It’s been rumored for a while, now, that Google was working to introduce a revolutionary piece of technology, smart glasses, which would allow you to stay connected to your world while still being able to see the world around you. Well, they’ve unveiled some of the ideas they’ve come up with and have created a video showing what may soon be possible and very real.
They’re calling it “Project Glass,” and although it’s little more than a prototype tucked away inside Google’s headquarters with Googlers hammering away at it, they’re willing to give us an early look of what they hope to achieve. They’re seeking user feedback on the technology.
It makes sense to gather public opinion before finalizing design considering this is such a primitive concept. They usually invite people to sit in on confidential focus study groups but it looks like they’re trying to gather a pretty big catalog of consumer input.
So what exactly do we have here? They’re playing with ideas like being able to read your appointments while preparing a hot cup of tea, looking out the window and pulling up a quick report of the weather, replying to a Google+ message while eating your lunch and more. Getting live public transportation alerts and then having the glasses help you navigate to the nearest operable station is a very exciting possibility.
While it remains to be seen how long it will take for Google to develop these glasses into a consumer-ready product, and while the possibility of some of these proposed features may still be up in the air, the video provides an exciting look into the future of smart living. Take a look at the video above. [via Google+]
One more reason to want Google Goggles when they hit the shelves.
Please be affordable….please be affordable
or
Please be released after I become rich which must also be soon! :P
Nothing about porn? I only care about the porn!
That would be Project: Dat Ass
Want, so much want.
Just think of the idiots using this while driving.
Actually, using this while driving would be safer than using the radio, phone, or anything else people use while driving. At least with this you don’t have to take your eyes off the road and it could potentially give you useful information that could make driving safer. Plus, in the demo video it understands voice commands.
In drive mode perhaps….getting FB/G+/sms/emails while driving would definitly cause some more accidents (Unless you are in one of those awesome Google self-driving cars :D)
When the glasses “sees” you driving with it’s cam or using the GPS, it will stop those FB stuff.
Omg can you please upload a video of how this works in real life?
What you can;t because you are not a tester?
So you don;t know whether it actually does what you say it does? hmmmmm So you posted for what reason again?
The big problem in multi-tasking while driving is taking your eyes off the road. The glasses are essentially a portable Heads-Up-Display like pilots use. Thus you do not need to divert your attention fully from the road. A substantial improvement. Especially with these absurd text bans.
With studies indicating that even handsfree calling can influence your driving skills, I hope the only thing it will display while you are driving is navigational
With studies indicating that texting bans cause more accidents than no bans, I would hope intelligent people would stop pushing ill-advised bans of the wrong component of inattention. That, however, would require that they are both paying attention and not completely naive with regards to human behavior.
@o000o:disqus
Ow never heard of those studies. Could you please link to any of them.
Although, if texting causes more accidents than non-texting I am still in favor of bans on texting, maybe just find a better way to go about it as to not cause more accidents than the action you want banned in the process
http://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20100929/00202911209/new-study-shows-texting-bans-may-make-roads-even-more-dangerous.shtml I'm not in favor of anything beyond “You are responsible to operate your vehicle safely”. Anything beyond than that is nanny nonsense, an abuse of the citizen’s responsibility to know the law, and probably counter-productive to boot. Drivers should be focused on the road and not hitting things/people/vehicles. As opposed to memorizing the punctuation and legal ramifications of thousands of pages of arcane legal jargon.
Thus it would be left to the driver’s discretion as to whether a brief glance at a smartphone mounted above the dash was safe – say in the middle of Kansas with 10 straight miles of road ahead and 10 straight miles behind all clearly visible and completely empty of traffic, birds, animals and small children. And also it would be on the driver’s responsibility has to whether eating a mega-burger with both hands was appropriate for spinning through Columbus Circle NYC at the peak of rush hour. The mega-burger remains legal, btw.
I will plead guilty to favoring a law requiring people who think every minor aspect of daily life should be legislated in great numbing detail to be committed to a mental institution until they are no longer a danger to themselves or their fellow citizens. But that probably means I’d be in the cell next to you. Along with both houses of congress and all of our state legislatures. The world might be a better place.
I’m more than sure that it would be illegal to operate the glasses while driving.
On a happy note, imagine not driving because your car is doing it for you thanks to Google (:
It will wake you up if you are dozing off, and it will warn you if you get too close to the car in front of you.
I thought he was gonna hang glide off the roof… but he whips out a ukulele.
Now that I wear glasses, I could get behind this concept. Patent it Google before Apple sues you!!
I like the idea. Looks like it is still a few years out though. I would love a pair of Oakleys with this in them.
I’m still waiting on flying cars and time travel as promised to me in the Back to the Future trilogy.
Im still waiting on my hoverboard…..
Here you go…
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2012/02/mattels-back-to-the-future-hoverboard-price-announced/
seen that not too long ago. It doesnt actually hover. It glides on some sort of plate on the bottom over “most” surfaces and makes whoosging sound effects. =(
I want a real hoverboard. =P
$HUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!!!!
jeez, when is someone too connected!?
Never. Haven’t you seen “Surrogates”?
Those “surrogates” aren’t connected, other than to their base station. They’re just replacement bodies. As far as I could tell, they didn’t have internet access or anything like that.
The surrogate may not be connected to the internet or whatever but YOU are living a life connected to IT…
Interesting.
Are they gonna release a newer model ever other month for this aswell o_O?
My glasses cost more then I really want to pay already. I’d hate to see how much they’d cost with this…..
/cry
Id hate to have glitches bugs and delayed updates with an OS built into my glasses that could potentualy ruin my eyesight….
You know, companies can have new models all they want, and you can buy only what you want/need.
We don’t want a Google map overlay… just a blue line in the sky showing us the way!
Why not a blue line on the ground?
Sounds very good and interesting. Makes me want to know bout it more. :/
WHERE CAN I SIGN UP
This preview of these glasses makes me want them now. I have a pair of video recording sunglasses and when I heard of these, I thought “Nah, I’ll just stick to my current pair.” But after learning of all these features, it all sounds convincing. The only downside, is that a lot of the features shown in that video above, potentially means having to be connected to the internet all the time (think of the charges)!
Its a good idea, and I may look into a pair of these should they become reality one day. Once again, however, it was yet another cringe-worthy trendster ad using clichés that made me want to nuke my ears.
Nonetheless, this will be yet another good reason to own an Android. Well, until Apple, of course, releases a tin foil hat version, where they can call it “intuitive” and “revolutionary” so that they can then sue Google faster than you can say “Siri, don’t Sue.” Then all the Apple fans will blow a load in their pants once the”iHat” is put on sale.
Direct from Google no carriers and I would be sold. Imagine the tethering data pack att would attach to this.$80 a month capped at 3GB extra $50 for each overage
Google get this out on the market today. Have some celebrities wear them in movies, TV shows and Sporting events. The only thing I want you to do now is advertise the shit out of this project on TV, not just to us techies. Thanks for being creative.
One more thing, I hate to say this, but just do what Apple does and make the public think they have to have this technology (via TV ads) and it will sale like wild crackers. Trust me.
And here’s the next big step in the destruction of face to face socializing and people who can do things on their own.
It’s certainly cool tech, but I think I would find it incredibly annoying/distracting. Too much of what’s shown in the video covers an overly large portion of the field of view. (If it’s going to prevent me from seeing where I’m going, it may as well be on a screen I have to stop and look at.)
Also, it’s not clear from the video if/how they’ve addressed the technical challenges of displaying separate images to each eye without causing odd depth artifacts, and adapting so that the text is readable no matter where your eye is focused. (If I have to focus at a specific range in order to read a notification, I may as well have a separate screen.)
my thoughts exactly
I’m sure there will be an opaqueness setting. Kinda like the brightness setting we already have.
I don’t think changing the opacity would help. Sure, if you set the opacity low enough, notifications wouldn’t be blinding, but they’d still be distracting and distort your vision.
do i want to be surrounded by thousands of people constantly talking to themselves….nope, thanks anyhow.
I’m already surrounded by hundreds of people talking to themselves, or at least to their phone, really no difference.
This is crazy cool…but it also looks like it would turn us into zombies. And how could the human eye constantly re-focus between something so close to our face and distance without chronic eye strain?