Hasta La Ideas

As Google’s Project Glass moves closer to completion, they’re making a two-pronged push to draw eyeballs, both figuratively and literally. For the former, they’ve released a video with actual footage captured through actual Glass prototypes:

It’s funny how quickly I’ve become accustomed to the fineness of GoPro’s smooth footage; Google’s comparatively primitive video quality leaves no doubt that the footage is real.

Viewing the footage, we see Google pushing several applications:

1. Exciting athletic or action-packed POV footage, à la GoPro.
2. Voyeuristic or “memory-making” POV footage, as with the ballerina about to hit the stage, folks playing with their children and dogs.
3. Practical real-time referencing, as with the ice sculptor pulling up images of his subject.
4. Hands-free photography.
5. Real-time sharing, à la Facetime, as with the man sharing footage of a snake with (presumably) his wife and child.
6. Real-time navigation.
7. Real-time translation (though I think choosing tone-based Asian languages like Chinese and Thai will present some implementation challenges).

What’s interesting is that Glass promises such a broad range of applications—quite a different tack from Apple’s approach of making their devices do a few things well. For us designers, the video raises questions of interface design: Glass presumably taps into Wi-Fi, how do we access the network and enter passwords? Will the voice control work on a crowded sidewalk or a noisy train station? How fine is the camera’s voice-prompted shutter timing? How, and how often, do users charge the device? And how do users get footage off of the device?

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