Get ready for the Google Monocle. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted a new patent to Google for a potential upcoming version of Google Glass. The best way to put it is that it doesn’t look like a pair of glasses anymore — it’s a glorious monocle that wraps around your head.
Here’s an abstract from the patent:
The band is adjustable such that it can be configured by a user to contact the head of the user at a first location near a temple, a second location along a portion of the user’s ear adjacent the temple, and at a third location along a rear position of the head of the user.
Once you configure it, Glass should retain its configuration. The question is whether this will be enough to revive interest for this device....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
This just looks goofy to me although it is conceptual for the patent application. But at least the original Google class looked great! Waiting to see how this one unfolds.
BMW has started a pilot project to test the impact of wearable technology in improving quality assurance of its cars. Workers at the company’s South Carolina plant are using Google Glass to record and document potential deviations in the cars.
The project is a part of the BMW Industry 4.0 campaign, which is designed to evaluate the application of new technologies to provide support to workers in production and production planning.
BMW project coordinator Dr. Jörg Schulte said, “During the term of the pilot project, we are planning to add a video call feature so that a problem can be discussed with the responsible development areas right there and then.”...
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Interesting application of Google Glass to the automobile assembly line.
Google Glass and Apple Watch capture most of the headlines when it comes to wearables, but there are other devices on the market today bringing us closer to a more high-tech future. And while there are concerns about this sort of technology overstepping boundaries, such devices can improve lives in the right situation.
As a refresher (or introduction), wearables come in the form of eye wear, smartwatches and wristbands. Companies are developing wearable devices primarily for the consumer market (think health and fitness gadgets), but some can be used in an industrial setting. For example, some companies are evaluating Google Glass for business use cases such as field service operations and repair and maintenance work.
That said, market research indicates wearables have the potential to move from a tech fad to a necessity.
With the arrival of more user-friendly wearables, cheaper devices and consumer awareness, expect to see more people purchase them. Tech aficionados will be the first adopters, but in the next 10 years wearables can be as ubiquitous as the smartphone is with consumers today.
A report from the Transparency Market Research estimates the global market for wearables was $750 million in 2012 and expected to reach $5.8 billion in 2018. Juniper Research says that the market could be as big as $19 billion by 2018....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
More research shows more wearable technology growth.
A London-based startup has created an app that lets users take pictures simply by concentrating.
Created by design studio This Place, MindRDR uses both Google Glass and a brain activity-monitoring device to take photos and then post them to social media without ever touching a screen.
The brain activity device — known as the Neurosky EEG biosensor — tracks the kind of neural patterns the brain exhibits when it's focusing on something. MindRDR then translates those patterns into actions — telling Glass to take a photo and then post it, all powered by thought....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Cool app for Google glass. Let's see where this development goes.
Google's been hard at work trying to prove that its Glass headset is more than just a toy for tech nerds, and one way its been doing that is by flaunting the eyewear 's photography capabilities.
Some Explorers have been doing amazing things with Glass since the program launched nearly two years ago. Here's a taste of some of the best Glass photography....
According to Teardown.com, Glass components cost an estimated $79.78, or a little more than 5% of its retail price. Google claims the estimate is “absolutely wrong.
Today, anyone in the U.S. can purchase Google Glass – anyone can be an explorer. Is it worth the money?
I think so. I’ve been an explorer for nearly a year and I’ve experienced the world in a new way. I don’t work for Google. I don’t get any compensation for saying this and I paid the same $1500 that everyone else has paid.
So what do I do with Google Glass?...
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Hillary Topper highlights a typical Glass full kind of day.
Apple’s insistence on tightly controlling its products naturally makes them more secure, and the company takes potential security concerns more seriously. Apple would be less likely to put a camera on its glasses, or would at least provide visual notification for when the camera was operating.
Otherwise, Apple would have to ban its product from its own campus. Apple seldom makes the first product, it just waits until it can do the first good product. With MP3 players, a variety of vendors beat Apple to the market, but by studying these competitors, Apple engineers perfected the iPod, which took the market by storm. The iPhone was far from the firstsmartphone, or even the first to rely entirely on a touchscreen – the LG Prada was almost identical in hardware. Apple just made massive improvements to the user experience, and – yet again – the iPhone took that market by storm....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Interesting speculation on an Apple version of Google Glass
The Google Glass phenomenon has gotten a ton of coverage from the tech press, but how does it work? Creator Martin Missfeldt explains the inner workings in his How Google Glass Works infographic.
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Interesting and informative. The definition of a great infographic.
In an effort to compete with Google Glass, gesture control company EyeSight Mobile has partnered with smart glass company Lumus. The combination allows one to browse Facebook, play games, or control navigation instructions shown in a head-up display by holding out a finger to tap on icons or swipe away notifications. EyeSight plans to add the ability to drag items around the display....
The official list of apps now available for the life-capturing, data-aware Google Glass headset is contained inside the custom My Glass app that early owners of the $1,500 device can access.
There are unofficial lists, but what you’ll find at either location are a lot of recreation tools, quite a few photo tricks, and more than a few Facebook hook-ups.
The closest the current Google Glass setup gets to business, in fact, is in the range-finding golf apps. But that’s going to change – with Glass, with wearable fitness monitors, with smartwatches like the Pebble, and all kinds of wearable technology.
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Good read: "Wearable technology is a big consumer play today, but businesses will soon see opportunities to use it for accessing and sharing the information they need."
Google Glass may be the most buzzworthy wearable display at the moment, but it’s far from being the only device of its kind.
If we learned anything at CES 2014, it’s that heads-up displays are getting more polished and are offering more functionality than ever before–giving Google some fierce competition. From wearable devices that augment your reality to simple spectacles that bring notifications from your phone to your face, here are some of the most compelling Glassalternatives.
Google is turning street cops into robots. Well, not really but the New York City Police Department (NYPD) is experimenting with Google Glass....
According to the New York Post, NYPD bosses bought several pairs of the wearable technology to beta test. The department hopes to use them in the field.
“It’s in the early stages,” a source told the Post. “A handful of people are testing it out. “If it works, it could be very beneficial for a cop on patrol who walks into a building with these glasses on. It would be like the Terminator. You walk past somebody and you get his pedigree info -- if he’s wanted for a warrant -- right on your eye screen. You can identify the bad guys immediately within seconds.”...
Mainstream media are surprised, but it was only a matter of time until Google took its Glass project out to the paddock and put a bullet in its head. That happened today.Google Glass, RIP.The concept will live on but Glass, as we know it, is dead.We’re not surprised....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Interesting analysis of why Google bailed on Glass.
Brain Power‘s Google Glass apps and hardware help autistic kids develop social and communication skills, and provide feedback to parents.
The device’s accelerometer tracks children’s head gestures when they look or don’t look at parents, as well as repetitive movements. “Social engagement module monitors” assess the child’s engagement, specifically if they are looking at a parent’s face and eyes. Software helps the wearer interpret expressions through games and exercises. The goal is to help them understand facial emotions when they aren’t wearing Glass.
To develop language skills, objects are identified through machine vision, and their names are displayed and spoken through the speaker or earbud. Children will eventually receive personalized language and conversation coaching. Software will also use the accelerometer to predict over-excitement and provide calming suggestions.
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Here's a fascinating application of Google glass to autism.
Reported today by Quartz, Google is working on a new version of Google Glass, and it appears the update might involve a design that is easier on the eyes. A patent awarded to Google today shows a slimmed-down version of the currentGoogle Glass Explorer Edition design that wouldn’t take up as much facial real estate as the current model.
The new design doesn’t have the casing overhanging the left ear that the current Google Glass Explorer edition has, and the casing that hangs in front of the eye appears smaller than in the current design. But it remains to be seen whether Google will be able to incorporate all the functionality of the current model into just the front section of Glass.
Don’t be surprised if Intel swoops in to help out with the miniaturization and amping up the horsepower for the next version of Google Glass, expected early 2015. As reported by The Wall Street Journal, Intel plans to promote Glass to companies such as hospital networks and manufacturers, while developing new workplace uses for the device. These medical and enterprise uses of Glass are exactly where we here at Rochester Optical have seen Smart Eyewear showing immediate return for some time....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
What's next for Google glass? Time will tell, but it looks like the design is starting to crystallize
As promised, a new range of Google Glass frames and shades designed by Diane von Furstenberg (DVF) launched in the US today.
If you head over to online fashion retailer Net-A-Porter, you can choose between five different frame combinations for $1,800. They’re all the same shape, but come in five different colors – Shiny Elderberry, Shiny Lagoon, Matte Java, Matte Ice and Shiny Ink – for a splash of style and personality.
While the asking price might feel a little steep, it should be noted that each purchase comes with two frames. Net-a-Porter is bundling each model with a free set of shades; these attach to (what appears to be) the original Google Glass Explorer Edition frames, rather than those designed by DVF....
Google Glass may be great for taking videos on the fly, and getting directions without bumping into people on the street. Beyond that, the wearable device has become something of a tired novelty, thanks towidespread privacy concerns and an array of self-aggrandizing characters in the Glass Explorer program. (Even reliable tech booster Robert Scoble has declared he's no longer interested in using Glass.)
But there's surprisingly good news for Google in that most mundane of business environments: the warehouse....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Next frontier is practical applications like this.
Has Google's moment of radical innovation been exposed as only that? A moment? In an economy where everyone is counting on innovation, and counting on the private sector to provide it, two events at the end of last week leave me worried.
The first one was Google's plunging share price. The company is still doing well. But suddenly shareholders came face to face with what in Canada we might call "the Nortel realization." That is, the sudden comprehension that a share price based on expectations of ever higher future returns cannot be sustained by high, but constant, returns.
The other event was ostensibly positive. For the first time, the world's biggest internet search company gave a reporter a behind-the-scenes look at Google X, the company's division charged with engineering a radical future....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Reflecting on Google, Glass and innovation challenges.
Google has just signed a deal with Luxottica. You may never had heard of 'em, but they're the eyewear manufacturer behind the likes of Oakley and Ray-Ban—and they could, maybe, possibly, make Glass cool. Perhaps.
The deal will see Luxottica bring "bring design and manufacturing expertise" to Google's Glass project. Initially focussed on Ray-Ban and Oakley for the US market, Luxottica will, apparently, design and produce a series of exclusive frames for Glass. Luxottica claims the results will "combine high-end technology with avant-garde design offering the best in style, quality, and performance." Whatever that means....
I got to wondering what purpose Glass was serving for this man as he squeezed ripe fruit and inspected heads of lettuce. Was Whole Foods feeding coupons directly to his field of vision? Is that why he headed over to check out the soap? Was there a sale I didn't know was going on because I'm a schmuck who stills relies on the tiny computer in my pocket (aka my iPhone) to get my information?
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Aimless or advanced? Glass's future success depends on app developers to show why Glass is necessary for users.
Denies Glass Explorers are ‘technology-worshipping geeks’ using ‘the perfect surveillance device’.
Google Glass may be one of the internet giant’s “moonshot” technologies, but its early adopters have attracted plenty of negative attention in the device’s early days.
There’s even a specific insult – “glassholes” – used by critics of the augmented eyewear, with regular accusations that the device is privacy-flouting, covert-surveillance frippery for the overwhelmingly white, male, Silicon Valley elite.
While many of us worry about the ways in which Google Glass could be used to infringe on peoples' privacy, scientists at Saarland University in Germany have instead developed a process in which the high-tech eyewear could ensure privacy. More specifically, it would keep shady characters from obtaining your PIN while you used an automated teller.
The process starts with a Glass-wearing user approaching an ATM, and "identifying himself" to it. It's not clear if this is done using a debit card, or some other means.
In any case, using a software system known as Ubic, the ATM then identifies the user's unique digital Google Glass signature, and responds by displaying a customized QR code on its screen. To everyone else (even other Glass-wearers, all with different signatures), that code remains unreadable. The user's glasses are able to read it, however, and they display a one-time-use PIN in place of the code, on the inside of the lens....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
What's interesting is this can be accomplished with a mobile phone without the need for the $1500 Google Glass.
The biggest hurdle in the way of potential mainstream adoption of Google Glass isn’t that it makes humans look like a crazy future cyborg race. It’s that Glass, try as it might, can’t do squat on an iPhone.
Earlier this year, I made the decision to switch back to the iPhone from Android (for this generation, anyway). And my, how I’d taken my Nexus 4’s natural rapport with Glass for granted. To clarify, Glass must be connected to a smartphone to perform many functions. Glass can get online via Bluetooth tethering to a smartphone's 3G/4G connection. While Glass can also hop on your home Wi-Fi, for regular use it really needs to connect to an iPhone or Android smartphone.
But as Google Glass has been in the wild—the better part of a year now—it's completely hamstrung if you only own an iPhone. On the Android side, Glass Explorers have access to the slick "MyGlass" app, which allows screencasting from Glass to a smartphone (awesome), offers a mobile interface for toggling Glass apps on and off (necessary) and generally provides some standard settings, since the settings menu on Glass itself is very bare bones....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Glass needs to close this gap in early adopter strategy.
I talk with Vuzix about their M-100 glass technology. This is a device that can snap onto safety glasses and be used in an industrial setting. It runs Android and attaches to most safety goggles.
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Vuzix M-100 is already available for the industrial market.
To get content containing either thought or leadership enter:
To get content containing both thought and leadership enter:
To get content containing the expression thought leadership enter:
You can enter several keywords and you can refine them whenever you want. Our suggestion engine uses more signals but entering a few keywords here will rapidly give you great content to curate.
Your new post is loading...
This just looks goofy to me although it is conceptual for the patent application. But at least the original Google class looked great! Waiting to see how this one unfolds.