I suspect that would just have set the bar too high. Unrealistic expectations are not good for devices in really early stages.
I think the presentation at Google IO was perfect: it was something obviously completely achievable now with the exact technology they had. And it was pretty cool.
In general, tech companies probably shouldn't do any preview videos at all -- they should just show a product demo when it's ready.
I do think a video like the one described in the link could be done in a way that it was clearly so far in the future that everyone would know it was an imagination thing, like the concept cars at auto shows, that could turn into a real product in 5-10 years. And it would be worthwhile to get people thinking about augmented reality. But those kind of far-off concept promotions are really hard to do well.
While I agree with most comments that most of these are unrealistic and gives the impression the artist does not understand the technology. The football idea is actually pretty good, viable and not even too hard to build with current tools. That sounds exactly the kind of use case that should be better exploited with glass apps. Constantly streaming information when you don't want to be distracted by taking your phone off. A phone app to use in a stadium wouldn't be too useful. But on your glass it changes everything. There are many similar situations where there's opportunity for glass apps that didn't have too much appeal on the phone. Developers take note.
While watching a football/soccer game, one problem I have is that I can't distinguish the players. I'm not a fan, I just go from time to time as a social thing. But conversations during the game with the people that do watch these sports regularly are problematic :)
The glasses could recognize the players by their number and attach labels to them. Now that's something I'd like.
I'm not really sure I see the advantage of the glasses over an ordinary smartphone for the stadium scenario. I am not missing anything by doing it on the phone due to the fact that the augmented reality of the replay is already taking up most of my vision.
For me, the jogging scenario of a heads up display makes the glasses very appealing to me as I would love to see a heads up of how my jog is going and distance to go etc.
My idea with the smartphone is that if the content is available why not just stream it rather than have it as an augmented reality experience. In every way I see the phone being a more whole and fulfilling experience in this case.
I completely disagree with the hand gestures. Just having users accept wearing Glass is enough of a challenge without insinuating that the UI will require you to look like you're doing panotomimes in public.
And this is coming from someone who is dying to buy Google Glass! (mainly for the hands-free camera feature)
Those gestures could be substituted by eye tracking. In Kinect UIs, menu buttons are often activated by holding your hand to the specified position for a certain amount of time. This can be translated to directly looking at an element for some couple hundred milliseconds.
The design by the OP is not bound by limitation in technologies. There is a gap between what is doable with current technology and what is conceivable with imagination.
Thanks for that article! I'd always wondered how AR technologies like "Glass" were going to be able to represent darker colors than what is there, and I guess I should have considered the fact that they won't!
Integrating virtual objects into the environment of the wearer is far beyond what Google Glass will be able to do when it gets released.
This kind of AR is not yet a well solved problem for complex images with a static background, and it gets exponentially more difficult with an unpredictably dynamic background.
Not to mention that the display technology that gGlass uses only allows for displaying semi-transparent objects, as I understand it.
This is clearly more advanced than what Google is aiming for immediately, but is the direction that makes this technology exciting, and is what it should mature into once feasible.
What is really missing at the moment is a method of controlling the display. Waving your hands in front of the camera is not an attractive option to me, but there are other possibilities once the tech gets there that seem much more seamless:
* Controls on the glasses themselves - not much better than waving hands.
* Some other sort of control device you can hold, like an apple remote with more buttons - could be very flexible, but again ties up your hands.
* A wearable device like a watch or wrist-band - could be quite unintrusive and should be possible fairly quickly.
* Embedded sensors on the body or the fingertips - obviously a way out but these could give great control simply by tapping on the leg or arm. Even typing is conceivable.
* Subvocalisation, sensors near the throat or head that can pick up subvocalised or whispered commands - speaking is pretty slow for control commands, but could be great for dictating messages.
* Brain control, sensors that can pick up thought patterns - this seems futuristic, but some advanced tech can already move a cursor and even dictate some words using this. Shouldn't be hard to choose from a HUD menu if designed well.
Ok, maybe I got carried away, but I'm pretty excited by what this sort of tech will be like in 10 years, especially if we can use contacts instead of glasses.
Personally I think that the control will be a mix of things, but the obvious primary control system is using your eyes - there already exists technology for having a computer mouse tracking your eyes, with gestures (e.g. extra long stare) to click. It's mainly used for making it possible for paraplegics to control computers at the moment.
The technique uses either a camera or a low-intensity laser directed at the eyes to determine the direction of the users gaze, and then trigonometry to determine where at the screen the user is looking.
I'd be pleased if I could just use my smartphone to control the glasses. The touch screen would act as a touchpad/keyboard, and the glasses as the display.
For that reason, I also like the Lumus glasses more than Google Glass, at least at the moment: it seems like they'll provide a better experience (also I don't care for the camera feature, which Glass is pushing)...
Big issue with brain wave controls is that they do not work too well when you doing anything physical like running or biking for example. Apparently field generated by working muscles jams the sensor
Well the glasses do have a touch-pad just below the right temple. Sergey showed it off in that interview where he let the interviewer wear his pair for a minute.
I think it will be great for deaf / hearing impaired people.
Just an arrow pointing in the direction of the sound / speech + some text indicating a best guess at what was said. Google's voice recognition is getting much better recently.
Exactly. It really is a shame that the true implications of augmented reality got lost in all the Google glass mockery. Forget the text message pop-ups and map overlays, that's all basically meaningless. Just a slightly easier to look at version of what's already on your phone.
But this kind of continuous melding of real life with video game graphics? A game-changer. Extrapolate it to everyone being able to see whatever they want to see, all the time, and things start to get pretty crazy pretty fast. Highly recommend Vernor Vinge's book Rainbows End for a full look at where this could take us a few years from now.
There is high tendency to present Project Glass as primarily augmented reality project. And that's ok, since AR (just the acronym alone) is getting a lot of PR.
But high potential for the first instances of it don't lie there though but in conveniently presented contextual information right in front of you.
I still don't like either speech or gesture control.
The art class demo would be even better if the glasses took a photo of the still life, applied a few artistic filters, and projected the line art to be traced onto the blank page.
As I said before, they should've integrated with something like Word Lens. Admittedly, I'm not sure how well the app works in practice (I don't have a supported phone), but from the videos it seems a great and very useful implementation of real AR.
This is one of those big mistakes that many people make. I said it for years too. Once someone points it out and you take the time to correct yourself, you'll notice it everywhere. Another one is "anyways."
It's just the English Language evolving as it always has done. Adding the 's' doesn't change the intent of what you're trying to say. Went and Gone are two different words with different meanings.
Dictionary's are records of how the language is being used at the time. They are not instruction manuals.
I think the presentation at Google IO was perfect: it was something obviously completely achievable now with the exact technology they had. And it was pretty cool.