Odd that this received a 'bad news' in the title. The Glass video got me excited about not needing to carry around GPS, a phone and other unnecessary gadgets, wearing only the glasses I already require. Also, the writer doesn't know what is currently happening inside Google X.
But all the things shown in the video already are available in a top-of-the-line smartphone. The only difference is that you don't need to pull it out of your pocket. That's just a small improvement if you're into that kind of thing. What I did miss was actually augmenting reality enabling me to do new things, to perceive the world around me in ways I cannot do now.
For example, given my preference in clothing and my body measurements, when shopping in the city I would like to "block out" somehow all those shops than probably don't have anything for me.
Or while cycling, I would like to seen an indication how fast to drive the next section to not have to stop for the next traffic light. I often have to stop for a red light to immediately start up again because the light turns green. I hate that.
Or when I am working in my garden I would like to see some helping lines and measures to dig straight lines, or to cut my trees at the best spots for it to grow out nicely next summer. Or to be able to sow seeds at the optimal distances from each other.
And so on. What kind of augmented reality do you want?
But all the things available in a top-of-the-line smartphone were already available in a laptop. The only difference is that you don't need to pull it out of your backpack. It's just a small improvement if you're into that kind of thing.
I could go on, but my point here is that improvements are incremental. Having a desktop has been more convenient than a terminal remoting into a mainframe. A laptop is that much more convenient over a desktop, and likewise with a smartphone.
But always wearing glasses is certainly not more convenient than just using a device when you need it. It is like stripping your Smartphone on your wrist so you don't need to pull it out of the pocket.
Also I doubt the vision will work that good like in the video. Just a detail: Imagine the battery constraint of an always-on and always-connected device! The glasses would be heavy!
And second I find the Google googles vision more scary than awesome. Like someone quipped on a former thread "why would an advertising company would want to put a filter between your eyeballs and reality?" And while I understand that many would love a more cyberpunk-like future it frightens me. Imagine the amount of pointless distraction to always have a newsfeed in your visual field! Imagine the procrastination of people always lurking reddit or facebook or hackernews! You know how incredible rude it is when you are talking to people but they are checking their phone? And last not least: Imagine getting used to the glasses and not functioning without it anymore!!
Actually, it would be a major improvement not to have to look down at your phone, if only for the health benefits to your neck and eyes (moving target).
It would also be much more practical. I would love to have my existing glasses enhanced with a screen powered by my phone.
I always wonder if it's possible to replace all computer monitors - could you plug your glasses into your work pc and see the display as virtual monitors floating in front of you? Or is there a resolution/eye focusing at wrong distance/strain issue?
Also I think (have opined this before) could be huge for local social network - suppose you walk into a tech conference and you can see what everyone is currently interested in talking about floating in bubbles over their head. Or flirting using only show indicator if both parties show they're interested. Or a waiter can see who's ready to order/pay etc..
On the other hand, exactly getting surprised by people is one of the charming characteristics of meeting new people. The future you're envisioning scares me: we will move around in our own safe social cocoons without any need to interact with the Other. I fear that segregation will become an intrinsic part of life, being guided through society with clear guidelines on who to interact with and who not.
Interesting, yes like social news aggregation it's quite possible to end creating reality-bubbles. I still feel like bumping into interesting people by trial-and-error is less than optimal, but I am generally introverted so my number of trials may be below average.
But beyond filtering of people, there's many other social-augmentation things you could do - I'd quite like a face-recognition remind me of their name thing. Or people to annotate people with notes so I can say last time I bumped into them we were talking about X.
Kind of like storing all your IM conversations. Yes, you can continue where you left off and you can prepare for the conversation better, but what about spontaneity?
What will be the effect of knowing people's name only through your augmentation? Of a small number of people you see very often you'll learn their names (and you would have also without augmentation). But what about the large number of people in between acquaintance/friend and "have seen before"? Will we try less to get to know people as we have all the information about them we need for our purposes via augmentation? Don't we care less about people unless we see them very often? Will people become symbols of their information in our database only to activate the augmentation to recall that information?
I probably am too pessimistic (I call that realistic :-), but in the end, I wonder, do we control where our future is going with technology like this or do we wake up someday to a world we don't fit in anymore?
Perhaps some of these ideas will be implemented by 3rd party developers in the Android market when it's opened up. Look at Angry Birds, Flipboard, The Elements etc etc on the iOS marketplace - apps like these greatly enhance the desirability of the platform
