I have to respectfully disagree that this is the future. Is the future comprised of devices that you have to consciously wear on you all the time (I can barely stand to wear the prescription glasses I'm supposed to wear, let alone glasses that will occasionally provide me with some utility)<p>On top of it, is the future of HCI in devices that you have to talk to? (Siri, Glass) Not only do I have a very hard time getting any voice recognition to understand my non native accent (beyond common phrases), having to talk to your devices is an extremely unnatural thing for me to do, unless I'm in private.<p>These devices may be futuristic, but this is not the revolutionary future.
I'm always amazed at how much anti-Glass sentiment I see in the tech community. I personally think it's going to be amazing. The best analogy I can think of is the heads-up display (HUD) in video games. The current use cases shown (texting, weather, pictures, etc.) are insignificant in comparison to the potential for combining with other wearable computing devices such as Fitbits, Fuelbands, Thalmic MYO's, etc.<p>Of course, this is an early iteration of the concept, but I see it as a game changer. Imagine removing the HUD from all of your video games. That experience sucks.<p>Now imagine a world where we can combine quantified-self computing, augmented reality, and new interface devices such as Thalmic MYO with the Glass...that future is a future I very much want to live in.
There seem to be two major topics governing the front page of hackernews lately - the NSA leaks and Google Glass (though Glass was obviously much earlier). And reading through the comments about these two topics feels like being on two completely different web sites, with completely different audiences: a device tracking minute details of your life, that is sold by an advertising company, intended to use all the information available to sell you even more stuff you don't really need, is hailed nearly uncritically as the next big thing. A secret service that tries to track all physical and virtual movements of every living human is rightly criticized as detrimental to democratic societies.<p>Glass is a wet dream for intelligence services. I would have expected these two topics to influence each other much more. Is it because there are indeed two disjoint HN populations (or rather n disjoint populations), or because some of a nerd's aggravation is easily soothed by the latest cool gadget?<p>Disclaimer: I find Glass fascinating and creepy at the same time, so I could fully understand the latter possibility.
The future is not made of Google Glass, but will be better because of lessons learned from it.<p>Computers will get smaller and smaller and fade into the backgrounds of our lives. Human Computer Interaction will become be highly centered on touch, gestures, and speach. Not because they have some amazing technical advantage, but because that is how we interact with other humans.<p>Google glass is a step in that direction, but ultimately just a prototye device that tests a few ideas out. This is not the winning idea that people want it to be and that Google wishes it was. You can cout out wide adoption and you can count out revolutionizing anything, because at the end of the day, it does not fade into the background. What it will do is provide some good feedback (as any beta product will) to all of us for honing the future of wearable devices and computing in general.
What I don't get: In a time when we are very aware of government tracking programs we are being asked to strap a GPS and camera to our heads so that Google can track us constantly?
One word: pretentious. The article. Google Glass. All of it. I'll be interested when that is no longer true (at least for glass, it's too late for the article).
"Glass has a packaging so slick and gorgeous it makes you feel like you’re unboxing an Apple product"<p>Ha! So much for Google setting their own precedent on quality.<p>Google is shooting themselves in the foot appealing to reviewer's worst sense of self-importance. Concierge service and complementary Champagne?<p>And these reviews! They're so painfully rote: wifi-bluetooth-battery-life-sucks-now-you-can-check-your-email-in-the-middle-of-a-conversation-needs-more-iterations-here-are-some-shitty-pictures-of-a-buffet.<p>Is this really the future?
Nerd Alert.<p>Google Glass is the calculator watch of the 90s. But instead of the a pallet of buttons on a writst, you now have a camera affixed to your face.
The 'Glass experience' is nothing more than a scripted over-courteous event. As a developer with social anxiety, my Glass experience was spending quality time with my wife as we ventured throughout LA.<p>Unboxing is not interesting to me. Overly-cheery reps are not an experience. Touring a near-empty facility rivals staring at pictures online. My wife's comment summed it up: "You just looked disappointed the whole time."<p>Yet, don't discredit the device. There are amazing chances to improve people's lifestyles. There will be niches to help navigate people through life in otherwise impossible-to-assist situations. The to be educated/educators, handicapped, autistic, businesses and many others may find new approaches to life through a device like this.
"How many times have you been in a conversation, and picked up your phone to Google something you’re talking about. And after reading the result, you check your homescreen, and a few seconds later, you’re reading your tweets or your Facebook newsfeed, and no longer contributing to the conversation? Being able to ask Google anything and instantly get the answer without having to use your phone is magical."<p>This is a problem of focus and attention, not an interface problem. If you play with your phone when you're supposedly spending time with friends, glass is just going to make this significantly worse (because now you're looking towards me but still scrolling through your FB feed).<p>"And with Google Now, you know how bad the traffic is and how long your ride home is going to be without having to ask for it."
I use a better solution today. Waze has routed me around traffic jams with amazing success, and it didn't cost me anything (since I already invested in my smartphone).<p>Everything I've read on glass so far seems to be taking some big leaps to justify the device. As others have said, it will lead us towards some interesting solutions eventually, but it is definitely not the best solution to ANYTHING.
Google Glass is an innovative product that will surely cause some problems. I admit I'd love to have one, but given what cellphones have done to life, I fear that we are rushing into radical changes without due thought.<p>Privacy issues when Glass users record every interaction they have (and potentially post to their social networks). Capturing my daugther's first words is sweet. Capturing my naked partner could be different. No need to hold up a phone -- very convenient. And it will surely all be there on the web.<p>Glass also could further the trend towards self-indulgent isolation and distraction. Are looking at me or reading mail? Texting while driving is bad, reading tweets and viewing images while driving (all hands free) will be worse.<p>People already spend too much time photographing/capturing experiences instead of actually experiencing them. Glass will accentuate this. The goal in life should be to live in the present, not record for posterity. And frankly, I have my own life; I don't want to share every bit of yours...
I few years back, I welcomed these gadgets as awesome ways to improve one's life, to make it much more interesting, efficient. Nowadays, when I start to grasp actual capabilities of myself and people around me, after seeing what power bad people have over the rest, not so much.<p>In fact, I am scared to death every time technology like this appears. I know it will be misused, it will become another instrument for hurting people. Or at least as long as we will tolerate it. And we will. It's what we (smart people) are good at. Tolerating. Coping. Working around. Fixing things for ourselves, mocking others who don't understand how.<p>What do I see in Google Glass? More behavioural programming via advertisements and/or information manipulation. Further corrosion of privacy (of others, wearers can turn them off). New symbol of higher social class, even more prominent than a smartphone.<p>Yeah, mock me.
i think glass will find more adoption with commercial uses than with consumers. military, construction workers, police, racecar drivers, pilots, etc. those people actually can use a HUD for more than just checking twitter comments and they won't look weird wearing it.<p>for consumer uses, i hope the future is not glass. people should interact with people. today our phones can go in our pockets and we can talk face to face. with glass, we'll talk in this order: face -> glass -> glass -> face.<p>i do want important info to be surfaced when i need it, but i don't need it as a HUD. a voice in my ear, or perhaps even something as futuristic as just "knowing" that i need to make a left at the next light since the computer has informed the right part of my brain of that.<p>but please, i don't want to have to compete with glass for your attention.
A future where google gets to control what's in your visual field all day long.<p>A future controlled by one company.<p>I recall that being something people were terrified of when it was Apple in the driving seat, but I guess Google is Open and is only focused on what's best for the end user, so it's all fine.
Wordy prose, rampant grammatical mistakes, a poorly constructed argument... my classmates in junior-high wrote more convincingly.<p>I can almost hear the author patting himself on the back for writing that last sentence. If the future is making existing solutions to first world problems slightly more convenient, I'm not interested in being a part of it.
"What about an RSS reader that you wear on your FACE?" - Anil Dash<p><a href="https://twitter.com/anildash/status/312048420720345088" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/anildash/status/312048420720345088</a>
"Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful."<p>This goal seems far less noble since unveiling Google Glass.