Google Glass: half empty or half full?

Here’s a quick test:

Do you have a lot of disposable income? Yes/No

Do you find your smartphone clunky and distracting? Yes/No

Would you feel confident walking down the street wearing a strange apparatus on your face while appearing to be talking to yourself? Yes/No

If you answered yes to any of the above (or tried to ask a qualifying question such as ‘can the aforementioned face apparatus shoot lasers?’) then you might be in the target market for Google’s new gadget, a wearable smart device simply called ‘Glass’.

She failed the Voigt-Kampff test.

We don’t have flying cars or jetpacks, and the absence of brightly coloured skivvies worn as sensible daily garments is disappointing, but at last we seem to be moving toward the future that so many people predicted in the 1960s. Glass is voice activated and can be ordered to do lots of useful things like send messages, take pictures and video, give directions or provide translations. Google’s introductory video demonstrates that using Glass is meant to be as intuitive as possible, and if you say ‘take a picture’ then the device will indeed take a picture. In my (admittedly limited) experience with voice recognition technology I have discovered that most devices will struggle to understand your commands unless you’re a post-adolescent male with an American accent. The voice recognition technology is therefore something that the developers will want to spend some time perfecting if they want Glass to be remotely successful beyond Silicon Valley.

Google gave people in the United States the opportunity to obtain a pair of ‘Glasses’ if they could demonstrate to Google in under fifty words what they would use the device for, with Google selecting the most innovative responses. The competition was a clever ploy by Google; it got people talking about Glass on social media and provided the developers with a way to get some cheap beta testing done. According to Google, the wider release of Glass will take place before the end of 2013 and is expected to retail for around $1500.  

Glass has generated some excitement in the digital world, not least, of course, from Google themselves. For product director Steve Lee, Glass is an attempt to bridge the gap between being connected with the information provided by your smartphone and being connected with the world.  No longer will we be stuck in a zombie-like trance with our noses in a smartphone—instead we will be able to charge through life, still intimately linked to our devices but with our heads held high. As quoted in Joshua Topolsky’s article on The Verge, Lee says, “What if we brought technology closer to your senses? Would that allow you to more quickly get information and connect with other people but do so in a way — with a design — that gets out of your way when you’re not interacting with technology?” Lee has a clear vision of the future in which technology becomes part of the human experience rather than existing parallel to it.

There are still some kinks that I imagine will need ironing out. What do people who wear traditional eyeglasses do? Perhaps in the future Google will be able to develop a device that clips to people’s existing frames, instead of having to be a separate framework altogether. Also, if using Glass in a crowded environment, will the voice recognition technology be able to adequately detect the difference between other voices? Furthermore, how do the developers imagine Glass will replace traditional smartphones if it is only voice activated? There are definitely moments (which I would prefer not to have to spell out for you) in which a typed text message is infinitely preferable to a phone call. And what about using Glass while driving? While it has the potential to be an incredibly useful and safe device for navigation, how will authorities be able to determine if somebody was using a heads-up GPS app or just checking their Facebook?

People may wonder if Glass can bridge the gap between functionality and fashion: will the device be something people will want to wear? This is a valid but not necessarily vital question.  Rather, before we all begin walking around like T-1000s, maybe we need to ask if a wearable smartphone is actually necessary. I have a feeling that, for all the bitching and moaning we do about people becoming ‘disconnected’ when they take out their smartphones, there will be more bitching and moaning about everybody walking around talking to themselves and posting inane shaky first person video footage of just about anything that takes their fancy. At least with smartphones you can tell when somebody isn’t listening to you, with Glass you could be rambling on for hours before realising your companion has been attempting to beat their high score on Bejewelled the whole time.

Despite Google’s impressive videos and promotional campaign, I can’t see Glass catching on, at least not this iteration. There is something too conspicuous, too forced, about the whole thing. In the future we very well could see something like Glass replacing the hand-held smartphone, but right now people are stressed enough as it is without having to worry about barking orders to a computer clipped to their face. There will be early adopters and techno geeks who will use Glass, but right now it's a bridge too far for the general public who, as far as I can tell, still like their computers somewhat removed from their person. I’ll be really impressed when Google have developed the technology to allow users to telepathically communicate in order to control Glass, because until then there are going to be a lot of awkward train rides with people out-loud sexting their partners. I just don’t know if that’s a world I want to be a part of.