Google Glass is Alive
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
...
"Reportedly the new version of Google Glass also sports improved battery life, partly because of the Intel Atom CPU. The specific clock speed is unknown, but this tiny SoC has proven itself by powering most Android Wear devices."
...
NONE of the current Wear devices run Atom chips. They all run ARM Cortex-A7 chips, except Moto360, which runs a Cortex-A8 !
"The chip is reportedly clocked somewhere moderately faster than current top-of-the-line Android Wear smartwatches."
So the "writer" is performing worst then a summary bot.
That's a pretty good business opportunity for TC then. Fire the "writers", replace by bots, nobody notices any difference (or actually an IMPROVEMENT!).
Going on a tangent, to this day I fail to understand why Apple didn't even make a bid on Nest. At the very least it would keep someone with both good taste and a strong enough force of personality to make it happen, away from Google's hands. Instead Apple spends over twice as much on Beats... Did Fadell hate his tenure at Apple so much that he wouldn't even consider a bid from them or vice versa?
Nest's competence is design sense/simple ux which Apple already has plenty of but Google doesn't. That makes them far more valuable to Google.
Like just imagine a Nest-less world where Google and Apple both release smart thermostats in 2010. The Apple product might look like Nest and the Google one would prolly look like whatever Honeywell was selling at the time.
I think this trope is rather out of date. If you look at Inbox, Google Play Music, Keep and a few other Google properties, it's not implausible to argue they are ahead of many Apple products.
Fundamentally Apple is still a company run by designers and Google is still a company run by engineering and yes companies can change what they are fundamentally about but no I don't see either of these two have done this. If anything, I see it being reinforced, with this being personified with moves like Jony Ive taking over Forstall's duties and Melissa Mayer needing to leave Google.
I don't like the term you've chosen here, "taint" because Google's culture and hiring preferences have certainly paid off for them in other ways.
Yes, that's my point. Apple buying Nest would keep Google from having better sense about simplicity when it comes to UX particularly when it comes to hardware.
For Apple buying Nest you also have to consider how does Tony Fadell, who has a Jobs type role at Nest, fit into Apple especially given that there are reports that he used to feud with Ive and that may have partly led to his departure.
http://www.cultofmac.com/262334/feud-jony-ive-keep-tony-fade...
According to wikipedia both acquisitions were $3.2 billion. Beats revenue was 5 times Nest's though.
B2B, well, there already are HMDs for B2B, so Google isn't really bringing anything innovative there. Hell, there are already HMDs made for specific uses like firemen and policemen vs. HMDs made for other things, so Google can't even beat all of them with one product.
After the poor support the original received, I can't really in good conscience even recommend a company go with Google, although I admit TI end of life-ing the OMAP and firing everyone didn't leave them much choice. I've worked on OMAP solutions after that and it is a nightmare, the only solution often being hiring an expensive consultancy that has some of the original employees who know things the manuals are light on.
After glass gains acceptance as a work tool, it will creep back into the consumer space. And people that threw around the term "glassholes" are going to look shortsighted and pathetic in retrospect.
There are still a lot of people who don't own or regularly use a cell phone and others who prefer not to be reachable all the time, that hasn't really changed.
Glass's popularity in the consumer market at some point in the possible future will hinge on whatever conversation a future generation has about the expectations of privacy in public spaces. Until that conversation happens, Glass isn't really viable as a consumer product.
I do remember being weirded out the first time someone walking parallel to me was talking to an ear-piece (out of sight) and I thought he was addressing me, hilarity ensued and he showed me his cell phone which I thought was absolutely wonderful (Motorola flip phone).
Well, I'll grant you that there are still some people - but I think it's a stretch to say, a lot of people.
For example, in Singapore, it's inconceivable to not have a cell phone. Indeed, a ton of the businesses, banking, etc.. presume you have a cell phone for their two-factor authentication.
That Pew page states that 10% of American adults still don't own a cell phone, but of those who do, I would expect there's a healthy percentage for whom the cell phone is infrequently used as an emergency contact system, or just-in-case for road trips, or for the occasional phone call. (They don't have numbers on usage patterns though.)
I couldn't hazard a guess at what worldwide usage looks like. I'm surprised every time I hear about the creative ways that countries I would least expect to be heavy cell phone users are using cheap cells for things like currency exchange (http://www.cnbc.com/2013/11/11/cashless-africa-kenyas-smash-...).
Google killed that product space completely with their initial incredibly flawed roll out. The number of news reports of people being beaten down in bars for being glassholes, and the picture of scoble in a shower wearing his google-glass burned into all nerds brains has scorched that product space for the forseeable future.
Which is unfortunate, because the concept of a HUD always available, and always recording, I think would be a really excellent technological innovation that I would totally take advantage of - if only I could avoid the extreme social outcast component.
Correct me if my memory is wrong (it's been wrong before recently), but I remember Google explicitly mentioning that this is a beta product; kind of like the current Oculus Rift releases so I'm not really too surprised at the current situation.
Google Glass never diedA relative who is in a professional field (not in tech) uses Google Glass to record YouTube videos live on the job. He has probably 300 hours worth of videos published and is now at the point where anything he publishes gets 5k+ views on YouTube.
Just saying this because I see applications like this really taking off. Perhaps security guards could use these on the job or even cops (eventually) for their own safety.
Trying to stay positive about this.
Think of it like Siri + CRM + HUD = on demand insights about customer needs, immediate details when a particular problem can be fixed given stock in warehouse. Also this will incredibly strain the user as simply he will have less time to pause between client interactions.
Give it another decade and computer vision will be able to advise technicians that they are about to touch live wire, etc.
(This is also a big complaint I have of Google Glass. I don't think I've ever actually seen a single image from Google talking about how it looks from a wearer's point of view.)
http://i.ytimg.com/vi/d-y3bEjEVV8/maxresdefault.jpg
Is the type of pictures I typically see. This is portion of your vision blocked by a semi-transparent area so it can reflect the very small and basic text projection.
When I think of HUD, I think of something that is able to overlay my vision like so:
http://www.niemanlab.org/images/behavio_hud.png (Just first image in google search)
Since neural manipulation or a screen being able to be on a contact lens are probably far away technology wise, that essentially leaves us with having to create something that can either draw or project a screen on a normal pair of glasses.
Once you can wear a prescription or prescription-less pair of fairly normal looking glasses that can draw/display image/shapes/text/color anywhere on the lens, then I think the actual "revolution" will take place and everyone will quickly buy and use them constantly.
You mean as a body camera?
http://www.amazon.com/Forestfish-Pixels-Recorder-Polarized-S...
Or just stick a GoPro on your head, or any number of other solutions. If you just want a wearable camera, there are tons of ways to do it. What does Glass add?
I think last time Google Glass failed because Google didn't demonstrate any practical scenario using this product. It's like, Google was telling us, "this is a cool product but nobody knows the application of it, so, use your imagination!" Users get lost when you define such a big scope.
This time Google should definitely learn from Hololens. Show some killer apps on Google Glass and let users feel excited about it, not only because it is cool, but also useful.
I was intrigued in the beginning, and I lost all interest when I saw Marc Andreessen wearing a pair. [1]
[0] http://whitemenwearinggoogleglass.tumblr.com
[1] http://bgr.com/2013/04/26/marc-andreessen-google-glass-inter...
The correct way to design a device like this is to start with battery life required and work forward with that as your primary constraint. If what you end up with isn't good enough you don't release the product and wait until more power efficient chips or better battery tech comes out.
I can think of a lot of scenarios where glass would have been a fit (if they got the cost down to even $500/pair)... the ability to have a context aware helper screen would work in a lot of scenarios... from parts pickers, to manufacturing, to presentations. Most of the ideas I have around google glass are pretty boring, but could really boost productivity in a lot of areas commercially, and this is probably where they should have started.
If you are paying someone $35k/year to do a job, and they could be 5-10% more effective with a given tool, that tool would be well worth $1000-1500. And I can think of a lot of jobs that pay over $12-15/hr that could be assisted/improved with this.
I think that the Wii should be the platform Google & co get inspired from. Nintendo did an awesome job with it. Not only did they invent a new input device, but they also showed how to use it in their first party titles. Shipping the console with Wii Sports was also a great idea.
For that matter it would make a great sales tool... you can check inventory while interacting with a customer, not having to look away or turn your back. Presenters being able to have notes on screen while talking...
There are definitely commercial applications.. but not for a product you can't actually buy.
This feels like Google scrambling to catch up to the Hololens and sort of making it up as they go along. Nothing to see here.
Google apps.