Glass could do facial recognition of people I've met and tell me who they are it would greatly improve my interactions.

Using it to augment lifting weights would be sweet. It could time my sets and cooldowns so I get a better workout. Doing so with a phone or a watch is much harder and you can't actively look at them.

This list is just a start. I'm sure I could come up with plenty of other uses.

Re: Google Glass is Ridiculous

#143

Post by boundlessdreamz »

SquareWheel wrote: post #127
ocean12 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you missed a cogent argument: "If you have a phone in your pocket, why wear this? And it doesn’t seem to replace the need to carry a phone."

Why carry a phone when you are wearing Google Glasses? ;)

I know it is supposed to be funny but actually you need a phone for the data connection :)

Re: Google Glass is Ridiculous

#145

Post by bergie »

boundlessdreamz wrote: post #143
SquareWheel wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why carry a phone when you are wearing Google Glasses? ;)

I know it is supposed to be funny but actually you need a phone for the data connection :)

...at least until the technology becomes small enough. Though I'm not sure it would be good to keep a GPS/GSM/3G/LTE antenna blaring next to your skull the whole day.

Re: Google Glass is Ridiculous

#146

Post by corresation »

admiralpumpkin wrote: post #35

Bluetooth headsets are effectively a punchline. Google Glass—in its current form—is even worse. Until that enormous blob hanging out in front of the wearer can completely fade into the frame this will be nothing more than a geek curiosity. I think Google has excellent engineers, and very poor self-restraint. This product is at least 2 generations away from what it needs to be, but instead of working on it in the labs…

Bluetooth headsets are effectively a punchline

They're a tool used by people who favor function over form. I have never met anyone yet who has a coherent argument against them that doesn't boil down to "I am jealous and must try to change the world to believe that those people deserve mockery". It is a rather sad form of bullying.

And for what it's worth, I don't and have never used a bluetooth headset simply because I don't like talking on the phone. But if I did talk on the phone a lot, I wouldn't be so desperately concerned what random nobodies think about it.

Re: Google Glass is Ridiculous

#147

Post by QuantumGood »

A killer app scenario seems to the most likely path to widespread adoption for Glass—something that would promote widespread adoption. Meaning a key use case or feature that makes it popular. Think email, and then the internet for personal computers.

It's hard to make new kinds of products that a lot of people want.

Disruptive products (by the original definition) start out as something almost no one wants, and create new markets for themselves or die. And they aren't "disruptive" until they iterate features to take them into markets that are mainstream for their category.

Basically, they are more innovation than invention, more evolution than revolution.

Google glass is one of those products people get excited about from time to time that tries to jump right to the end game, skipping the evolutionary stages.

Often they are simply ahead of their time, for various reasons. Think tablets before the iPad, for example, or video chat phones decades before computers and mobile phones.

So without a killer app, Glass seems like one of those products that needs a LOT of real-world evolution and iteration before it could become at all mainstream.

Thus a strategy could be to make Glass appealing to developers to better optimize for the possibility of popular features or use cases to be found.

Re: Google Glass is Ridiculous

#148

Post by nooneelse »

alistairSH wrote: post #84
kevinconroy wrote: post #11

People said the same thing about the huge, bulky cell phones that came out in the 1980s. Who would want to carry around a phone with them all the time? And one that large? It'll never catch on! Some folks said the same thing about the iPad. Who needs a tablet when I've got a laptop and a smartphone? What strikes me is that this person is lambasting a product that he hasn't tried first hand. He hasn't lived with it fo…

"People said the same thing about the huge, bulky cell phones that came out in the 1980s." And, I can count the number of people I knew with those early, bulky cell phones on my fingers and toes. It wasn't until the smaller, cheaper cell phones of the 90s that everybody had one. Will Google Glass lead to something useful? Perhaps. But, will it be a game-changer today? I doubt it. And he's correct about speech interfa…

> It wasn't until the smaller, cheaper cell phones of the 90s that everybody had one.

Why think that was about the size and not more about the price? Every kid I knew who watched Saved by the Bell wanted a mobile phone, they just weren't in the "get it for Xmas or birthday" price range.

Re: Google Glass is Ridiculous

#149

Post by S_A_P »

I suppose these could be made into a fashionable or trendy item, and that augmented reality is an inevitability. My problem with it is that I hate how everyone is so distracted in public now. Walking through the tunnels in downtown Houston is a maze of phone zombies. Maybe Google glass could help this because they can at least look forward.

Im a terrible multitasker, and I think that using this (or any augmented reality device) may make me worse at everything. I may be a curmudgeon here, but my father was nearly killed by a texting driver. I wish people could just focus on doing one thing at a time, and google glass seems contrary to that aim.

Re: Google Glass is Ridiculous

#150

Post by mratzloff »

boundlessdreamz wrote: post #120
mratzloff wrote: post #113

I'd say the set of responses in this thread are pretty expected. I think most miss the point. His point is that the media are falling all over themselves to praise Google Glass and there is no journalistic skepticism whatsoever. Indeed, many in this thread have no issue with that because they like the technology. The issues he raises with Glass are reasonable points for non-engineers . (Engineers put up with more tha…

Tech media being positive on Glass is because they are techies. That is a valid point. But it is not what the author says. "They are competing to see who can do the most over-the-top, overwhelmingly positive review, in hopes of making people at Google happy"

That's a fair point. He identifies a problem but misattributes the cause.
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