Remember Google Glasses???
By Karthik Sankar
It was that amazing Google product
with tons of hype around it. If you don’t remember it, it was an AR (Augmented
Reality) headset made by Google.
Here are
the things it could do:
- Google. It would be
quite strange to have a Google product without google's core service,
searching the internet for information. You could Google things on the
Google Glass by using your voice.
- Voice
Control.
This allows you to use voice commands to control glass by saying things
like “Call Jim” or “text Bob”. The only other form of input available on
the glass is the trackpad like surface on the right leg of the frame. It
can only recognize taps and swipes. Voice control adds a tremendous amount
of functionality to your device since you can quickly and easily execute
complex commands.
- Directions. This was an
ingenious use case for the glass. Since it is head mounted, it is always
in your vision ensuring you can see what you need to in a timely matter.
Glass helps you navigate while walking or driving. It will notify you of
any upcoming turns without you having to take your eyes off what's in
front of you. This has the potential to save lives.
- Camera. It could take
pictures and videos of what's in front of you. This means you can
still be in the moment while taking pictures since you don’t have to pull
out a separate device.
- Video
call.
(the camera wouldn’t be pointed at your face though). Instead, the camera
would see what you saw. This would allow you to really show the other
person what your environment looked like. Obviously, their video feed
would still be displayed on the glass.
What
happened? Google essentially gave up. With concerns over privacy (everyone
walking around with a head-mounted camera), looks (you have admit that you
would look strange wearing a pair of them around in public) and complaints from
developers testing it, Google decided to kill off the glass. It is sad that
Glass wasn’t released to the public but at least VR and AR devices are becoming
more common with projects like Hololens and Cardboard.
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