http://business.financialpost.com/2012/12/03/apple-is-quietly-working-to-destroy-the-iphone/
QuoteAll the way back in February of this year, Apple's iPhone business alone surpassed the size of Microsoft's entire business, reaching nearly $25-billion in annual revenue versus Microsoft's ~$20-billion.
At this very moment, Apple is working on technology that, if successfully developed, will cannibalize and ultimately destroy that iPhone business.
Just like Google and Microsoft, Apple is working on computerized glasses. Computerized glasses, are, at the moment, the technology that is most likely to bring the smartphone era to an end.
They fit into an obvious pattern, where computers have been getting smaller and closer to our faces since their very beginning. First they were in big rooms, then they sat on desktops, then they sat on our laps, and now they're in our palms. Next they'll be on our faces.
In [a] patent filing, Apple calls the gadget a "head-mounted display" or "HMD."
Some highlights from the description:
An HMD is "a display device that a person wears on the head in order to have video information directly displayed in front of the eyes."
-"The optics are typically embedded in a helmet, glasses, or a visor, which a user can wear."
-"HMDs can be used to view a see-through image imposed upon a real world view, thereby creating what is typically referred to as an augmented reality."
Apple says HMDs can be used...
-To "display relevant tactical information, such as maps or thermal imaging data."
-To "provide stereoscopic views of CAD schematics, simulations or remote sensing applications."
-For "gaming and entertainment applications."
(http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/50bcd3756bb3f7c36500000a-556-417/apple-patent.jpg)
Apple has no fear of cannibalizing its own products especially if it believes the new product will open new markets...
ipod->iphone->ipad->ipad mini all took some existing users away from a previous product but added all new users.
"Google Glass" is a wearable, sellable reality -- and now just "Glass"
Quote from: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9237225/Google_s_Sergey_Brin_rips_smartphones_shows_off_Glass
Sergey Brin, Google co-founder and head of the company's Glass project ... wore the Glass device as he spoke at a TED conference in Long Beach, Calif., on Wednesday. He made it clear that his vision for the future of search is that people won't have to make queries or disconnect from personal interactions to get the information they need.
...Google called for explorer applications, the company also released a video showing people using the glasses while skydiving, dancing, playing with their children and riding a roller coaster.
The video also shows off the Glass interface, which is a translucent pane on the right eye glass that shows options for taking photos, shooting videos, getting directions, sharing, search and showing maps with graphic overlays.
Brin isn't comfortable with staring down into a smartphone screen.
"Is this the way you're meant to interact with other people?" he asked conference attendees. "Is the future of connection just people walking around hunched up, looking down, rubbing a featureless piece of glass? It's kind of emasculating. Is this what you're meant to do with your body?"
The glasses, which Google noted are now called Glass instead of Google Glass, also are designed to enable users to activate all these options with voice control.
As demoed Google glass is so far a camcorder and GPS that makes you look like a total dork.
When the HUD abilities reach something like http://www.wikitude.com/ I will be interested.
I read this earlier today and arched an eyebrow, I mean when someone looks at their phone it's very clear they aren't listening to you, but with a HUD like Google Glass who knows.
You may be talking face-to-face but you may NOT be talking face-to-face (if you get my meaning).
Personally I think this is DOA technology.
Quote from: Lazybones on February 28, 2013, 03:34:04 PM
As demoed Google glass is so far a camcorder and GPS that makes you look like a total dork.
When the HUD abilities reach something like http://www.wikitude.com/ I will be interested.
Google Glass is gonna shake your skull!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/9843176/Google-Glass-uses-human-skull-to-transmit-sound.html "bone conduction audio" (rhythm's gonna get ya!)
CURSE YOU JUICY FRUIT!
Anyway, any time I read stories about this stuff I think of the chairs from Wall-E where everyone is zipping around and completely absorbed in their HUDs and ignoring the world around them... prescient is the word I believe.
Quote from: Mr. Analog on April 17, 2013, 02:45:05 PM
the chairs from Wall-E where everyone is zipping around and completely absorbed in their HUDs and ignoring the world around them... prescient is the word I believe.
on a related note, here's an even darker "Borg Collective" perspective on this tech:
Quote from: http://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/google-glass-obedience-to-the-matrix/
Wear these special glasses and gain new powers. Access the Cloud in a microsecond. Step up your efficiency quotient. Merge with Glass. Experience androidal existence at a new level. Your own mind and imagination are minor qualities. What you really want is a ticket to miles and miles of useful information and you want it now, wherever you are, whatever you're doing.
...
The world will be your stand-alone object of affection, no matter what events are occurring beyond your need to comprehend them. Glass will assess that need-to-know and wall you off from the inessentials, and you will assent and agree and comply. Willingly.
Looking back on today's world, you'll see an attenuated Dickens story line of no importance at all. How could those people have stood for the interruptions, the postponements, the false trails, the dead-ends? How could they have put up with the dreary elongated social interactions? How could they have accepted the tonnage of irrelevant information?
Goodbye, independent thought, goodbye creativity and critical thinking ; hello instant auto-pilot never-ending info-consumerism?
some basic etiquette/rules video
http://www.reuters.com/video/2013/05/17/the-dos-and-donts-of-google-glass?videoId=242870991&videoChannel=5
But still, the question: cool or creepy? (http://www.torontosun.com/2013/05/18/google-glass-cool-or-creepy)
Dorky
http://mobile.theverge.com/2013/5/20/4339446/google-glass-apps-everything-you-can-do-right-now
Basically everything it does right now.
And I am still not interested.
Okay, from that article: "a clever troll can still find ways to prompt a disgusting Google Image search if you're not careful ? we only barely dodged a "horse diarrhea" query at the office the other day". HAHA.
Have you noticed how many white men wear Google Glass? http://whitemenwearinggoogleglass.tumblr.com/
That blog reasserts my earlier statement.
Quote from: Thorin on May 20, 2013, 03:51:48 PM
Have you noticed how many white men wear Google Glass? http://whitemenwearinggoogleglass.tumblr.com/
separated at birth?
http://whitemenwearinggoogleglass.tumblr.com/image/50437419272
Spoiler
http://@%&#yeahphilipseymourhoffman.tumblr.com/post/215825817
(or ESPECIALLY http://mockingjay.net/2012/05/17/casting-fire-fan-casting-philip-seymour-hoffman-as-plutarch/ )
http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/16/whos-afraid-of-google-glass/
http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/26/comic-xkcd-nails-google-glass-critics-in-congress
(http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/insight.png) (http://xkcd.com/1215/)
Hah, they can't use Google Glass anyway
THEY HAVE NO EYES
Quote from: Mr. Analog on May 27, 2013, 04:29:23 PM
Hah, they can't use Google Glass anyway
THEY HAVE NO EYES
Soon, to be connected to The Hive 24/7, eyes won't even be NEEDED, sir:
http://techcrunch.com/tag/panopticon/
Enjoy your individuality while you still can...
PS: obv. with this whole "exciting new Google Glass coming soon to the consumer market" hysteria, gotta be said that
the individual pieces of technology to make this happen are not new, it's just that putting it together in this kind of package for the masses is what's new.
But is it really?
see also: http://www.ted.com/talks/pranav_mistry_the_thrilling_potential_of_sixthsense_technology.html
and Youtube 1 on 1 interview: "Cyborg Luddite" Steve Mann (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Mann) on Singularity, nature, and technology (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P04-E0pNy9k) (see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EyeTap )
Do you mean individuality in public where we're already filmed from multiple angles?
:D
Quote from: Mr. Analog on May 27, 2013, 04:43:51 PM
Do you mean individuality in public where we're already filmed from multiple angles?
:D
Yeah, but now even Jo Knuckledragger is gonna be capturing your mug too!
I just found an interesting collection of what's new[ish] in this field of Wearable Computing...
http://wearcam.org/html5slides/mannkeynotes/hydraulikos.html
Think of all the people out there today taking photos in public spaces, how many photos are you in that are posted on the internet already? Joe Knuckledragger has been photographing you in public since before you were born, Joe's been able to instantly transmit that to the internet since the early 00s
Not only is the genie out of the bottle, but the bottle has long since been recycled and the genie is happily married with three pixies at home and expensive carpet payments to keep up with.
Umm, it's easier to film with current smartphones than with Google Glass, and the video will be sharper, the audio crisper, and the device will last longer. It's already very common for people to film all manner of things with their smartphones, including other people while out and about the town.
At present, Google Glass's camera quality appears about four years behind.
And the claim that you can't tell if someone is filming you when they're talking you because there's no LED? Well, 30 seconds with a sharpie and you won't be able to tell that my phone is recording, either. And if it's in my hand and my hand is hanging down by my side, that can turn into a much more embarrassing angle to record from than face-to-face.
Quote from: Thorin on May 27, 2013, 05:02:05 PM
At present, Google Glass's camera quality appears about four years behind.
funny you picked that # of years.
The TED Talk I linked to above = from 2009.
And apparently Google was(is?) helping him to develop his software idea (aka "Sixth Sense Technology")!
https://code.google.com/p/sixthsense/wiki/Software
Quote from: Mr. Analog on May 27, 2013, 05:00:44 PM
Not only is the genie out of the bottle, but the bottle has long since been recycled and the genie is happily married with three pixies at home and expensive carpet payments to keep up with.
Never had a friend like...
ps: notice I said "Jo Knuckledragger", Y U NO GENDER-NEUTRAL?
Because of all the pictures I've seen so far of people wearing Google Glass they have all been white CIS males, or at least didn't appear genderqueer.
**BOOOSH**
On the subject of Google Glass, etc. a Toronto educator named Steve Mann = cyborg for 30 years.
Here's a recent keynote (34 minutes) he gave at the 2013 "Augmented World Expo*"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhVdTFcR6TA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Mann
http://www.eecg.toronto.edu/~mann/
PS: not content being a trailblazer for technology and sociology, looks like he might be "world's first victim of a cybernetic hate crime"?
http://o.canada.com/technology/mcdonalds-denies-toronto-cyborg-steve-mann-altercation/
* other keynotes @ http://www.youtube.com/user/AugmentedRealityOrg/search?query=keynote
Google's wearable smart device (i.e. "Google Watch", the gadget not the paranoid website) = some suggestions:
http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/07/heres-what-would-make-googles-smartwatch-awesome
Quote from: Darren Dirt on January 22, 2014, 03:51:55 PM
On the subject of Google Glass, etc.
...Microsoft's "Holo Lens" is trying to be something completely different (for one thing, not "hidden" and not "wear it all the time")
http://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickmoorhead/2015/01/28/microsoft-hololens-gets-faces-wearables-right
because apparently "Google Glass tried to be hidden, good at everything and to be worn all day and
it failed." (agreed?)
I think Microsoft is trying to push this as a screen alternative with limited applications (basically a HUD / wearable monitor) whereas Glass was supposed to be an always on appliance you integrate into your every day. I don't think either applications has any real traction, I expect this to die off quickly
RE: Steve Mann should have been an example to Google about how the general public would react to somebody walking around with a wearable computer recording everything. The man has not had an easy life, at least that's what I get from documentaries about him (so take with a grain of salt I guess)
Quote from: Darren Dirt on March 02, 2015, 09:36:12 AM
Quote from: Darren Dirt on January 22, 2014, 03:51:55 PM
On the subject of Google Glass, etc.
...Microsoft's "Holo Lens" is trying to be something completely different (for one thing, not "hidden" and not "wear it all the time")
http://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickmoorhead/2015/01/28/microsoft-hololens-gets-faces-wearables-right
because apparently "Google Glass tried to be hidden, good at everything and to be worn all day and it failed." (agreed?)
More info about the Microsoft Hololens http://time.com/3842334/microsoft-hololens-alex-kipman
The API for it looks kind of neat
I'm still unsure of actual use cases that aren't already provided by more dedicated systems. Time will tell, it's taken forever for wearables to become a thing, but they're slowly creeping in
Quote from: Mr. Analog on May 04, 2015, 09:48:56 AM
The API for it looks kind of neat
I'm still unsure of actual use cases that aren't already provided by more dedicated systems. Time will tell, it's taken forever for wearables to become a thing, but they're slowly creeping in
It's kinda cool that Microsoft isn't giving up being cutting-edge: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/03/technology/microsoft-yes-microsoft-has-a-far-out-vision.html (via http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/05/03/40-busy-years-later-a-microsoft-founder-considers-his-creation/ )
So, if the GooglyEyes-oops-I-mean-GoogleGlass "reports of death" are pretty much officially not "greatly exaggerated", does that mean the folks at College Humor (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lx2KZaOwG6o) are solid trend-analyzing futurists?