NEW VIDEO SHOWS HOW GOOGLE'S GLASS AUGMENTED REALITY GLASSES WORK FROM THE WEARER'S POINT-OF-VIEW

A beautiful young lady wears a pair of Google's new augmented reality glasses (Click Image To Enlarge)

Developers, start your laptops. Google depicts how it'll feel using the augmented reality headset.

Google's Glass augmented reality hardware isn't yet available and the project's development is generally kept secret, but the company has now released a video that gives us a hint about how its user interface will work. In it many users are seen interacting with Glass's systems. The video shows the point of view of normal vision plus the Glass augmented reality-style window in the field of view.

Googler shows what Google's new augmented reality glasses see from the wearer's point-of-view (Click To Enlarge Image)

Users demonstrate searching for information, taking a picture or recording video, and even asking for a Google translation into Thai.

 

In many ways, these are the same details we've seen in other Glass PR stunts, but this conceptualized video shows it from the "inside" glass point of view, presumably to demonstrate the power of the device and its seamless UI. Google has recently allowed developer access to Glass hardware, and will soon be releasing 8,000 new headsets to promising app developers. Still, a consumer launch is not expected any time too soon.

COMMENTARY:   Since I last blogged about Google's Project Glass, a lot has happened, and it looks like things are cranking up and preparation are being made for a launch in either late 2013 or early 2014.

Facebook Wants A Piece of the Google Glass Action

Face1book founder, Mark Zuckerberg, can’t wait for the Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) release of its Google Glass device. The tech entrepreneur made the comments at a charity function that both he and Google founder, Sergey Brin, were attending. According to Forbes, this is what Mark Zuckerberg said about Google's new augmented reality glasses.  

“I can’t wait to get my own.”

There is a heated rivalry between Facebook and Google, as both companies compete for the same advertisement revenue. The firms’ executives are not above honest appreciation of each others products, as evidenced by the statement from Zuckerberg.

Both tech luminaries were attending an event at the University of California medical campus at Mission Bay. They were there promoting the Breakthrough Prize For The Life Sciences, a new $3 million award for excellence in the Life Sciences. Brin and Zuckerberg are both prominent backers of the prize.

Brin, who has been spotted sporting Google Glass eye wear in public since last May, was wearing the device at the event, and offered Zuckerberg a sneak peak at their capabilities, fixing his pair onto the CEO’s head at the back of the hall after media comments. Google Glass is billed as a social experience, that means that Facebook integration will be absolutely necessary.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin demonstrates Google's new Glass, the wearable internet glasses shown at the Google I-O conference in San Francisco, June 27, 2012 (Click Image To Enlarge)

Despite the growth in Google’s own social platform, Facebook is still the gold standard in social networking. Google will need absolute cooperation from the Menlo Park company if its glass product is going to succeed, and judging by the mood surrounding it, it will need all the help it can get.

Here's an early video when Google announced Google Glass back at Google I/O 2012:

 

Google announced just two days ago that it would offer Google Glass to early adopters for $1,500 a pair. In order to avail of the offer, hopefuls will have to fill in an application demonstrating their ability to add to the Google Glass project. Developers have already been able to apply for a pair.

Facebook employees will no doubt be involved in the development of applications for the device, though it remains to be seen whether or not the firm will be able to release an early application. The firm showed weakness with its release of poor iPad apps more than a year after that products release.

Facebook will be essential to Google Glass in the early days. The product will almost certainly require apps specifically designed for it. It does not seem like full web pages will be useable on the device. If Zuckerberg’s comments are anything to go by, Facebook engineers might jump right in.

Warby Parker To Design Glass AR Frames For Google

In a blog post dated April 18, 2013, I reported on what Fast Company felt Google needed to do in order to make its Glass AR glasses a commercial success.   It now appears that Google listened. A New York Times report claims that Google is talking to Warby Parker, the online glasses store with a heart, and it's one of Fast Company's Most Innovative in Retail 2012, in an attempt to make its glasses look like something you'd want to wear out without making people point, scream, faint (optional) and shriek, "Cyborg, Incoming!" when they see you.  Neither firm, of course, would comment on the claim, which emanated from "two people briefed on the negotiations." The current model is glassless, but there is an idea to fit them with either tinted or prescription lenses. There is still no clue as to when Google Glass will be available, but the firm yesterday ratcheted up the excitement another notch with this, the If I Had Glass project. Consider yourself cool, curious, creative, and a U.S. resident over 18? Should Google feel the same about you, then you could become an Explorer (nothing so mundane as testing, eh?) for the project.

Google Glass Undergoes FCC Tests

Earlier this month, it was reported that the F.C.C. has been giving the glasses the once-over.  Every electronic device that transmits radio signals must undergo FCC tests and meet stringent radio frequency and communications requirements before a product is approved for the commercial market. 

New York Fashion Week Test Drives Google Glass

Google Glass AR glasses have been seen out in the wild at New York Fashion Week last September, at DVF's runway show (she later released a short film, DVF Through Glass, about the specs).

Apple iWatch Under Development

Snapping at the heels of Google's AR glasses could be the iWatch, a wearable gadget which, according to a report last week, has 100 product designers seeing to its every whim.

From the look of things, Google is taking extra care and is very serious about launching Google Glass AR glasses, and doing it the right way.  From everything I have seen so far, I think the era of wearable electronic devies is about to take a significant jump into our daily lives, and tying the whole thing with a social platform, whether its Google+, Facebook or Twitter, makes obvious sense for enriching our online experience in a new and more dramatic fashion than we ever thought possible.  

The $1,500 price tag is hefty, but there will always be a small group of early adopters ready, willing and able to pay the price for the next new thing in electronic gadgetry.  The fact that that Google is making it a requirement that buyers fill out an application demonstrating that they can add to the overall Google Glass project user experience, makes it appear very likely that the initial launch rollout will be to a relatively small group of customers.       

It also seems very likely that the first owners of Google Glass AR glasses will be running an a Google app that will integrate the glasses with Google+.  I have often commented that Google+ users are mostly affluent male social media and technology geeks, so this could be a rich proving ground for the new Glass AR glasses.  You can expect a lot of the will already be Googler's.  

This also raises a lot of questions as to how Google intends to make money off of Glass AR glasses.  I don't think it will be the glasses themselves, but a grand plan involving mobile ads appearing in the lens.   Example:  If I look at a McDonald's restaurant while wearing a pair of Glass AR glasses, the software will recognize McD's and immediately prompt me with a small add promoting a free fries if I buy a Big Mac.  I think that's Google's grand scheme to monetize Google+, by making users much more pro-active within its social platform, and then coupling the whole thing with advetising.  

Google could also integrate Google Glass AR glasses with your moble phone to give you instintaneous location information and tell you how many of your Google+ fans are nearby, what they are doing, and you can either text them or call them from your smartphone.  

The capabilities are endless, and Google is about to change the social media landscape several notches.  Whether it will share this technology with Facebook and Twitter remains to be seen.  I know that Zuck would love a pair of those AR glasses, and he probably will get a shot, but I have a feeling that Google may not want to integrate the Facebook or Twitter platforms with its AR glass technology, keeping that competititve edge for itself.  This makes me very happy, since I am already a Google+ user.  :) 

Courtesy of an article dated February 20, 2013 appearing in Fast Company and an article dated February 21, 2013 appearing in Fast Company and an article dated February 20, 2013 appearing in IGN

Comments

[Slinger311]

I have to say these are the coolest glasses I've ever seen. That is, besides the hipster glasses my wife has. I really want to get these.

[Pet Cummins]

Google has released its second teaser video for Google Glass the company's futuristic augmented reality specs that may be slated for release later this year.