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Google Glass

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Re: Google Glass

#261
This is only tangentially related, but I recently read The Shallows by Nicholas Carr and he referenced an interesting study:

Kansas State University scholars conducted a similarly realistic study. They had a group of college students watch a typical CNN broadcast in which an anchor reported four news stories while various info-graphics flashed on the screen and a textual news crawl ran along the bottom. They had a second group watch the same programming but with the graphics and the news crawl stripped out. Subsequent tests found that the students who had watched the multimedia version remembered significantly fewer facts from the stories than those who had watched the simpler version. “It appears,” wrote the researchers, “that this multimessage format exceeded viewers’ attentional capacity.”

Re: Google Glass

#262
post #77

The recorded videos' have a strange voyeuristic feel, probably due to the POV being so close to the wearer's eyes. That you can use the glasses do do a hangout in real time and broadcast seems novel though. There's no shortage of sci-fi stories dealing with this sort of always-on recording. "Strange Days", "Black Mirror (#3)". I wonder about the legality of this product, if it becomes inconspicuous. Some product idea…

Or fixcast? Have a mechanic walk you through fixing your car, a plumber walk you through fixing your sink.

Surgery?

Re: Google Glass

#263

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…

LOL. Now this is somehow technologies' fault. I can give you a simple solution: Get a girlfriend who likes you more than looking at stupid horoscopes on her iPhone. >People spent time with each other. They still do. Just because you're in a relationship where that isn't the case, doesn't mean technological advancements are to blame for it. I still have amazing engrossing conversations with people who are as embedded…

> Get a girlfriend who likes you more than looking at stupid horoscopes on her iPhone.

Yes, and see how long that phase lasts. :)

Re: Google Glass

#264

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 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…

I think there is a major distinction between novels, VHS and the smartphone. Smartphone is an active distraction and is portable. This combination is what makes it more likely to be conversation killer than anything else. For me whenever I am talking to somebody and suddenly they open up their phone to see the message or attend a call, it just kills my flow of thoughts and flow of conversation.

Re: Google Glass

#265

Several days ago - there were a bunch of stories about Google opening retail locations around the country. I think the reason they will do this is obvious: they want people to use their products in person. To me - for Glass to be successful - they will have to allow people to play with them. This is the kind of thing that would sell amazingly in a retail setting. Imagine the line of people lining up just to put one o…

Google needs to put as much Wonka into these stores as humanly possible. I would love to see an all robot sales staff starting from day 1.

Gene Wilder or Johnny Depp?

Re: Google Glass

#266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5) Cheatcam: AI tells you what chess move, poker play, etc to make, in real time.

Pretty sure casinos will ban these about... 5 seconds after they become generally available.

Perhaps they are already preemptively banned.

Re: Google Glass

#267

Wow. This is marketing material. This is going to be a real thing. Wanna bet Google gives them away for free so they can sell advertising based on your exact context and needs; even what you're looking at? Maybe. But just the idea and possibility of that is incredible. Imagine what this could be used for; not just what we can think of now, but a whole new paradigm of ubiquitous computing, a world to which mobile phon…

They're charging $1500 to be in this "exclusive beta", seems unlikely they'll be free at release.

If Glass takes off and especially if it runs Android we can except Samsung and other major players in the cell phone market to start offering their versions soon enough. With Android phones it didn't take long for Chinese manufacturers to start offering phones under their own brands for a fraction of what major manufacturers ask for their products [1] shipped directly from China to the customer. If a technological difficulty doesn't prevent Glass clones from being manufactured then given its high starting price of around $1500 (I wouldn't expect retail price to differ too much; cf. $529.99 for Google Nexus One at launch in the US) Chinese-brand AR glasses might become the next big thing around the world.

[1] See http://www.gizchina.com/2012/11/20/gizchina-exclusive-jiayu-... for what they offer for $200 unlocked. In, e.g., parts of Europe where pay-as-you-go is the norm and most phones are bought unsubsidized such prices are basically unheard for a similarly specced phone. Of course, those phones have their own problems (like worse QA) and come with little to no support. Despite that I personally know many technical types who have decided it to be worth it for themselves and sites like XDA Developers (http://forum.xda-developers.com) show a global interest.

Edit: expanded the footnote.

Re: Google Glass

#268
post #261

This is only tangentially related, but I recently read The Shallows by Nicholas Carr and he referenced an interesting study: Kansas State University scholars conducted a similarly realistic study. They had a group of college students watch a typical CNN broadcast in which an anchor reported four news stories while various info-graphics flashed on the screen and a textual news crawl ran along the bottom. They had a se…

“Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full of ‘facts’ that they feel stuffed but absolutely ‘brilliant’ with information. Then they’ll feel they’re thinking, they’ll get a sense of motion without moving. And they’ll be happy, because facts of that sort don’t change. Don’t give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy. Any man who can take a TV wall apart and put it back together again, and most men can, nowadays, is happier than any man who tries to slide-rule, measure and equate the universe, which just won’t be measured or equated without making man feel bestial and lonely.”

— Fahrenheit 451

Re: Google Glass

#269
post #109
post #77

The recorded videos' have a strange voyeuristic feel, probably due to the POV being so close to the wearer's eyes. That you can use the glasses do do a hangout in real time and broadcast seems novel though. There's no shortage of sci-fi stories dealing with this sort of always-on recording. "Strange Days", "Black Mirror (#3)". I wonder about the legality of this product, if it becomes inconspicuous. Some product idea…

Crimecam made me laugh, hehe. The uses are potentially endless: 5) Procrastination monitor: Someone is actively monitoring you, making sure that you do what you're supposed to do. Actually, this would be even creepier if it were your corporate control-freak boss who ordained it. 6) Voyeurist's refuge: Pay someone with social skills far more developed than yours, have him go out and pick up a woman while you sit back…

Given the high amount of live sex available over cam right now, I think the voyeur idea is almost certainly going to happen.

It seems as more and more communication happens through channels available to all, and communication is no longer restricted to a few powerful channels (the media, the state, the church), we are starting to become more and more aware of the huge chasm that has always existed between what has been projected by society as "the norm" and people's actual willingness to act with a large deviation from the norm.

The malware in your personal brain extender scenario is pretty juicy. Hope some people write some crazy sci fi stories with that idea.

Re: Google Glass

#270
post #77

The recorded videos' have a strange voyeuristic feel, probably due to the POV being so close to the wearer's eyes. That you can use the glasses do do a hangout in real time and broadcast seems novel though. There's no shortage of sci-fi stories dealing with this sort of always-on recording. "Strange Days", "Black Mirror (#3)". I wonder about the legality of this product, if it becomes inconspicuous. Some product idea…

This could save millions of dollars on construction sites. It would give architects and engineers the next best thing to being able to teleport around a construction site. With the right software and organization, any foreman at a building site could get nearly instantaneous clarification.

Then again, maybe it would make people mentally lazy and unable to plan, like smartphones did with meeting up in town.

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