Google Begins Testing Its Augmented-Reality Glasses

[didymus]

NY Times:

Google Begins Testing Its Augmented-Reality Glasses

If you venture into a coffee shop in the coming months and see someone with a pair of futuristic glasses that look like a prop from “Star Trek,” don’t worry. It’s probably just a Google employee testing the company’s new augmented-reality glasses.
On Wednesday, Google gave people a clearer picture of its secret initiative called Project Glass. The glasses are the company’s first venture into wearable computing.
The glasses are not yet for sale. Google will, however, be testing them in public.

In a post shared on Google Plus, employees in the company laboratory known as Google X, including Babak Parviz, Steve Lee and Sebastian Thrun, asked people for (name removed by moderator)ut about the prototype of Project Glass. Mr. Lee, a Google product manager and originally worked on Google mapping software Latitude, mobile maps and indoor maps, is responsible for the software component and the location-based aspects of the glasses.

Project Glass could hypothetically become Project Contact Lens. Mr. Parviz, who is also an associate professor at the University of Washington, specializes in bionanotechnology, which is the fusion of tiny technologies and biology. He most recently built a tiny contact lens that has embedded electronics and can display pixels to a person’s eye.

Video released by Google demonstrating the glasses.

If these catch on I predict a 20% (at least) rise in ER visits not just from distracted driving but distracted everything as people step off the kerb into traffic, pour coffe or other hot liquids on themselves (no depth perception w/one eye unfocused), &c, &c.

 

[Charlotte408]

SMH I don’t know why they don’t just embed computers into people’s brains. This is some Robocop type stuff.

*The more I think about this concept the creepier it gets. Who knows what someone might really be watching whilst talking to you…

 

[ringil]

I think it sounds pretty cool if a bit thorny, ethically.

 

[Tenofovir]

I think it sounds pretty cool if a bit thorny, ethically.

SONY has made pretty cool 3D/HD (1280x720 OLED) glasses. Watching movies on high def, high contrast, light weight (which Sony’s are not) glasses displays is like watching a movie at IMAX.

For me, the only thing which excites me are pixel counts. If they can make glasses with 4K resolution, I’d really be tempted to watch moviez on them.