Discussion on:

What businesses can expect to see with Google Glass

Last year I wrote a blog post questioning why anyone would ever want to wear a Google Glass device and so far no one has given me a good reason beyond certain niche uses. So I ask it again - why do you think Google Glass is a good idea, what would you do with a pair if you had one? What is the business angle for Google Glass?

no text

I am looking at that image of Paul with the attached info box, and wondering ...

Really? I cannot think of a common person wanting something as intrusive as this! If the information is so important, I would figure some way to access it without overwhelming my primary sense organ.

But of course, these Google guys are quite bright, so I would probably want to try it before rejecting outright.

I think this could be very useful in Warehousing & Distribution where work is done by hand instead of machine. I remember watching an episode of Undercover Boss where they were using an audio cue system with voice recognition and barcode reader. Would be much easier to train someone to fetch orders if they are able to see a path or section and shelf codes displayed in front of them rather than having a box rattle off a string of alphanumerics in their ear. Could also see this in use in pharmacies and hospitals for pill recognition and to display patient information to doctor's and nurses as they carry out their rounds. In public I see it as being to much of a privacy invasion and creep factor.

I agree with your theoretical applications, except I have a hard time believing the cost of implementation will exceed the savings. How much more efficient can one really be with this versus a pc at their fingertips? With no ROI this will never become a force in the market.
As for personal use, if Google can get it into the market a generation will grow up with this being the norm. I can see them accepting something we consider superfluous or an annoyance. Look at social media: no one's life is actually enhanced by sharing every detail with the world, but we do it.

I personally almost never access facebook or twitter. Linked-In is merely as source of annoying emails. Of course the fact that facebook tends to be so slow on the Navy's computer system and frequently locks it up is a major deterrant. As well as the prohibition of cell phone use on the premises. It is amazing how many so-called necessities of modern life there are whose absence have virtually no effect on a person's life.

Once this habit is broken, community activities, conversation, and books replace social media, texting, the Internet, and in most cases TV.

It's amazing how many technologies that didn't exist 10 or 15 years ago are now considered by some to be 'necessities'.

Still, it's encouraging how many manage to get along happily without those 'necessities'.

having worked at picking orders.

Also, the reverse: have the glasses show the putaway location

Seriously, If you have something playing for your right eye to see, and your left is "watching the road" Guess what your brain will be paying attention to? I have come very close to being hit twice by people I can only assume were texting. Once I had to drive off the road. I really doubt this is going to "fix" the problem.

But I would expect the Authorities to introduce Legislation outlawing the use of Glass while driving just like many places have done with Mobile Phones.

Naturally it's not going to stop people but it will introduce another large income stream for the Authorities and those who ignore the Law may hopefully loose their licenses sooner rather than latter.

Col

I wish they would view it as a profit stream. Many US states still have no laws banning texting while driving. Of those that do, in some the law only applies to those under 18 or 21.

In Va. they can't stop you to ticket you for texting while driving. They have to wait until you have been stopped for something else like killing someone. Then you get a minor fine. A bill is in the general assembly to change this but ...

Only a very select few of helicopter pilots can manage the dual input as used in Apache helicopters, so how they expect the average person to drive a car with dual input is beyond me.

I can't seriously accept that the author believes Google can "successfully provide visual data to the wearer without impacting their ability to drive". Driving + distraction = death. Very cool.

HUDS have been in aircraft for civilian and military use for decades... also i would mention that the FAA and U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, are very particular about safty.... but please continue with your academic response.

Although planes travel at a considerably higher speed than cars, there is also considerably more space between aircraft (unless in formation in which case you had best be watching). In addition, planes are tracked by air traffic controllers and have proximity alarms which provide warning to pilots as well as radar tracking other planes. Plus there are no traffic lights and pedestrians in the sky. There are no controllers on the highways, and very few cars with proximity alarms and radar, and there are stop signs and lights, crosswalks, and people on the roads. Studies have shown that people who drive while talking on the phone drive worse than people with twice the legal limit of alcohol. Can you imagine when they are on the phome all of the time?

you have to keep looking at the directions (unless the GPS map will be on the HUD)

Nascar has been doing it for years this is not that far fetched.

There are no 'Heads Up' displays in NASCAR at any level. In-car television cameras show the drivers sometimes have their visors UP, to get fresh air; they couldn't see a HUD in that position. The only communication coming into a driver's helmet is voice radio.

Maybe you're thinking of another form of racing.

when we're all driving Google cars.

Do you think today world is ready for this technology? And would you wear them?

Seriously reminds me of Black Mirror

The picture of 'Paul' make me think that we could become so reliant on this type of technology that we'll forget everything and rely on using our devices as our memory. I think this is already happening with smartphones to some extent. Now let me just check what I'm supposed to be doing today...

Just stumbled across an old e-mail of mine, which featured this product:
http://www.motorola.com/Business/US-EN/Business+Product+and+Services/Mobile+Computers/Wearable+Computers/HC1

Perhaps that is where the hardware is coming from. Remember Google buying Motorola ? (Just been made somewhat cooler)

I will definitely be looking at the glasses when they come out - having manuals and drawings available for our engineers on-hand would be very valuable.

When I first became aware of Google Glasses and it's capabilities I made it a point to tease the managers where I work. For the record, I work for a large international Fortune 500 manufacturing company, specifically a 75-person operation recently acquired by that Fortune 500 company.

I'm a lower echelon, non-IT employee. I enjoy telling me management friends things like the following:

"Pretty soon you're going to be wearing Google Glasses. Never heard of it? Well, this is a huge company and you can bet somewhere in the world Glasses is being tested for general use by management personnel. Once you're at work you'll be required to wear them until the time you go home. Every single thing you say and do will be recorded and uploaded to the "cloud" where every single upper management superior of yours will be able to view and listen to everything you see, hear what you hear, and listen to what you say.

Remember those ISO 9001 documents we have? All 1,054 pages of them? Any time an employee asks you a question about how to do something, your reply will be compared to the relevant section of the ISO docs - and you'd better have the right answer or it's points off. You'll be reminded of your failure by the little glass thingy next to the camera. It won't give you the right answer, it'll simply tell you that you've failed in your management responsibilities toward the company and to review the relevant documentation.

Safety is a huge concern at our company. If you should issue a directive to an employee that violates any of the firm's 8,423 pages of safety documentation derived from 143,019 safety violations world-wide in the last five years that could remotely result in a bruise, cut, abrasion, minor burn, cracked toe, jammed finger, dust exposure, chemical contamination (Elmer's Glue on an extremity (yes, really)), OSHA violation and State OSHA violation, and many many more, then you will find yourself required by Google Glasses to report to your superior for disciplinary action, coaching and re-training in corporate safety policies. Plus points off.

It's been a busy morning and it's time for a bathroom break. The company doesn't allow cell phone use anywhere in the plant including the rest rooms, and newspapers and magazines are not permitted in the rest room stalls. You're wearing Google Glasses so you WILL comply with the regulations. You will do your business then back to work.

You are management and required to wear your Google Glasses while on the clock. Technically speaking as management you are on the clock twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. That brings us to the next subject which is Company Privacy (not yours) and Trade Secrets. You may under no circumstances, except under certain approved channels, criticize the company you work for. You may not denigrate, criticize, disapprove of, or otherwise defame the products your company manufactures. You may not explain why your companies products excel or suck except within company approved channels - and only within the company. Google Glasses, when required to be worn by management personnel, will remove legal's dream of accountability for these actions from a dream to very real achievability. Every single move you make will be witnessed in the cloud. Every single thing you say ditto. All of it, thanks to Google Glasses in the corporate world, will be completely private - for the company. You, however, will be accountable for anything you say or do that can be witnessed through Google Glasses.

I've witnessed the erosion of worker's rights for forty years. I've watched the influence of unions disappear. I've seen lobbyists in Washington working for the corporate world stripping the workman of every right fought for and won with blood and tears over the last 150 years.

Google Glasses is going to be an interesting equalizer of that trend. All of a sudden management, starting at the line level but eventually moving on up, will be experiencing the loss of privacy and rights their workers have for half a decade.

Under no circumstances would management of any level undergo the scenario I've provided above if worker's rights had remained without violation.

Google Glasses will be very much one of those rare cases where **** rolls uphill.

I hope the proper management levels enjoy their enhanced capabilities with Google Glasses. These capabilities were certainly addressed by the article above.

I was with you until that...I agree that this does open the door to greater enforcement of the rediculous amount of governmental regulation required to conduct business these days. Now, I don't disagree that the intrusion of the Glasses could be used to reprimand workers. However, it would be those lax (by your admission above) workers that then cause problems and cost money in terms of fines for the company.

I could provide you with a list a mile long where, worker's rights even those relating to safety have been kicked to the wayside (crew size, hours of service, maximum required overtime) Apparently now telework is now a privilege to be accorded to those with influence in the higher echelons, even if it is required for health reasons, so such a device could enable managers to sit on their deck in Mauii and monitor each and every action of their subordinates in the workplace while the worker with issues due to back surgery is required to show up every day or the devices alerts the manager to issue a reprimand. And forget about leave to take your kids to the doctor, since more than three sick leave occurences per year automatically mandates a warning from management which a Google Glasses device would signal to the person taking the requesting call.

While naturally Google Glasses will not be able to carry out all of the scenarios related above at this time, given the trend since 1969, there will be a push to impose such an Orwellian atmosphere by means of similar devices.

Great for those awkward moments when you wake-up next to someone you don't remember going home with the night before!
Just pop me Google goggles on and -- AAAAH!!!

Picture D used as a comparison is from Babylon 5 (I think) and doesn't compare very well to the actual thing in Picture C (which I think was the point). However, I would recommend comparing C to Star Trek: Deep Space 9's interface used by the Vorta on the Jem'Hadar ships.

Not that you have much privacy now (that ship is way out on the high seas), but now you'll be watching yourself for big brother 24/7/365 and spending $1500 to do it. I suspect CIA will soon be underwriting a pair for every newborn. When Gibbs has Tim turn on some particular cell phone remotely I guess that's still NSA pie-in-the-sky, but ...

You need to see National Geographic program titled "Pay me attention" where magicians explains the brain is by nature designed to focus in one thing only and this is why magicians can confuse you and make great magic art.

Testing in highly multitasks guys proves they cannot drive a car togheter with a phone call without lossing focus on the driving event.

I have avoided several incidents while talking on the cell phone. I can stay focused on my driving while talking on the phone. This is more of a minor amount of people crying for something to be enforced on all the people. Maybe if we had some personal accountability, we wouldn't have a need to write a law for things that are just common sense. What's next, banning conversation?! Because it's the same thing. The power hungry control freaks in the US have even talked about removing the radios in cars because it is a "distraction". There's just no common sense anymore in the country.

It will be interesting to see if Google can successfully shield itself from liability when the inevitable wrongful death lawsuit comes about. It's not a matter of "if", but of "when" and how often distracted drivers take out busses full of nuns and orphans. All it will take is one slick lawyer to pin liability on Google and squeeze them for millions (or billions?) and they may rethink the technology.

Or the smart phone industry either.

the 'alcohol industry' is not held responsible when you drive drunk.

"John, you're not doing well. Give me your GoogleGlasses before you drive home"

Indeed, the alcohol industry isn't held liable when you drive drunk. Why would Google be held responsible when you drive with this device on? It looks to me like the legal precedent is already established.

The picture posted is of the administrative assistant for Lando in Star Wars episode 5 the Empire Strikes back. This guy did not have a HUD at all and the terminator character was a machine to start with so it was built into his vision for the audience. A better analogy from current SciFI is the TV show Continuum where the main character has contact lenses that are HUD displays used to tie into police database to identify people in her line of sight if they are wanted by the police.

How long will it be before we no longer have free will because the waves are directing our thoughts. Seriously, give no one the benefit of the doubt!

Another resource for Google to use personal data to invade the people privacy, in object of advertisament and publicity. Every time more Internet is a human control tool restrincting the human fredom in favor of the social network dictators monsters: Google, Facebook

Decades of staring at a computer have definitely made me more near-sighted. I wonder how extended time reading the little popups will affect my vision.

If we have people blindly following their Garmins into water and onto roads that lead to nowhere, what happens if the data being being fed into the glasses is hacked or falsely produced? Who will be the all seeing eye that protects the mindless? Seems to me we are on the road to creating a society of "Data Driven Zombies".

Maybe you'll get free Glasses with every Google Self Driving Car you buy...