A week with Google Glass & my initial impressions

Date posted
28 July 2014
Reading time
9 Minutes
Michael Kemp

A week with Google Glass & my initial impressions

Last Monday a shiny new toy arrived from Google. We finally had our own Google Glass. If you haven't already heard, Glass is Google's first venture into wearable computing. It was developed by Google's X department, a semi-secret team within Google that works on projects like driverless cars, glucose detecting contact lenses and delivering Internet using a network of balloons in the stratosphere, and was announced in 2012 at Google's IO developer conference. A competition was announced that gave a handful of developers the chance to win an opportunity to buy a pair - but they still had to pay $1500 for the privilege. In 2014 they finally went on sale in the US but unfortunately we weren't lucky enough to get a pair. Then just last week they went on sale in the UK. Not wanting to let an opportunity like that pass us by we ordered one straight away. Glass takes a bit of getting used to when you first put it on. A semi-transparent screen seems to float just above your field of vision. Glass uses voice recognition to allow you use it without the need for a keyboard or touch screen. Saying something like 'OK glass, take a photo' will launch the camera app and take a photo of what you are currently looking at. Saying 'Share this' will then bring up a list of contacts you can share the photo with. [caption id="attachment_8928" align=" width="600"]Saying something like 'OK glass, take a photo' will launch the camera app and take a photo of what you are currently looking at. Saying something like 'OK glass, take a photo' will launch the camera app and take a photo of what you are currently looking at.[/caption] Speech recognition has been creeping into our lives in the last few years but it hasn't been a smooth ride. The Glass voice recognition is impressive to say the least; it's better than anything I've ever seen. It's particularly impressive when you realise that it works just as well offline (unlike Apple's Siri for example). Being so new there are still only a small number of apps or 'Glassware' as they are referred too. Two apps that really stood out were Word Lens and Star Chart. The Star Chart app displays a view of the night's sky with all the constellations and planets; Glass tracks head movements and shows the stars' names and additional information for what you're looking at. Focusing on a feature would then trigger a description of it to be played through the bone-conduction headphone - nothing goes physically into your ear, the sound is generated by vibrations that travel through your skull and into your ear. [caption id="attachment_8946" align=" width="600"]Glass tracks head movements and show the stars' names and additional information for what you're looking at. Glass tracks head movements and shows the stars' names and additional information for what you're looking at.[/caption] Word Lens translates printed words in real-time using the Glass camera and displays them on screen in place of the words you are looking at. This was definitely one of the biggest wow moments we had with Glass, and every person who tried it was equally impressed. [caption id="attachment_8947" align=" width="600"]Word Lens translates printed words in real-time using the Glass camera and displays them on screen in place of the words you are looking at. Word Lens translates printed words in real-time using the Glass camera and displays them on screen in place of the words you are looking at.[/caption] The device itself worked surprisingly well outside with the screen being easy to see in sunlight and the voice recognition remained pretty accurate. Using Glass outside was a bit of a surreal experience. Walking around with a computer strapped to your face definitely causes a few second glances and suspicious looks. Overall I felt pretty awkward wearing them in public. And even though the camera was not on, I couldn't help but feel like I was intruding on peoples' privacy. Even though you can now buy Glass through the Play Store I don't think in its current form factor it will ever be a true consumer product. I think to be socially acceptable and more 'normal' it would need to be adopted by a large number of people and due to a number of factors such as the price and that it's still viewed as a bit of a 'geek's' toy, I don't think that will happen. This is going to be made even more difficult with the new wave of wearables such as Motorola's Moto 360 and Apple's rumoured smart-watch that provide similar functions whilst not being as intrusive and are already much less expensive. We are still currently exploring what we can do with Glass. If you've used it or developed anything for Glass, we'd love to chat! Catch us on Twitter, @KainosSoftware.

About the author

Michael Kemp