Palo Alto City Council City of Palo Alto Palo Alto, CA 94301 Cc: James Keene Subject: Redwood

City Police Offer Video Chats Elected Council Members: The article below, published in one of the local papers recently, reports on the addition of Video Chat to the City of Redwood Citys Police service delivery model, delivered via that Citys web-site. This additional service is one that has been identified in my recent review of the Citys socalled Beta web-site: http://www.scribd.com/doc/98472976/Review-Of-City-of-Palo-Alto-CA-Version-3-WebSite Given the rapid fusion of PCs/mobile computing/regional data networks/mobile communications devices, it is difficult to understand why any local government, claiming to be service oriented, would not be quick to add this sort of function to its web-site. This is particularly true if the web-site were being upgraded. This is even more true since the addition of video chat to a web-site, for the most part, is simple, and not very costly off Benefits One might ask: does video chat make the citys residents safer? The answer to that question, of course, is in the perception of the residents as to what safety might be. Certainly there is nothing that a person can convey to a police officer via video chat that can not be stated to a 911 operator via a traditional telephone/cellphone conversation. So, at first blush, the answer to the question about greater safety would seem to be No. But what the adoption of video chat does would be to see the City embrace the concept of ubiquitous communicationswhich does, over time, increase the perception of safety, as well as increase the ability of residents to contact Emergency Services in more ways than they can now. What the adoption of video chat does is to get people thinking about what if ... For example, what if there were a number of City-operated Kiosks around town that provided a live video/audio stream to the Emergency Operator, as well as to a source of information to questions not involving emergencies. These sorts of Kiosks would be activated with a touch of a button, or possibly be continuously ongiving people a sense that the police/emergency response is not far away. Given the ever-increasing cost of police officers, its not hard to believe that there will be a push to reduce the number of officers,

over time, to manage the costs of the police function, as police salaries move through the $200K boundary. This Kiosk could also connect to any/all government services, either to live people, or to video FAQs that could be designed to answer most simple questions. The state-of-the-art of mobile communications devices (smartphones, tables, etc.) is such that we are seeing video conferencing appearin ways that only could be conceived in a Dick Tracy comic strip until recently. Certainly the local police would want to be ahead of the curve, rather than behind it, as seems to be the case here in Palo Alto. Googles Project Glass The AP article, found below, reports on a relatively new bit of information about what the world will soon be like, thanks to Googles belief in ubiquitous data communications, often called the cloud. This vision of being connected to the Internet, and a home server that collects video/audio events continuously has been around for a while. However, few individuals/groups have had both the financial, and intellectual, resources to bring this vision to life. It really doesnt take too much imagine that people here in Palo Alto will be buying, and using, this new technology. So, will people be able to report pot holes, or even crime, to the Citys web-site? Under the current management, and lack of design philosophy that seems to ignore the advances of Silicon Valleyits hard to believe that people will be able to interact with their local government using this new, exciting, technology. Conclusion The support of video chat by the Redwood City police is, in and of itself, no big deal. But if the concept were embraced deeply by local governments, then one of the doors to egovernment would be openedat very little cost. Council Membersits time you folks come to realize that the City of Palo Alto is easily a decade behind where it could have been had it taken this idea of e-government seriously. This example of the use of video chat is only one of many that need attention before the City launches another web-site. Wayne Martin Palo Alto, CA ------

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/google-internet-glasses-way-231658616.html

Google Internet glasses on the way

By Glenn Chapman | AFP 12 hours ago

Google glasses that overlay the Internet on daily lives should hit the market within two years -- technology the tech giant hopes will someday make fumbling with smartphones obsolete. Google co-founder Sergey Brin offered the estimated timeline after a project update that included sky divers dropping in with a new version of "Glass" wearable computers. "I'm so glad that worked," Brin quipped after sky divers wearing the glasses streamed live video during their jump from an airplane to the roof of the San Francisco convention center. "I wasn't really expecting it to." The sky divers handed off a package to cyclists, who performed stunts as they rode to the edge of the Moscone Center where they handed it off to a man who rappelled down the outside of the building to the third floor. Another cyclist whisked the cargo the final length of its trip to a stage where Brin and other Google executives were kicking off the California-based company's annual developers conference. Brin opened the package to show an "Explorer" edition of the glasses that developers could buy for $1,500 to become the first people outside the company to shape the revolutionary eyewear before it gets to market. Explorer edition glasses should ship early next year, and a version should be ready for the consumer market within a year after that, Brin said. "Google Glass Explorer edition will be rough around the edges; you have to be into being on the bleeding edge," Brin said of the effort to build a community of developers passionate about taking part in the project. "This is really new technology and we really want all of you to help shape it." The eyewear features built-in camera, microphone and speaker technology and can synch to the Internet using wireless connections. As with the sky divers, cyclists, and wall-walkers who took part in the keynote stunt, video through the eyes of wearers can be streamed live on Google's social network. Mini-screens in the glasses can display text messages, email or other digitized information from the Internet or mobile gadgets. "It was kind of a nutty idea that somehow became real," Brin said while discussing Glass after the keynote presentation.

"The notion that you could jump out of an air ship with it and still communicate your experience makes holding a smartphone or laptop seem pretty damn awkward," he continued. "It's about you being less of a slave to your device; it has been really liberating." Brin said that he wears a prototype pair of Google glasses much of the time as he and other members of the team he heads at the company's X Lab refine the technology. Google has been speaking with eyeglass frame companies about ideas for a consumer version of the glasses, which he expected would cost "significantly" less than the Explorer prototypes. "I expect that in three or four years watching people hold a mobile phone in their hands and look down at it will start to be unusual and that this will be normal," Google product manager Steve Lee said, pointing to his Glass eyewear. The Glass team focused on frequent mobile Internet tasks such as messaging and sharing pictures and not on capabilities such as adding facial or object recognition, according to Brin. "We definitely experimented with things like facial recognition; it is what a lot of people think about when you talk about a wearable computer," Brin said. "But it is not the most compelling," he continued. "We have not been quite as excited about it as science fiction movies might be." The Glass team also figured that the devices wouldn't be primary tools for surfing the Internet or reading digital books. "But, if you want to see a text message or catch a quick picture, these things are really easy and hands-free," Brin said. Glass team head Babak Parviz said that along with communicating, the eyewear was crafted to find information so fast that you thought you already knew it. "It allows you to walk downtown Paris and have other people experience this with you live," Parviz said. "But even though we have this social camera showing the world through your eyes, the quick access to information is also a critical thing."

------Videos Googles Project Glass: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4SlYIjOdbo Live skydiving with Google's glasses - CNET News http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxmbbtuRszA