Google Glass

The Critics Are Wrong: Google Glass Is Going To

Be Huge, And Most People Have No Idea Why
JIM EDWARDS TECH JUN. 9, 2014, 10:18 PM
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It is currently fashionable to laugh at Google Glass, the clumsy wearable computer that sits on your face
like a pair of spectacles and uses one of the lenses as a screen.
But this scorn is misplaced. Google Glass is going to be a huge, multi-billion dollar business for Google
eventually. Heres how that will happen, and why the critics are wrong.
There has been a line of high prole tech writers forming in front of Glasss putative cofn, each with their
own stake for its heart. Robert Scoble captured objections to Google Glass best:
What is going on here in a world where I am carrying around a camera and EVERYONE uses their
phones or a GoPro but Glass feels freaky and weird?
Google has launched this product poorly, is what.
Jeff Bercovici of Forbes said the same thing. Whatever the faults of Glass as a device, the backlash it
has encountered during its prolonged beta test period is the result of misjudgments made in the campaign
around it.
So did Gene Marks. Its designed poorly. I bet if Steve Jobs were around now hed chuckle every time
someone wearing Google Glass walks by. Dont worry Steve the rest of us have got your back. Google
Glass looks ridiculous. And too obvious.
Some prominent early adopters have gone so far as to send the device back to Google, they dislike it so
much. Matt Lake of Computerworld had a long list of complaints about it, including the way it disrupts eye
contact between people when you talk to them. Its called glassing out. Your eyes roll over to the right to
look at the screen, and the rest of the world goes out of focus. People cant make eye contact with you,
and if theyre versed in popular psychology, they read things into your lack of eye contact.
And Washington Post tech reporter Hayley Tsukayama absolutely hated it. [it] made me miserable. For
wallowers like me, wearing something that draws constant attention is more or less my personal idea of
hell. Ive heard just about every privacy concern raised about Glass, but, as the one wearing the device, I
wasnt expecting that the privacy most invaded would be my own.
Glass makes you look ridiculous, and everyone hates you for wearing it
It seems so obvious: Glass makes people look ridiculous, and everyone who sees you wearing it hates it.
One of Business Insiders reporters was attacked for wearing a pair in the wrong part of San Francisco.
So was this woman, who wanted to wear them while eating at a restaurant. Another restaurant claimed
Glass users ruined its online reputation when staff there asked them to stop wearing their glasses.
Clearly, this is a misbegotten device that will ultimately fail, right?
Wrong.
First take a look at the list of apps that can be used on Google Glass.
Sure, there are a lot of generic games and Instagram-like photo apps on that list. But there is also a huge
number of apps that are obviously useful purposes for business: NavCook, so you can follow a recipe
without using your food-covered hands. Glass Feed, an app that allows you to inject content created in
Glass to an RSS feed for Facebook, Evernote or Twitter. Evernote, for, er, well Evernote. YourShow, a
sort of personal teleprompter for people who give a lot of presentations. And Crystal Shopper, which
scans barcodes and prices and helps you check Amazon for cheaper prices.
Google Glass is a security device
It is business, not consumers, that will save Google Glass from itself.
One of the problems with the way critics view Glass is that they have tried wearing it in the wrong place
in public, in restaurants, with their friends and have been shocked when it hasnt shown any
benets.
They should try wearing it for work purposes.
Anyone in the security industry will benet instantly from Google Glass: Every police department, every
private security rm, every military unit, every nightclub bouncer crew, every mall cop could use Google
Glass and an always-on cloud video recording function. It would take almost all the guesswork and the
lying out of eyewitness accounts from law enforcement personnel.
Some police departments are already doing this:
Police in the tiny Middle Eastern state of Dubai are using the face computer to help identify stolen cars,
according to a report this week in the Gulf News.
Two apps have been created for the Dubai Polices Smart Services. One, Colonel Khalid Nasser El
Razooqui told Gulf News, will allow them to take photos of trafc violations from the Glass, and the other
app IDs wanted cars by cross-referencing license plates.
Google Glass is also being explored by such major police departments as those in New York City and Los
Angeles as well as smaller ones like Byron, Georgia.
Most people think that Glass will thus usher in a surveillance state. (Were already living in one, according
Edward Snowdens NSA leaks, but lets push on for the sake of argument.)
Google Glass could end racial proling
I worked for the New Jersey Law Journal in the early 2000s, and wrote about the period when the N.J.
state police were required to use dashboard cameras on their patrol cars as part of a settlement with the
U.S. Department of Justice over racial proling on the Garden States turnpike system. At rst the state
troopers hated the cameras because they thought it was an invasion of their privacy. Some suspected
they hated the cameras because they would record instances of police brutality at road stops. (And no
doubt the cameras improved the behavior of some ofcers.) But months after they were installed, the
cops came to love them: It turns out that motorists who are stopped le a large number of unfounded
allegations against state troopers, and most of the time the dashcams proved that the motorists were
lying, not the police.
You could easily see the same thing happening with Google Glass for police. The testimony of either the
suspect or the cop would be irrelevant lets just go to the Glass video!
Surveillance is merely the most obvious use. But there is a larger use in private business at the enterprise
level, too.
Pretty much every company on the planet has a reason to use Glass
Put simply, try to imagine the number of businesses that could use the ability to see something far away
from a remote location, but would rather not y their personnel there. If youve ever taken part in a
conference call, using video or not, youll know that businesses have an ever-growing need for remote
services.
With Glass, there is no need to send anyone, anywhere. Just hire someone local who owns a pair of
Glass. The oil exploration industry has discovered this (apparently visual site inspections are a costly part
of nding oil). Doctors are already distance-learning new surgical techniques via Glass. And deaf people
can get sign language services on Glass when once they could not.
Some of Googles critics have vaguely come to realize that Glass will be huge, but not as a consumer
product for everyday life. It will be huge as a specialist enterprise product for business. As the
Washington Posts Tsukayama eventually gured out:
After a few earnest days of trying to make the thing work, I stopped trying to force the issue and used it as
I would in real life in situations when I needed to watch something hands-free, or when I wasnt required
to actively engage with other people. In those cases, Glass worked as promised. It delivered updates
to keep me informed without overwhelming me and acted as a useful second screen to my smartphone.