Google Glass Team: ‘Wearable Computing Will Be the Norm’ | Hacker News Reader

Google Glass Team: ‘Wearable Computing Will Be the Norm’

wired.com

36 pointsvmyy9937 comments

Some people who have interacted with Glass testers feel that sometimes people seem to temporarily drop out of a conversation to process something they see on the display. How does Glass avoid being something that removes us from our physical environment?

My feeling is that this effect might fade away as people become more used to the device. Anyone who wears glasses can tell you that the first time you put them on, the frames are very distracting in your peripheral vision. You become accustomed to them rapidly, however-- within days, the frames are invisible, and you retain this even when you take them off for a while.

A similar phenomenon takes place when driving. Every now and then you realize that you weren't watching the road at all, just driving along automatically with your peripheral vision. And the haptic compass experiments have demonstrated people have the ability to gain an unconscious sense of location from external stimulus.

Obviously something popping up in focus is always going to be distracting, but with a notification icon in the corner of your eye, it's entirely possible that one would grow used to it and stop consciously noticing its appearance-- you'd simply have a somewhat-unconscious "email sense".

And there's no reason that should distract one from what they're doing; when the mail comes to my door, I don't stop whatever I'm doing and go read it. I make a mental note to check the mail when I get a chance, and continue the conversation.

I'm pretty excited about this technology.

"My feeling is that this effect might fade away as people become more used to the device."

The effect of removal from the environment will not fade, but the social ramifications for the user will. People are less pissy now when someone stops to check their phone during a conversation, but that's more due to the expectations of those around them rather than our expanded ability to functionally multitask.

I feel like you didn't really read my post, since I was making a case that the "effect of removal from the environment" will fade that you didn't address... That aside, I think you're making a good point.

Part of the promise of the information age is general cognizance of the fact that we live in an incomprehensibly vast and complex universe, and that we are only able to perceive the most infinitesimal mote of it during our lives. With the judicious application of technology, we can expand our perceptions many times by accumulating information from different parts of physical space. For thousands of years, it was possible more or less to pretend that there was nothing else in the universe outside this room, and no one else alive but your family; thanks to the internet, that is purely impossible today.

It should not be surprising that this frightens some people.

Technophobes frequently protest that assisted communication can't have the value of face-to-face speech, which is frankly complete horseshit. Most of the in-person conversations that most people have most of the time are more banal and purposeless as the front page of Reddit (or 4chan, depending on your peer group). What is important is the relationships that we have with other people, and I've seen nothing in my experience or the literature to imply that relationships are intrinsically less meaningful because they are not communicated in person.

This sentiment is a form of forceful control exerted by those who have no other reason to command attention but proximity. This is also crap; attention is a product of interest and respect. If I am not interested by what you are saying, you will not maintain my full attention for long; and if you demand my full attention for no other reason than that you happen to be the human being closest to me in physical space, neither will you my respect.

cmon its not complete horseshit, getting to know somebody not just through their written or spoken idea but their facial expressions, their scent, their subtle body language is all meaningfully a part of our cognitive experience. Just because those things haven't necessarily been incorporated into cutting edge technology does not make them less relevant. We're all very impressed with ourselves for making cool gizmos that do wonderful things, but the backslapping and focus we have on our own achievements doesn't lessen the importance of the parts of our experience that nobody has even begun to effectively tackle. There are parts of human interaction that are not replaced by technology, at least not in its presence or near-future form. Period.

I did read your post, I disagree that the tune out will ever end, its just how it's read by others will culturally shift. you're still gonna be withdrawing your mental presence from the space, an externally triggered space-out.

In the Ghost in the Shell series you'll often see one person talking to another only to eventually realise that the other person was 'diving' (using the internet) and not listening to a word they say.

Even phones have silent and vibrate modes. I don't know why anyone would assume HUDs can't have similarly minimal modes. Instead of an icon indicating email constantly there at the edge of vision (possibly annoying or distracting like a gnat), in "don't distract me" mode, maybe you only see icons, or possibly better still just simple colored dots, when you tilt your head back.

Also of use might be some way for the device to show to other people (not the user) that it isn't distracting the user at the moment. So it doesn't give off a "they aren't paying attention to me" vibe. Perhaps just normal light leakage, or lack thereof, while the display is active/not will be enough for this signal.

At the risk of sounding silly a few years from now, I'll draw connection to when personal computers were first coming out. It was hard to predict all the uses we have today, and spreadsheets were thought to be one of the killer apps. Similarly, photos and sharing is the obvious killer app with Glass right now, but that's because it's very hard to see that far ahead. I can't wait to see what masses of developers will come up with once it's out for a while.

Further in the future, the device will likely shrink to, or work with a contact lens. At this point, this is not even a question of science, but of engineering [1].

[1] http://wireless.ee.washington.edu/papers/Lingley_JMMNov2011....

Is it just me or is the likelihood of this taking off a little lower than the Segway revolutionizing transport worldwide?

Segways would need parking / secure storage, or lots more upper body strength on the average person to get them up stairs. Costly physical barriers to widespread use.

Something like this pretty much just needs something to charge from. Like your computer while you work, and the wall while you sleep, from a USB port perhaps (which you already have).

Not making any claims as to which are more useful / applicable to more people. Just that there are major physical barriers to anything that requires even a pocket, much less infrastructure. A small wearable computer just requires somewhere to sit when you're not using it.

I can imagine people wearing headsets like that all the time would cause innumerable problems.

They'll be like bluetooth headsets. Reserved for a very specific subset of the population.

You're assuming that you'll even be able to tell who's wearing one rather than regular glasses. Look at the change in form factors of MP3 players and phones over the past 10 years, and then look at where they're _starting_ from with these. No reason they couldn't be nearly invisible by the time they hit widespread use.

You'll be able to spot those people because they're always walking into things or muttering voice commands to nobody in particular.

Don't tell me you can't spot someone with a portable music player from a hundred feet away. If anything the visibility of those has increased as the popularity of over-sized headphones has grown.

Can you spot someone with a hearing aid from ten feet away? Not these days.

All of those problems with the Segway could be solved if people were determined enough to use them. The Segway didn't take off because PEOPLE LOOK RIDICULOUS on them.

"Wearable" computing has the same issue, and will only take off if it can be made to look stylish enough for fashion-conscious people. This is Google we're talking about, so it's safe to assume the product will be about as stylish as an industrial vacuum cleaner. Some other company will have to come along and fix it before it becomes popular.

I keep hearing that theory around Segways, but I keep seeing people riding them on tours and whatnot. I heard a few people claim ridiculous when they first came out, but I don't hear it from anyone, anywhere, in person, any more. Only on the internet.

Honestly, I think it has more to do with them costing $5k and being less mobile than a bike, which you can pick up. That alone makes them absolutely worthless beyond their battery range, and to anyone who encounters stairs in their day to day life. And out of the price range of an enormous percent of USA's population, and it only gets worse for families.

But opinion battles have no end. We disagree at a rather fundamental level, I'm happy to leave it at that.

Hopefully it's just you. Some of us have been waiting for this for more than 20 years. :)

Google Glass can be divided into (at least) two distinct parts. The camera and the display. The camera is what Google is pitching very heavily right now. I'd guess they're doing that because it's something people can relate to... taking pictures from your perspective, taking them without putting some device between you and your subject. The tiny camera that takes pictures from your eye level is a big enough draw to get early users interested. (The killer app is "real-life" DVR... why should you have to stick your camera phone in front of your face to take a picture or record a video... how many times have you thought "damn... if I just would have had my phone ready I could have grabbed an awesome shot").

The display is harder to understand. What information do you need in front of your eyes right now that actually helps you? Today you might check Yelp for a restaurant review or Google Maps for directions, but you rarely ever keep your phone in front of your face while you walk through New York... it's a reference, not a constant aide. It's a cool idea but most people (even some of the geeky ones who visit Hacker News) don't see the value.

I think the big vision here is that you'll have a camera that consumes the world around you and a system that can process what the camera is seeing, and give you real useful information about the world around you immediately. You walk into the office and the system tells you that you're looking at "Sarah" and you have a meeting with her at 3pm, or that the menu item you're looking at has 615 calories and most people who order it love it, or that the product you're about to buy is $50 cheaper at an online store and can be shipped to you in 2 days. Glass doesn't offer any of this right now... but it will some day. I want one and if I'd attended Google I/O I'd have spent the $1500 for the early prototype.

I don't think this device alone would make this big difference. we already have phone that are able(especially with the cloud) to do augmented reality. In many use cases we don't need this immediate response. we can "take the time" and get our smartphone.

We point our phone at that product, or at our lunch, or at the home diy project we need to do, or at some hobby we're doing, or at the car repair we're doing. we don't need glass for that.

I think Google Now is the "public beta" of the sort f automatic and immediate information they intend to deliver to the Glass.

Sort of shame, really, as we had some plans to build a service exactly in the same space (though more base on learned routines a bit like Bret Victor's The Magic Ink describes)

Are we supposed to want this? As if it wasn't already hard enough to talk to people who are constantly whipping out their smartphones.

Control input will make or break this thing. I don't think a single button and touchpad will cut it for general computing.

They're riding the wave of hope that voice controls have now, maybe I'm naive but it's going to have to improve by miles for anything beyond novelty use.

I could see this focusing on a tighter use case, like content aware eye mounted cameras with social features, and why not two of them for stereoscopic?

Touching it at all is likely a deal-breaker. People would likely prefer using a 'remote' on their phone to issue commands, rather than using an indirect pointing/clicking device on their temple.

Mobile is primarily different from Desktop in that the little annoyances are too much for the form factor and use cases. And indirect pointing and clicking just doesn't cut it in mobile.

Wearable will only be more extreme this regard.

Or a wristwatch shaped device.

My bet is on brain waves/some sort of EEG. I don't know much about the subject but at the moment it's impossible for a device like Glass to function as an EEG but I think we are not too far away (maybe 10-15 years) from figuring out a sexy solution.

http://www.emotiv.com/

Once you dig into the technology a bit it's somewhat disappointing. The best layman summary I can make:

EEG or other electrical signals are scrambled in the skull, bouncing around inside, making discovery of origin impossible from the exterior. The best we can do is binary on or off, which is how the emotiv device works, along with detection of facial/other head muscle movements.

MRI can detect origin of signal, but the machines are huge, like the size of a car; and power hungry, and crazy expensive, and the resolution is something like one minute per signal.

Sorry to be a bummer ;) I want to see brain-computer interface as much as anyone.

I cannot in my wildest stretch of imagination see myself ever buying something like this.

Just wait

"So we decided that having the technology out of the way is much, much more compelling than immersive AR, at least at this time."

I'm not really convinced by this. "Out of the way" means you have to switch focus every time you want to see your information, and then switch back afterwards. To me, this seems even more distracting, albeit less prone to clutter.

I'd suggest they design the device as something that clips on to spectacles. I don't see why anyone would wear this thing if they weren't going to wear spectacles (why have the whole stupid frame?) and it's not going to work for spectacle wearers (which is a lot of us).

As for the comment about making something that doesn't come between the user and the physical world -- how about not using this device?

I think it's an intriguing concept, but right now it's a solution looking for a problem. Building software this way is relatively cheap (Google Wave...) but hardware?

It makes me think that an audio-focused UI that allowed commands via throat mike might be a good way to go.

I agree that wearers of prescription glasses would make an excellent target group: We're already comfortable with the mechanics and aesthetics of wearing a device in our face, and many of us are also used to spending $$$ for eyewear.

I would totally do this.

I think the problem is that it's too big. Until they can shrink it down more, it's more likely they'll attach lenses to glass, rather than glass to frames.

>As for the comment about making something that doesn't come between the user and the physical world -- how about not using this device?

It's less intrusive than pulling out your phone to take a picture while playing with your kids.

Imagine a world where OLED screens can be worn or even tatooed to the skin, powered by kinetic motion?

It's a brave new world, aye!

Or even powered by excess blood glucose?...

Are you implying I'm producing more than absolutely necessary? How dare you.

Probably referring to this[1], though I'm hoping they come up with a way for me to power my house. Finally, a reason to pull out the Nutter Butters.

1. http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/130923-mit-creates-glucos...

... like video calls!

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