As anticipation for Google Glass, Google’s hi-tech wearable device, increases, we look at why the gadget is far more than just a useful electronic accessory.
To look at the list of products lined up for ‘smart’ upgrades, the scales goes from ‘intelligent and useful’ on one side and ‘plain ridiculous’ on the other. With smart phones bringing app functionality and more reasons to use gadgets on the go and smart TVs enhancing our television watching experiences outside of just ‘viewing things on a screen’, these things made sense, but with the announcement of Google Glass, Google’s solo foray into smart gadgets, it was unclear upon which end of the scale the device lay. But, after months of people running around with the eyewear attached to their faces, there’s now little doubt that with its apps, hands-free capabilities and its ability to seemingly improve upon our real, physical world even more than a phone or a TV, the question left is just what else can it do?
Just last week, that question was answered, in part, by news that Google have plans to track us. Not in a peculiar NSA, ‘we want to know all of your secrets’ ort of way but much in a ‘we want to know where you’re going and what you’re engaging with’ kind of way, in order to, as explained by reports, improve upon our experiences with the metaphysical world. How this will be done is that online, surfing the net on your phone or computer, you might search for a product, say dog biscuits, for example, you might then find a store that sells organic puppy treats via an advertisement and walk in store to go and pick a bag up for your beloved pooch. Where Google come in is that noting the location of said store and if you’ve entered it, via location tracking on your smartphone will allow the search giant to figure out just how effective the ad that you saw online was. On the other hand, while this is mostly planned for mobile devices such as phones, Google Glass is, at its core, a mobile device and so the room for improvement is high. With this foundation, there’s every chance that Google could expand that to see what you’re looking at with Google Glass and change your search results accordingly, it could even recommend products based on what you’d spent time on looking at in a store window. This is purely speculation of course, but the possibilities are potentially in line with what Google are working on now.
The problem with Google Glass is the aforementioned difficulty of proving that it is indeed useful and not useless, as some may have described it. And Google are reportedly doing this by giving Google Glass a line of fashionable ranges, as well as the option to put prescription lenses in it so that no one misses out, regardless of their eye strength or lack thereof. There could even be sports and fashion lenses if rumours are to be believed. What this means as a whole is that much like a phone with app functionality or a branded Apple gadget, you could soon see pairs of Google Glasses worn by everyone, everywhere. Should this happen, Google could potentially work on a way to connect everything with a Wi-Fi connection in our homes, be it those tellyboxes, those phones or those newbies on the tech scene, smart watches. There’s still a long way to go until Google Glass’ 2014 release date but it’s almost certain that Google’s new gadget is going to one to watch.
We’ll keep you posted once we know more.
Read more on walyou, The Ultimate Google Glass FAQ, Is Microsoft Working on a Google Glass Competitor?
