New Android eyewear butts heads with Google Glass | Hacker News Reader

New Android eyewear butts heads with Google Glass

linuxgizmos.com

39 pointsdeviceguru30 comments

Glass is 100% hype. If it were released tomorrow it would flop hard. Any review you read of it is meh, it really does nothing different than your phone and isn't practical to use in social situations or life in general. If you want to see 'real' new technology that people would actually pay money for, check out the Oculus Rift.

I'm not saying the Rift is the same. I'm saying both Glass and the Rift have been hyped a lot. The difference is the Rift really is practical - you see a lot more 'real' people using the Rift and enjoying it vs. Glass.

Are you kidding me? At the very least, wearable computing as a form factor is going to be huge. And Google has the resources and flagship product to pull a big win. It's a convenient, hands free device with display. I suspect this is one of the main reasons their stock has been doing so well lately.

If anyone can do it, it might be Google. It's going to take a ton of internal development to further Google Glass from their last prototypes. With smartphones setting the expectation, the general public and even techies are going to want something slim, streamlined, and performant. The TI GPU processor that Google Glass comes with isn't exactly performant enough to do the crazy VR stuff we want.

> If anyone can do it, it might be Google.

I think you misspelled Apple.

Remember, you're talking about the people who shipped the Chromebook Pixel with a super-high-res touchscreen... without pinch-to-zoom enabled.

Wearable computing is absolutely going to be huge.

But there is no way to escape the fact that most people consider glasses and watches to be fashion accessories. And to make the next mass market device you will need to live and breathe fashion. Which effectively means doing what Apple is doing and bringing in experienced people like Paul Deneve from (Yves) Saint Laurent.

I agree with you about Oculus Rift having real viability in the proximal future. Glass and "GlassUp" (what a rip of a name) need to be released to developers and the general public to thrive and produce an ecosystem of developer tools as well as new ways to use the hardware. I find Glass and GlassUp to be akin to the iPhone. The first iPhone touched the brim of what a truly responsive and performant touch-device could do, when GPS/Bluetooth/Wifi/Gyroscope/ and other sensors were equipped. Years later, and there's thousands of unique ways the iPhone is being used because of its advanced framework and hardware. I think we all know even the first production versions of these devices are going to be poorly able to be used, perhaps clumsy and too zealot-specific but they are necessary step for the truly visionary platform to evolve from.

I remember reading the same comments about the iPhone and iPad. Maybe Glass won't be anywhere near as successful, but I don't think it will be remembered as insignificant.

No doubt it will be remembered as significant.

But more in the theme of a Newton or Segway rather than an iPhone or iPad.

Those comments about the iPhone were correct: the original iPhone sucked at most of the things it set out to do even in comparison to many of the other devices at the time, and was really only very popular among hardcore fans of Apple. The iPhone 3G and then the iPhone 3GS (and possibly even more importantly, iPhoneOS 2.x and iOS 3.x) were really what started to make the device worthwhile. You can't judge a product based on some concept of the potential the product line might have based on judgements of the team and their plans: the comment you are responding to even says quite specifically "if it were released tomorrow"; if nothing else, we can assume Google also believes this, or they may have already released it ;P.

"The iPad is just a big iPod touch!"

I think both are early versions of a really cool future. I actually have a rift (but not glass) I definitely can see an amazing future with an advanced version of it.. but if i was to judge its merits based only on this initial version. It has some ways to go yet.

But even rift, the real value comes outside gaming. I'm waiting for some time to clear on my schedule, but I really want to play more with virtual reality field trips for schools.

I like what these guys are doing a lot more: http://reconinstruments.com/

It looks to be Android-based as well. The Snow version is even more impressive as it clips into a number of goggles, as opposed to require you purchase the googles from them. It looks like goggle manufactures have to explicitly support this add-on, but it's a great way to engage a user-base without having to compete with the established players.

I'll not front: that's a much uglier device than Glass, and Glass isn't exactly the height of fashion. Plus it lacks much of the functionality that Glass has. I believe a legitimate competitor to Glass will emerge at some point, but this is more like a cheap knock-off.

Cheap knock-offs drive acceptance, I wouldn't get one either but I'm happy to see it in the market.

No it doesn't. Premium products used by people you aspire to drive acceptance.

Cheap knock-offs are for the mass market.

Superficial celebrity-worshiping elitism drives acceptance!

You're right, but the design will improve very much. We are in the middle of the world biggest eyewear industry, and we're making agreements with them for the frame.

The point of these first prototypes was only to prove, first of all to ourselves, that the system could fit in little room and weight.

The most interesting feature of Glass for me is having the camera which would leave my hands free. GlassUp doesn't have that. Plus it's ugly as f*.

Let's see but I would predict this will be a huge flop.

For hands-free video recording, check out my product Epiphany Eyewear. http://epiphanyeyewear.com

We have better camera optics, longer recording time, and equal resolution, compared to Glass.

Jon—two questions.

1. Why does your site disable my back button? 2. When are you shipping? I'm interested.

1. Ah, that's a bug, thanks for noticing it.

2. We're not announcing a firm date because manufacturing is hard, but it's sometime in the next several months.

Thanks for your interest, and please tell your friends B-)

Very promising. Be sure to announce here when it is order-able.

Thanks! Will do.

We didn't want to do a camera version actually, because we see our product as a tool rather than a toy. But then we found it's necessary for object recognition, plus many people are asking for it, so we'll have it, it's already in offer on our IndieGoGo campaign http://igg.me/at/glassup/x/3553080

However we don't want to upset people's privacy feelings, so we'll make the camera version very evident, with a big writing "You're on air" or something.

Judgement Day T2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olXilz8r4uU

Glass seems to be well weighted. This doesn't. I wonder if it will lean to the right.

It will be balanced by putting the battery on the right, and regulating the weights. This prototype has no battery because it's still tied to a pc, it's just for testing.

Won't they be a target for litigation for using the name GlassUp?

Yes, the litigation is ongoing. We object that we can not call our Glass other than glass, because that's what it is (check the dictionary). Otherwise we want be able to call any other wearable "shoe", "glove", or whatever, just because someone uses that term first.

And however, if anyone can litigate us on that name it would be my friend Steve Mann, who has been using it for about twenty years: Glass generation 1, Glass generation 2, ... See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augmented_reality

seriously, they aren't starting with a prescription option? I know a bunch of the sort of people who would use this. I think one of them doesn't wear prescription glasses.

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