Google Glass: The Future Some Time
January 30, 2015
A couple of years ago I wrote an unpublished report for a big time investment bank. The subject? Google Glass. The client was a rah rah believer in headgear that provided Terminator style inputs.
I worked through the Google research papers, tracked down a wizard who now works at Amazon, and summarized the supporting technologies required to do Terminator type stuff. I did not come away from the exercise in a state of high energy.
I kept my personal opinion to myself, got paid, and moved on to cyber OSINT related topics.
I just read “Google Is Resetting Its Google Glass Strategy.” I wish the company well. I personally think that this augmenting technology will be handled in the manner described in exquisite detail by novelist and rocket scientist Alastair Reynolds, not with wonky “wearables.” (No, I don’t want something on my trifocals. No, I don’t want a watch the size of two or three stacked Oreo cookies.)
Here’s the write up’s take on the future of Glass:
Google is still expected to release a second generation version of Google Glass sometime in the future, but it was unclear what that might involve. Now we know Google is going back to the drawing board to rethink the Glass programme there’s no way of predicting what will be coming next. At the very least we hope it’ll be a little bit less expensive.
What is important to me about Glass is that it shows how thin the intellectual veneer is at the Google X Labs thing. Elon Musk conceived satellites for Internet access even though that idea was moved along by Equatorial Communications 20 years ago. X Labs pushed balloons. Didn’t these fly over Paris in the 1700s?
Glass is significant because it illustrates:
- Poor management
- The consequences of senior management getting involved with staff
- Marketing that permitted the phrase “glasshole” to become part of the vernacular
- Technology that was a demo of something that ran out of battery power quickly, had a dorky user interface, and added creepiness to Google’s stockpile of creepiness.
No Glass redux for me. How about getting back to relevant search and products/services that generate revenue?
Stephen E Arnold, January 30, 2015
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One Response to “Google Glass: The Future Some Time”
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Good Post. I agree with.Poor management