Scoble on Glass. “This week I gave five speeches while wearing it. I passed through airports four times (two more in a couple of hours). I let hundreds of people try my Google Glass. I have barely taken it off since getting it other than to sleep.” The basic takeaway? “I’ve been telling people that this reminds me of the Apple II, which I unboxed with my dad back in 1977. It was expensive. It didn’t do much. But I knew my life had changed in a big way and would just get better and better. Already this week I’ve gotten a new RSS app, the New York Times App, and a Twitter app. With many more on the way. This is the most interesting new product since the iPhone and I don’t say that lightly.”
Just wait until the first commuter walks off the curb/platform and gets run over by car/train….. And they thought distracted driving was a problem with phones.
Did you ever hear about the jogger that while listening to his iPod just jogged off a cliff eyes wide open and not seeing what he was doing.?
This will put the phone to shame for distracted deaths!!!!
My prediction.
My opinion, we live in the age of distractions. It actively slows innovation and creative thought. That is why I dont own any MP3 player or smartphone.
With a phone you have to take your eyes off of whatever you’re doing and generally you also lower your head by quite a bit, with Google Glass you only shift your eyes a bit — it’s much easier and faster to take a quick glance with the latter device.
Of course, it can still be a distraction, but the problem is between the person’s ears then; if you are doing something that needs your attention then you shouldn’t be actively shifting your attention elsewhere. And the people who still do that will continue doing that with Google Glass or with something else. There is no cure for stupidity.
Pretty sure that’s an urban myth.
Which will be an amazing comfort to me when someone with said problem between their ears smashes their car into me because they were distracted by this thing. How reassuring that I was killed by stupidity rather than malice. I’ll look back on it and laugh when I arrive in the afterlife which I don’t believe in.
Now this reveals the whole reason behind Google’s foray into driverless cars…
Nope, It’s there. look it up.
The condition is called: “Inattentional blindness”
Culling the heard of hipsters.
This sounds like the beginning of a joke, so here are a few punchlines:
– It was actually an iPhone and it was giving him directions to the nearest Apple store.
– The ghost of Steve Jobs made him jump to test his loyalty.
– He heard that stock market value is a real thing and that its perpetual growth will catch him midway before lifting him back to the cliff edge.
– The vista from the cliff edge was bright white that day and he thought he made it to Apple nirvana.
Ever heard of the invisible gorilla test?
Yes. I proves it can happen. It doesn’t prove it did happen.
Well, the fellow says it’s more social, since you don’t have to take your eyes off your peers while doing stuff.
I’d say that’s one the reasons it’s even less social than anything, since you can’t even imagine what the other does while seemingly looking towards you. It’s just awkward.
“I don’t need to look away from you to use Google, or get directions, or do other things.” So, that’s what you call social these days. It’s the beginning of a “You talkin’ to me?” renaissance
Not quite. You can only consume a stream of data like that. You still need to issue any commands yourself if you wish to actively do stuff and that would still be obvious to the other person(s). Ie. if you e.g. have a video streaming on your Google Glass you aren’t actively doing something with it. And well, at that point it isn’t really all that different from you looking at something in the background or listening to something else than the person in front of you — there is no guarantee that you’re actually paying attention to the person in front of you even without a device like this and as such there isn’t really any meaningful difference.
Yes, you can, just as you can now: if the person’s eyes are slightly shifted in one or another direction away from you then that person is looking at something else. There isn’t much else the person can even do with Glass without you noticing because it’s voice-operated, you know?
(puts Grumpy Old man hat on)
According to some sites, Glass has already been hacked.
Ok, so Google can improve security but…. as we have seen with Android, not everything in the Android walled garden is very rosy.
So thinking ahead here, what happens when the hackers (sorry Ad men) get good at injecting adverts into all those Glass streams that people are viweing as the walk down the street? you know the ones related to the huge 60ft billboard you are just going to pass?
Then you have this huge captive audience for your advert. The admen will love it, saying ho cares about a few traffic accidents or people tripping over pavement edges, their TOC’s will absolve them of any blame at all.
Gazing deeping into the Looking ‘Glass’, it does not take a genius to get to the point where the Glass users could be collectively hyptonised and made to do silly things. It does not take a genius to imaging what happens next. Mover over Steptford Wives, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
many yrars ago, I was trained to use a HUD in a Fighter Aircraft. IT took a lot of effort to switch part of my brain to watching it, or rather pointers in the information stream otherwise I am sure we would have been shot down in pretty quick order. What training will be given to Glass users so that they at least use it safely? What about the Children? Won’t someone think of the children? Being oblivious to what is going on around them should be no excuse. We already have the ability to 20-30% of the outside world with ear buds please don’t let the remaining visual cues get obliterated by these devices.
I know I’m being overly pessimistic but I can’t help thinking that this is a huge disaster waiting to happen.
Laywers, sharpen your pencils and order that new LearJet.
Jailbroken, not hacked. They’re not the same thing.
Wow, someone’s been tripping. You do realize that the Glass – display is a small display on the corner of your view and even then it only applies to one, single eye? If hypnosis was that easy it would’ve been done already in enormous amounts for atleast a decade!
Really, it only covers a small corner of a single eye. It is not fucking comparable to a jet-fighter HUD.
But but…Forbes says it has been “hacked” and “cracked” by “jailbreakers”.
Yeah, it doesn’t take a genius. In fact, it probably takes the opposite of a genius to come up with that theory.
I pray to God that you’re being sarcastic. And I’m not even religious.
Edited 2013-04-28 13:25 UTC
So you’re telling me games like F-22 Lightning II don’t create a realistic HUD experience????
Ha-ha. A mere toy compared to the real thing.
Then you have this little thing called ‘G’ to contend with. Even real (multi-million $$$) simulators can only send a proportion of real ‘G’ through your body.
Until your driver(nee pilot, there’s a good chap) has done an invert at 500kts and mumble mumble * feet above the ground, trying to even keep your eyes looking remotely where they should is a real challenge.
Just watch the video of Mr J Clarkson in the back seat of a fighter and you might realize how difficult it really is.
* where mumble-mumble is less than 500ft and you are flying over the Elan valley dams in Mid Wales, all totally illegal btw, but this was a long time ago.
I guess the advice to Google Glass wearers is to not pull high Gs when walking down the street.
> Ok, so Google can improve security but…. as we have seen with Android, not everything in the Android walled garden is very rosy.
Android isn’t a walled garden, that’s why. It’s wide open except for what the OEMs do to it.
I wrote that with my tongue firmly in my cheek. With all the malware found recently perhaps some for of garden would be a good idea.
I do think Google should be fairly picky about what gets in to Google Play, but the system itself must remain wide open. Think Debian, not iOS.
I think you put on the wrong hat. That’s not the grumpy old man hat, that’s the crazy old man hat. You can clearly tell as you omitted one of the key grumpy phrases (” Back in My day”, “When I was your age”, “kids today”, “get off my lawn”) while including the crazy ones (” it does not take a genius”,”what about the children”, “I can’t help thinking”, “ain’t seen nothing yet”).
I’m not sure if you’re talking about glass, or trying to get me to invest in gold, buy survivalist food supplies, or tell me about a weird free energy device that the power companies hate!
No worries gramps, them missiles in video games are not real…
Its obvious !!
From all I read about Google Glass , I can only come with one conclusion:
Google Glass was made by the DEVIL !!!
Folks, this is the product of the Devil, Deamons , Sorcerers and Witches !!
If you use Google Glass , you will die ! You will kill while driving, running, etc! You will no longer be yourself and have any control over your SOUL !!!
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED ! SAVE YOURSELFS !
Edited 2013-04-28 16:21 UTC
It’s kind of difficult to get terribly anxious over something like this when you put things into the perspective that most of our world is powered by highly-flammable, liquefied dinosaurs..
It’s less cool than that:
It’s actually mostly liquefied shellfish and algae and horrified forests, and a small percentage of liquorfied fruits.
On the other hand, the only things we do to dinosaurs today is eat their eggs and deep fry them in eleven herbs and spices.
Google Glass will succeed, and it will succeed ridiculously well for one really stupid reason: it is closer to your face than a cell phone.
The cell phone beat the house phone because it was also closer to your face.
The house phone beat the mailman because it brought your face closer to another person’s face than the mail.
The mail beat the buggy because it brought your face closer to another person’s face faster than going there yourself.
This is about the conservation of energy, pure and simple. When it comes down to it, the only thing that really matters in consumer electronics is whether the product provides its user with more energy–physical, caloric, psychic, spiritual, mental, whatever. Some products this by advertising, some by design, some by functionality, and some by all three. It doesn’t matter how slim the advantage is, as long as it provides even the slightest amount more energy it will win in the long run.
Could we change the title from a “Review” to a “Paid promotion”. Scoble is being payed good money to run around the country and promote this. Makes his post much less credible, not necessarily wrong though.
I view the google glass as an evolution of the bluetooth earpiece, so given that bluetooth earpiece are not that successful I don’t think that they will succeed either.
We’ll see..
I see cases of this increasing as people look at two different things at once. Of course my other eye sees it differently, so I could be wrong.