New Google Glasses revealed. You’re now likely to meet people wearing rather futuristic glasses while they talk to themselves. Don’t panic! They aren’t Bellevue escapees; most likely, they are Google employees testing new augmented-reality glasses. Google’s top secret project is called Project Glass.
A few days ago, Google described their new glasses as a first venture into “wearable computing.” Watch the following Google Glass video:
Similar videos shows a man who wakes up, puts his Google glasses on and is reminded of his tasks for the day – including taking to god as he cooks his breakfast. Then he’s informed by his glasses that the subway does not work, so he instead decides to walk while taking a call. The man pets a few dogs along his way, as he continues talking business during his leisurely stroll.
Sound appealing? If you want your own pair, unfortunately, you can’t yet buy them just yet –they aren’t for sale but Google will soon be testing them in public. This is according to a Google Plus post shared by Babak Parviz, Steve Lee and Sebastian Thurn of GoogleX – aka the “company lab.”
Lee, the reputed product manager that had previously created Latitude and Mobile Maps, is now behind Google Glasses’ “location based aspects.”
A prototype version of the top secret Google glasses look rather fancy and extremely polished. They have obviously been quite well designed. Information is streamed through the lenses so the wearer can give and respond to voice commands. There’s also a camera and a video recorder.
But what if you already wear glasses? No problem, Google says; these lenses can sit on top of regular glasses. How cool is that?
New York Times was first to break the story abut Google glasses, describing them as an “augmented reality display that would sit over the eye and run on the Android platform”. There are people who fear that the glasses may be a novelty that would distract people from issues in their individual “real world”. Google is quick to point out that the constant stream of information would be helpful, rather than distracting. Some argue that “too much” technology and gadgetry may only be more confusing, though one person who has tested the glasses insists that it actually “freed” him from too much technology. He claimed instead that the glasses made life simpler because if he wanted to, for example, take a picture, he didn’t need to reach for his phone, he just pressed a button on his lens.
Some wonder what else Google X is up to — aside from augmented reality glasses. Conspiracy theories are abound about a secret lab somewhere near Google’s Mountain View California offices, where they’re working on space elevators and robots and perhaps, something really great for humanity – like a Cancer cure. Whatever the case may be, we can be sure that the upcoming Google glasses will be sublimely impressive.
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