A few weeks ago, the chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt, spent
four days in Cambridge as the Humanitas visiting professor in the
university's Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and
Humanities, where I work. Afterwards, one of the questions I was most
frequently asked by people who hadn't been around for his visit was:
"Was he wearing the glasses?"
This was interesting because it
suggested a surprisingly wide awareness of something that – until
recently – many people would have dismissed as a typical example of
leading-edge uselessness. It's Google Glass,
an R&D project aimed at developing an "augmented reality
head-mounted display". It comes from the same Google lab that has
produced the self-driving car and, in a way, belongs in the same
category of insanely ambitious projects. But just as the car looks like
becoming a reality, so too do the glasses. In fact, if you're a software
developer and live in the US, you might just be able to acquire a
prototype from the project's website, in return for $1,500 and some original ideas for applications of the technology.
In its current incarnation, the Google Glass headset (not to be confused with Google Goggles,
incidentally) looks encouragingly geeky. It consists of a tiny Android
computer built into the right-hand arm of a spectacles frame. The
computer's display takes the form of a small prism that sits in the
peripheral vision of the wearer's right eye. A tiny camera mounted in
the frame conveys to the computer everything in the user's field of
vision.
The device is activated by voice commands, as in: "OK
glass, record a video." Or: "OK glass, take a picture." This is
illustrated by a stirring promotional video
that manages to be both informative and beyond parody. It shows
attractive Google persons – ie slim, athletic twentysomethings from
California – doing everyday things such as skydiving, swinging on
trapezes, aerobatics, arcane martial arts, rollercoaster rides etc and
using their headsets to record these routine episodes in their busy
lives.
Such videos this will doubtless revive sceptical commentary
about leading-edge uselessness. "So," said one unimpressed (female)
viewer of the video, "you can record videos, take pictures, do Google
searches and access satnav information." What was left unsaid, but
clearly implied was: "So what?"
That's the wrong question. If this
technology really works in the messy real world where wireless
connectivity is always flaky, then people will find good uses for it.
Even now, it could be a boon for people whose short-term memory is poor
or deteriorating. Being able to keep a visual and aural record of one's
daily life might be helpful, as anyone who has an elderly parent in a
nursing home will readily testify. It might also be useful for assisting
technicians trying to diagnose problems miles away from base, or for
medics performing unfamiliar surgical routines in distant locations. And
these are just obvious applications.
What endears the Google
Glass project to me is that it's the latest instalment in a long and
honourable tradition in computer science. It goes all the way
back to one of the great luminaries of the business, Douglas Engelbart,
the man who invented the computer mouse and was a pioneer in networked
computing and the design of graphical user interfaces. (In December
1968, in San Francisco, he gave a live demonstration of what networked computing could do that had a profound influence on the people who built the internet and much of the technology we use today.)
What
motivated Engelbart from the outset was a passionate belief that
computers had the power to augment, rather than replace, human
capabilities. Machines, he believed, should do what machines do best,
thereby freeing up humans to do what they do best. And this
idea of "augmentation" has inspired a good deal of research in the
decades since Engelbart embarked on his mission to change the world.
Many years ago, for example, an MIT student named Steve Mann
used to risk ridicule by walking round with what he called "wearable
computing" kit, much of it looking like something by Heath Robinson.
Over the years, the kit became smaller and the software (much of it
written by Mann) became slicker. And the geeky student became a distinguished professor at the University of Toronto.
It's
too early to say whether the glasses will become transformative. They
may turn out to be something that only appeals to early adopters and
gadget freaks. But I wouldn't bet on it. And if Google produces a
version that can accommodate my bifocals, why, I might even buy them.
Posted by : Unknown
Sunday 24 February 2013
Google glass
You have to applaud their vision
You have to applaud their vision
Though wildly ambitious, Google's augmented reality headgear is equipped to transform everyday life