Google Glass - First Thoughts

This week I was fortunate enough to try out Google’s latest technology: Google Glass.

There have been many debates over whether Glass is a strong contender to replace the smartphone, or whether it’s simply a gimmick - a PR stunt to show off Google’s creative power. What I can say is that the prototypes are fully functional and allow for all the basic functions you’d expect: photo taking, search, directions and even Google Hangout.

It isn’t the lack of features that I find disappointing, it’s the devices ‘screen’. Although I’ve read up a lot on Glass, it still came as a let down to discover that they aren’t truly augmented - they don’t allow you to interact with the screen while also allowing your vision to quickly focus on the real world. You do however have extended peripheral vision, as opposed to a smartphone where you’d be looking toward the floor.

I’d envisioned Glass to truly allow users to interact with the digital world while multi-tasking - specifically navigating the streets while emailing, Tweeting and taking images. This simply isn’t the case as you’re still looking up and to the right to interact.

Although we may still be some years away from a truly augmented device, Glass is still an incredibly impressive piece of technology and one that certainly allows us to start thinking about our future and how we interact with the information and the cloud.