The Google Glass

 

 

Sometime in February 2013, Google started a social media campaign for Twitter and Google+ users, asking them to share their ideas on what they would do if they had Google Glass – Google’s latest technological innovation through the futuristic, Internet-connected glasses which display digital information right in front of the user’s eyes. The campaign hopes to select the best response who will in turn receive the Explorer version of the Google Glass.

Google Glass is described by Wikipedia as “a wearable computer with a head-mounted display or HMD developed by Google in the Project Glass research and development project”. The ultimate objective of the project is to produce a mass-market universal computer. It’s basically a computer worn on your head which can provide you with the information you need in a smartphone-like but hands-free format. The smart thing about Google Glass is its ability to interact with the Internet through voice commands.

The Explorer Edition of Google Glass which will be given to about 8,000 Twitter and Google+ users who have been selected through the social media campaign they launched in February cannot be used by those who wear prescription glasses. Google, however have considered partnering with sunglass retailers such as Ray Ban or Warby Parker and alongside with that, have sorted out plans to work with frames and lenses that match the user’s prescription. Part of Google’s plan is to open retail stores that will allow customers to try on the Google Glass.

The pair of augmented reality high-tech eyewear that can take pictures, record video of whatever the user sees and wants to record, and send text messages. A lot of tech experts are counting high on Google Glass as an important innovation that could give the smartphone a good competition and run for its money.

 

 

A Georgia Tech professor and Google Project Glass adviser has envisioned widespread consumer adoption for the Google Glass, creating a lifestyle change – one that would give people power and make them efficient and calmer. Things can be done with less and less interruptions.

While “techies” are on all-out support for Google Glass, there are some hurdles that the project has to overcome especially from privacy experts and lawmakers who are expressing concern for the project. For example, a new law, which is apparently aimed at Project Glass, in West Virginia, could make it illegal to drive while wearing Google Glass. In Seattle, certain bars forbid patrons from wearing the Google Glass as well. An outright ban on the product is being sought by one activist group.

Majority of the concerns stem from the device’s ease of discreet recording, which would violate the “two-party consent” law implemented in certain states like Washington, California, and Nevada. In these states, it is illegal to record a conversation unless everyone agrees.

It will all boil down to having control of the device and not misusing the device as in recording in reprehensible way. The device has a signal on the glasses that show when it is recording which is unlike the smartphone put inside the pocket while recording. With Google Glass, you always know when somebody is wearing the device and using it.