Tag: google glass
Google Glass Joins The Failure Hall Of Fame

Google Glass Joins The Failure Hall Of Fame

Google Glass has entered the annals of spectacular product failures. Many bright ideas have foundered on the shoals of consumer rejection. The Product Failure Hall of Fame is too small to contain them all. But a few fall from such enormous heights of hype and hope that they deserve special recognition as awesome.

As such, Google Glass (2013) joins the Edsel (1957), Crystal Pepsi (1992) and Clairol’s Touch of Yogurt shampoo (1979) as one of the greats.

Oh, there was such promise back in the mists of time — that is, three years ago. While introducing Google Glass, Google co-founder Sergey Brin held a live chat with two skydivers, also wearing their glasses, as they plunged to Earth. They landed on the roof of San Francisco’s Moscone Center, where Brin was speaking. The worldwide audience was wowed but remained unclear on what the glasses were for. Would someone please explain “augmented reality”?

Anyhow, they went on sale for $1,500 each. Time magazine named Google Glass one of the best innovations of 2012. And fashion models wore them on runways. Some day soon, we’d all have a pair, right?

That I still have to explain Google Glass to most of you — and to myself — shows how far short these optimistic predictions fell. No one has to describe an iPhone.

Google Glass is a pair of goggle-like glasses that can connect with the Internet. There’s a touchpad on the right side of the glasses — it comes in sky, tangerine, cotton, shale or charcoal — that lets you cruise the Internet with finger commands. You can do wild things like sit in your Google glasses at a desk in Columbus, Ohio, and watch your friend skiing in Bend, Oregon, through hers. (She can also watch you at your desk.)

Blink and you can take a picture. Send email with your voice. Say “OK, Glass, record a video” and the glasses start taking a movie. All the above may be downloaded on one’s computer at home.

A smartphone can do those things, but you have to take it out for that purpose. This gives those nearby a fighting chance to avoid you. Google Glass’ cool factor — that it lets you take pictures, etc., with a small facial gesture — is also its creep factor.

The privacy problem is obvious, and bars and casinos soon banned Google glasses. Museum guards (“no photography allowed”) also grew wise to them.

Google Glass was to be the big thing in “wearable tech.” Some watches have joined that game, but they look like watches. Google Glass looks like goofy protective eyewear. Its strange appearance and ability to record activities of strangers in near secrecy have inspired numerous parodies and saddled its wearers with unflattering names — such as “glassholes,” if your editor lets that get through.

Because Google Glass performs functions that are more easily done with existing gadgets in a less obnoxious way, it fails as tech. Because it looks so weird, its value as fashion is extremely limited.

But let’s give its creators a modicum of respect for making a huge gamble.

“It is not the critic who counts,” Theodore Roosevelt famously said, but the man who, “if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

Up in the afterlife, someone is sporting a Google Glass while riding a Segway (2002), wearing platform sneakers (1992), holding a Microsoft Zune (2006) in one hand and eating a McDonald’s Arch Deluxe adult hamburger (1996) with the other.

I hope Joan Rivers is giving you a good laugh.

Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Web page at www.creators.com.

Photo: Ted Eytan via Flickr

Illinois Lawmaker Wants To Outlaw Wearing Google Glass While Driving

Illinois Lawmaker Wants To Outlaw Wearing Google Glass While Driving

By John Byrne, Chicago Tribune

The future of distracted driving has arrived with the advent of Google Glass, but an Illinois lawmaker wants to outlaw wearing it behind the wheel before drivers start trying to get directions from images hanging directly in front of their eyes.

While the computer interface mounted on an eyeglass frame hasn’t become a common sight on the faces of Illinois residents the way it has on people on the West Coast, state Sen. Ira Silverstein, D-Chicago, isn’t waiting.

He introduced a bill in the General Assembly that would make it illegal to operate a motor vehicle while even wearing a “mobile computing headset” like Google Glass.

Now Google is sending representatives to the General Assembly Tuesday to show lawmakers how the technology works.

“I’m sure they oppose (the ban),” Silverstein said. “They sent me a letter saying they were willing to work with us on this.”

“To me, this is a no-brainer,” Silverstein added. “I think it’s just a safety concern. This is potentially more distracting than texting and driving. It’s in your peripheral vision.”

In response to Silverstein’s proposal, Google released a statement that does not directly address the question of using the technology behind the wheel, but that says the headset is not meant to distract users.

“Glass is built to connect you more with the world around you, not distract you from it,” the statement reads, in part. “We find that when people have first-hand experience using Glass over several days, many feel less, not more distracted by technology.”

Google Glass is not yet available to the general public, though the company is testing it out with consumers in California. Google Glass could hit shelves later this year, the company has said.

Silverstein’s bill is sitting in the Senate Transportation Committee.

In a letter to Silverstein supporting the idea of new legislation specifically aimed at curbing use of Google Glass, an official from Secretary of State Jesse White’s office pointed out that while state law currently prohibits drivers from having video screens or televisions in their line of sight while driving, it isn’t clear that the language would apply to Google Glass-like wearable devices.

Silverstein’s bill comes several months after a judge in California dismissed a ticket issued by state police to a woman who was driving while wearing Google Glass near San Diego. The judge said there was no evidence the device was activated, so it couldn’t be proven that the woman was breaking the law.

Photo: Justin Sullivan via AFP

Google Glass-Wearing Woman Posts Video Of Alleged Bar Attack

Google Glass-Wearing Woman Posts Video Of Alleged Bar Attack

By Ari Bloomekatz and Jason Wells, Los Angeles Times

A San Francisco woman who says she was attacked at a bar on Haight Street after refusing to stop wearing Google Glass has released video footage of the incident that she filmed with the new technology that spurred the confrontation in the first place.

In a video posted to YouTube, tech writer Sarah Solcum provided a narrative for the footage, which she says captures the weekend attack.

“This is the video that I got on Google Glass at Molotov bar on Haight Street after being verbally accosted and flicked off by the Asian looking girl, I turned on the video, and after I told them I was doing so they got pissed and came after me,” Slocum wrote.

“Unfortunately, I had not extended the video so it cuts out after 10 seconds. Here you can see them — two people, a male and a female — trying to block the camera. The guy waving his hands in my face here later rips the Google Glasses off my face and ran out of the bar,” she wrote.

The incident reportedly started out as a friendly exchange between patrons at the bar and Slocum, who has posted extensively about the encounter on her Facebook page and Twitter account.

Some at the bar were curious, asking for demonstrations of the technology, which Google sees as a new way to effortlessly connect people with information, though it has yet to hit the mass consumer market.

But as the night wore on, a group of patrons reportedly became upset about the potential for being recorded by the eyewear, CBS San Francisco reported. The confrontation reportedly turned violent when a friend she was with responded to one heckler by throwing a punch.

The Google Glass was then allegedly ripped off Slocum’s face by a man who ran out of the bar.

“I got verbally and physically assaulted and robbed last night in the city, had things thrown at me because of some … Google Glass haters,” she wrote. She got the Google Glass back but was allegedly robbed of her purse and phone.

One witness later told a television station that some in the crowd were “just rather insulted that someone thinks it’s OK to record them the entire time they’re in public.”

It seems Google Glass has spurred as much controversy and confusion about how the new technology would integrate into society as it has for its potential.

Another controversy erupted over Google Glass on Oct. 29 when a California Highway Patrol officer issued a ticket to a woman for driving while wearing Google Glass.

She was eventually found not guilty in traffic court, but San Diego Traffic Commissioner John Blair found that wearing Google Glass could be considered distracted driving if authorities are able to prove the eyewear was on — though it’s unclear how that would be proved.

According to KRON-TV, Slocum wears Google Glass nearly everywhere she goes. Generally the technology is received well by others, she said, but sometimes it can be difficult.

Fittingly, heated discussions about Google Glass and the incident have erupted on social media and even on Slocum’s own Facebook page.

In another post, Slocum wrote that the incident “has consumed my life since late Friday night.”

“From being assaulted and robbed, to being locked out of my house, to not having a cell, ID, money, house keys, etc., to being contacted by everyone I practically know after posting what happened to me, to being attacked again by people who are questioning my story and calling it a personal PR stunt,” she wrote, “I have been overwhelmed, frazzled, stressed … crazy last few days.”

AFP Photo/Justin Sullivan

Google Glass To Be Integrated In Prescription Frames

Google Glass To Be Integrated In Prescription Frames

New York (AFP) – Google Glass is being integrated into prescription frames from the U.S. tech giant, a move that could broaden the appeal of the Internet-connected eyewear.

Google announced Tuesday it was making a version of the eyewear for people who wear prescription glasses, addressing one of the concerns about the new product.

“If we had a nickel for every time someone has asked about prescription lenses for Glass… well, we’d have a lot of nickels,” said a Google Glass blog posting.

“So we want you to be the first to know that the Titanium Collection is here, with a handful of new styles for Glass so you can make it your own. Whether you wear prescription glasses or just want a new look, we’ve got four feather-light titanium frames designed just for you.”

Google Glass is currently being tested by a small number of “explorers” who paid $1,500 each for the eyewear. It is expected to get a wider release sometime this year.

During the testing phase, developers are creating apps for the eyewear, which can range from getting weather reports to sharing videos to playing games.

Photo: Justin Sullivan via AFP