O'Reilly talks about his +Google Glass experience
Originally shared by Tim O'ReillyI just got my Google Glass last night, and it's been a long time since a tech gadget has had me grinning ear to ear so often. I was at the #tech4dem event, and let +Marci Harris and +Macon Phillips try on my Glass. Both of them quickly got the same big grin!
It's not at all what people expect! It's a magical experience. I haven't yet been quite able to put my finger on why it feels that way, but I think it's the immediacy. Rather than fumbling for your phone, then opening the camera app, you can take a picture or a video with a touch, and share it with another touch. You can also talk to the device, taking pictures, doing google searches, getting directions, or sending emails or texts, without ever touching the devices. (You can wake it up with a touch or by tossing your head slightly.)
A couple of comments:
1. People have this notion that it's privacy-invading. It really isn't. It's pretty easy for people you're interacting with to see when the device is on - the lit-up screen is viewable from the other side. Yes, you can quickly take a photo or video, but only with either a voice command, or a push of a button on the frame, so it's clearly noticeable.
2. People also have the notion that you won't be able to tell when someone is talking to you and when they are on the device. Again, that's just not true. It sits above your eyes and it's very clear when someone is looking up at the screen rather than looking at you.
3. Speech is the natural interface for this device, but there are also a lot of gestures on the frame that control it. It's elegant and intuitive. But some of the magic is the immediacy of talking to it, or touching it, and having something happen.
So far, there's a lot that's still buggy, so it isn't ready for consumer adoption. For example, it is supposed to integrate with your contacts, so you can text and email contacts from the device, but so far, I've found it not integrating well with my contacts. It picks the first phone number from the contact, rather than looking at the field that says "mobile," and there isn't an easy way to change that. And when I edited the contact (something the management app lets you do), the edited contact doesn't appear to sync with Glass. So there's a lot more integration to do.
On the other hand, photos seamlessly upload into G+ along with the stream from your phone. Photos and videos are remarkably good.
It's not at all what people expect! It's a magical experience. I haven't yet been quite able to put my finger on why it feels that way, but I think it's the immediacy. Rather than fumbling for your phone, then opening the camera app, you can take a picture or a video with a touch, and share it with another touch. You can also talk to the device, taking pictures, doing google searches, getting directions, or sending emails or texts, without ever touching the devices. (You can wake it up with a touch or by tossing your head slightly.)
A couple of comments:
1. People have this notion that it's privacy-invading. It really isn't. It's pretty easy for people you're interacting with to see when the device is on - the lit-up screen is viewable from the other side. Yes, you can quickly take a photo or video, but only with either a voice command, or a push of a button on the frame, so it's clearly noticeable.
2. People also have the notion that you won't be able to tell when someone is talking to you and when they are on the device. Again, that's just not true. It sits above your eyes and it's very clear when someone is looking up at the screen rather than looking at you.
3. Speech is the natural interface for this device, but there are also a lot of gestures on the frame that control it. It's elegant and intuitive. But some of the magic is the immediacy of talking to it, or touching it, and having something happen.
So far, there's a lot that's still buggy, so it isn't ready for consumer adoption. For example, it is supposed to integrate with your contacts, so you can text and email contacts from the device, but so far, I've found it not integrating well with my contacts. It picks the first phone number from the contact, rather than looking at the field that says "mobile," and there isn't an easy way to change that. And when I edited the contact (something the management app lets you do), the edited contact doesn't appear to sync with Glass. So there's a lot more integration to do.
On the other hand, photos seamlessly upload into G+ along with the stream from your phone. Photos and videos are remarkably good.