My first encounter with Google glasses was in Union Square, New York. I was sitting with a friend when he started yelling 'GOOGLE, YEAH YOU, CREEP! GOOGLE'. He pointed out a man, maybe in his late twenties, in a shirt and a pair of some weird clear sports glasses. He told me about these new glasses and how they record what you see. It sounded, in all honesty, creepy. I then saw the same man again a few day later in a cafe, sitting in the corner. Just the thought of him recording his visual memories and always wearing these new-age glasses was a weird concept to get my head around.
So when I visited the TED Talks website and saw a talk on the subject, I went for it.
I have to say that after hearing Sergey Brin talk about the origin of inspiration and seeing examples of the footage made from the glasses, it altered my perspective. 'Brin calls for a new way of seeing our relationship with our mobile computers -- not hunched over a screen but meeting the world heads-up.'
Hearing Brin talk about trying to look busy on his phone in public is something which everyone does, no doubt, and so I liked the fact that Brin is providing a solution to a problem in that sense. Keeping your hands free and being more aware of your environment, but advancing technology at the same time, not simply removing the problem - which is now impossible in the lifestyle of our generation.
Codenamed 'Glass', you can ask the lenses to take a photo, video, ask directions, search the internet, video call and send photos. It does all of these but on demand, not continuously - which was the 'creep' factor for me, and in all honesty, looked really cool.
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