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Comment by coldtea | Hacker News Reader

>I work in a school. These devices will inevitably be banned in such places.

I don't think that will be a problem, because there will never be such devices.

They are vapourware, solving a problem people don't have, won't have, and don't want to have.

Sure, Google might release them commercially at some point. Still, they will go the way of the yo-yo, the Sony dog robot, the MiniDisk and other novelties.

Only geeks (in the unpopular, nerdy meaning of the term) lust after a thing such as Google Glasses. They are a 100% guarantee that you won't even get laid, and for something that you wear on your head, that's the kiss of death.

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Like PDAs ten years ago? Except we all have those now, save for the name.

The problem that these solve is that most things you'd want to use your smartphone for aren't worth the time it takes to get it out, do the security numbers or pattern or facial recognition, bring up the app, etc. Reducing the overhead from 45 seconds to 5 seconds is an enormous win, it seems to me, quite apart from the head-mounted camera aspect that gets so much focus.

>Like PDAs ten years ago? Except we all have those now, save for the name.

No, we really don't.

Smartphones are totally unlike PDAs. Except if you call any small device than has a CPU a "pda".

Smartphones didn't get popular for doing what a PDA did. They got popular for doing stuff that PDAs never did. From 3D games to Letterpress, and from checking twitter and facebook, to taking photographs and videos, none of these were available for PDAs. Including making phone calls, checking the web in full and listening to music.

>The problem that these solve is that most things you'd want to use your smartphone for aren't worth the time it takes to get it out, do the security numbers or pattern or facial recognition, bring up the app, etc. Reducing the overhead from 45 seconds to 5 seconds is an enormous win, it seems to me, quite apart from the head-mounted camera aspect that gets so much focus

Why get the phone out? You could have a watch with necessary information (iWatch), or a voice command and output in-ear headset (Siri mkII).

I didn't have a PDA personally, but people I knew did, and I'm pretty sure they did things like check the web, listen to music, take (low resolution) photos, and check their email (which is what most at my workplace apparently use their smartphone for nearly exclusively). The other things you mention are a function of the improvement of the hardware or the existence of services (twitter, facebook), not being a completely different category.

I think to get to a similar appflow to what a HUD enables, you'd have to have both the iWatch and voice commands, and then you'd still be stuck raising your wrist to read from it, meaning you can't operate it hands-free. HUDs combine all the best uses of iWatch and bluetooth mic/earphone combos, and improve on them.

>solving a problem people don't have, won't have, and don't want to have.

I can see this being used in some situations where you don't want to hold a video camera - like recording your pov when you're skydiving, scuba diving, mountain biking etc

But then again, there are already helmet/bike mounted cameras..

Sure, but would you use breakable glasses for this? There are head/helmet mount cameras as you say, with far better hardness.

The Google Glasses are more about the "show information HUD" aspect.

> They are a 100% guarantee that you won't even get laid

That's a killer point. Thanks for the pespective ;)

> solving a problem people don't have

See this is what I don't get about Google.

There are thousands of problems that Google Glasses could solve. But life recording and answering how long a bridge is are terrible use cases. For me it makes far more sense to position it in firmly in the business and education sectors. And then provide the necessary back end services to support developers.

It ties in so much better with other Google services and works to their strength which is in solving big data problems. Leave the gimmicks to the others.

> There are thousands of problems that Google Glasses could solve.

And they leave it to 3rd party developers to solve them, it's similar to stock Android. Their calculator app is baseline, but the devs branch out more products with different features.

The problem is that as a consumer device it risks being curtailed/banned in areas that it never would if it was a business/education device.

I know the distinction is subtle but so is the line for what constitutes an invasion of privacy.

>There are thousands of problems that Google Glasses could solve.

Can you give some examples?

One example we all know well. Car mechanic. Parts analysed from the video in real time to provide contextual information e.g. replacement periods. Asking questions about stock information from the suppliers. Looking at VINs to instantly see warranty/recall information from the car company.

Now if I own a car mechanic business I could never build this. But Google has all the technology today that just needs pulling together into cohesive services.

But instead of solving these real world problems they instead prefer to get embroiled in consumer privacy issues.

Police officers could wear them to ensure good behaviour from the police and public alike.

You could modify them to include a range-finder so surveyors could look at a building or room and measure it, just by being there.

You could use them for virtual reality applications -- "weak" VR since not fully immersive but nice to check out the proposed make-over for your living room.

Sports-people could wear them to give first-person views of the action.

They could be worn to workplace disciplinary hearings (or any other low-level legal proceedings) with your representative/legal counsel listening in and offering feedback. You could record everything, so could your counsel.

There probably are thousands of applications, but compulsively recording public spaces and the people in them is probably not the best.

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