Personally, I'm consciously trying _not_ to get stuck with a single company's ecosystem, so a lot of the advantages Scoble mentions simply don't relate to me. But then again, I never really ventured past search and Gmail... is the rest of Google's services really that good to justify buying into?
One could make arguments that Docs, Calendar, have good third party competition, but the former three are relatively unequaled if you consider quality, quantity, cross-platform, and performance together.
Yes, there's Apple Maps or Bing Maps, but there's not available everywhere, no Web for Apple, nor Street View. YouTube competitor Vimeo is great and ad-free, but content wise, YouTube has far more. Translate is both more accurate, faster, and had more languages than competitors.
YouTube has great content but the design has changed for the worse in my humble opinion.
Maps is top notch. Really a modern day beauty.
Calendar is pretty useful, but nothing you can't get from some other provider.
I prefer Dropbox to Google Drive. It performs better, has a better UI, is more intuitive, and I admire the company itself as well as Drew (founder), so I stick with Dropbox (oh and the 50gb free that I've amassed helps too!).
I don't think it'll ever replace Facebook, but it could certainly make phpBB obsolete.
Wow. These are things I find absolutely terrible on Facebook. Photos are compressed to the point of being unprintable, groups are okay but nowhere near as nice as Google+ communities, and Facebook messaging to me is far behind Gtalk/Hangouts. Also calendar integration with G+ events is magnificent (party mode in the mobile app is amazing as well).
I guess I'm just surprised to hear such positives about these particular bits of Facebook which to me lag far behind at least one competitor.
Exactly. This is why his review on it doesn't tell me much. He's been a constant cheerleader for services and products that, once I had the opportunity to try, left me at best unimpressed.
I think he just tries to love everything "new" for the sake of "new" and in hope that if something later catches on, he'll be seen as a pioneer and the force behind the adoption trend. Glass might be a great product, but from Scoble's experience is hard to tell.
Make no mistake: he attracts attention to himself and then sends some of it to Rackspace. He's a shock jock, he would bash Google+, Google and Google Glass if he thought it would be better for Rackspace, but it isn't. He has calculated that by being a Google billboard he will fare better.
A normal person builds his own brand at hisname.com, but Scoble sorta sells his attention-getting services to others.
From what he wrote it seems to me like he only gauged the reactions of technically-oriented people. Of course tech people are going to be pretty excited about this, more-so than the average Joe.
He also seems to feel very very strongly about this. I don't think many people feel the same strength of opinion towards Glass.
He's right about the price. If they could cut it down to subsidized-smartphone levels, people will be more open to trying it.
It's certainly cool and most people will probably think so (hence everyone wanting to check it out), but thinking it's cool and actually incorporating it in daily life is very different. Of course Robert is an early adopter so he was more open to the notion of having something like that on his face at all times, but I don't think many people will be as open to it.
He notes that its a more social device because you don't have to look away to use it. Well, I've also tried Glass and you do have to look up and to the right to use the device. The actual display is in your peripherals so if someone is talking to you and you wanted to use Glass, they would most certainly notice because your eyes would drift to your peripherals. I don't think it'll be too different from pulling out your phone from a politeness standpoint.
I don't think it'll be too different from pulling out your phone from a politeness standpoint.
I suspect that over time Glass will become like Bluetooth earpieces. Perfect for use alone but a faux pas around other people.
First, vision is much higher bandwidth. You can glance at a notification and immediately know that you have a message, who sent the message, and how you received it. Takes half a second. Bluetooth earpieces are only suitable for sustained conversation. They are social faux pas because you are having a sustained conversation with someone else. This is not the case with HMDs - someone using a tool like Glass is actually more focused on their task and less distracted overall because they spend less time switching contexts. Citation: http://dmrussell.net/CHI2010/docs/p1695.pdf
Second, glancing at an HMD is fundamentally different from pulling out a cell phone because you're not looking away from the other person. It is difficult to emphasize how important this is to people who have not done work in this field. It is looking away that breaks conversations, not doing something else. Conversation continues to work as long as the other person thinks you're looking at them. And having an HMD on is close enough that people don't react to you jumping away into glass-land to look something up or jot down a note. This one doesn't have a citation, but I have spent several years taking classes from the guy who now runs the Google Glass project, and I can tell you this from direct experience.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: please, please try these things before you dismiss them. Social interaction is sufficiently complicated that experimentation is the only way to predict how people will react to something. And the experiments show that Glass works.
To me, those who dislike Google Glass mostly are those who have never tried it.
I know some people who disliked it but changed their mind after trying it out.
I think the head mounted navigation stuff could be very useful, but I can barely get my Android phone to understand spoken address searches right now, and I don't mind having it shout out directions to me. I'm not sure I need to pay a few hundred bucks to get the directions up on my face.
The one thing that I hope somebody creates an app for is a quick barcode/item scanner and price lookup app. Just tell me what the best price is for an item I'm looking at and where I can get it. I've tried a few phone apps for this, but the experience is atrocious.
But is it worth $200-300 for those limited use cases? I dunno. I really am going to wait and see.
https://plus.google.com/photos/+Scobleizer/albums/5870920743...
Customers have had their information stream systematically filtered/impoverished by those who would rather not have the invisible hand of the market move in response to some subgroups' aggregate utility evaluations. Information at the point of choice can alter these dynamics.
I don't see how this is very different from wearing glasses.
I love my glasses, but part of the reason I love them is because I have not (yet) met a single person with the same glasses as mine, and I've had them for 3 years now.
I wouldn't feel so happy wearing something every other person wears.
When the Fitbit worked, it worked well... but then after a couple of weeks it broke and when the utility and value of it has fallen away it is immediately an annoyance.
I think, for Google, that ensuring that the value proposition is quite solid (mature offering of services via Glass) that it will do well.
The worst thing for them would be to launch too early when the value is not yet proven, and for poor network connectivity, poor software, to turn the "Wow" into annoyance.
$500 standalone and $200 with some kind of carrier contract? (or is glass meant to be an accessory to a phone? maybe the battery would be inadequate to take on many of the phone features?)
It uses bluetooth primarily, but additionally can use WiFi for network communication.
It does not have 3g/4g nor require a SIM or contract.
Think of it is a bluetooth headset that happens to have a camera and display, and additionally WiFi (for helping to upload those larger files).
I wonder how problematic Bluetooth and WiFi are for your health.
I ask myself the same question. It would make sense to connect via Bluetooth and let the phone do the heavy lifting (utilizing the available cores and the faster data rate). I am so looking forward to Glass, but I don't want another smartphone with another contract.
Check these: https://plus.google.com/photos/+Scobleizer/albums/5871408320...
I am completely on board with the product and hope for its success--but I am convinced that the entire product is merely the first iteration that will eventually make way for contact lenses, which will be the true long-term viable version of this product. Right now, Google Glass will be good for gathering information not only about the world around us as we already do with smartphones, but for understanding how customers and developers would begin to use such a product--and then applying that information towards improvement in what will ultimately be lenses.
But there's no way in hell I'm going to use this if I always need a cell phone (I rarely have one), and I'm not paying any of the major cell companies for a Glass plan because they all rip you off. If they teamed up with Metro/Boost/Cricket type companies or went the original Kindle path of free data, I'd be happy.
They go over the top.
I Totally agree with the first iteration concept.
Much will depend on the price of the final Glass, but if it is down to around the price of designer sunglasses, I don't see a big threat.
I'm sort of fascinated (and slightly scared) by a world where google glasses are everywhere and the ability to get away with a crime in a public place is nearly impossible.
This seems like a massive statement.
What planet is this guy on? Google's product has always been eyeballs. This is just the most direct manifestation of it.
Why wouldn’t they just want another leg to stand on, besides ads? Doesn’t that make sense? You can make tons of money selling hardware. Apple demonstrated that.
Does anybody know if and what upgrade options will be available for Google Explorers when they release the consumer version?
On the flip side, recording activity or family-based events (ie, going down a mountain at Tahoe, or your kid taking his/her first steps) and having hands-free internet is pretty cool.
1 - http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/26/eric-schmidt-is-right-using...
How would you feel if where ever you went someone followed you with a camera pointed at you?
Voice will need to be flawless, so if voice recognition depends on how fast the processor is, then they need to put the fastest one in there (maybe a quad core Cortex A57 at 20nm, for efficiency, too).
They also need to keep working on the design, and make future generations as minimal as possible, and as "cool" looking as possible. They need to keep improving on this.
http://m.androidcentral.com/google-search-update-allows-thir...
Do they work with eyes older than 40 - those that can't focus within 18 inches without multi-diopter help? These folks still have money to burn.
How about astigmatism? Makes for interesting curves rotating my progressives. Dptical artifacts on two axes!
Will they be snatched off your face like apple gear has been grabbed at times. High value, small package. Easy to fence if google doesn't have or use a kill switch.
Price will be an issue. My glasses already cost 400-700 usd depending on where I get them. This assumes I can get prescription Glass...
Can't say about astigmatism.
I guess they could be, you can remote wipe them though.
Agreed on price, luckily I didn't even have to pay the $1500. And there was a Googler wearing a prototype prescription version at the pickup.
It is essentially galaxy nexus hardware without cell phone modem, a much smaller battery, and a small LCOS display instead of the large 720p AMOLED one. Yes, there will be higher non-recurring engineering costs with glass- fitting it into such a small space- but if they plan to go fairly mainstream these costs shouldn't cause too much of an impact on the unit device cost. Once you get into mass manufacturing, the marginal cost of making another one should be quite a bit lower than a current smartphone; as they are eliminating or massively reducing the cost of many of the major components.
If we look at google's track record, they haven't shown much desire to become a hardware company (that is, make the bulk of profits from selling hardware). Taking into account what google have been willing to price the nexus 4 at, with better hardware all round, I believe google are definitely capable of doing $200 unsubsidised if they want to. I can see $99 possible in the future.
As for the author's point about google moving away from advertising, he's nuts. I think google realized that advertising in this setting would be way too intrusive at the get go, but I'm sure they'll work it in over time.
Does anybody think this is their permanent stance? I certainly don't.
This probably won't extend to Android or any other Google service, but I can see why they would choose to forgo ads in Glass.
By Law, Google (along with other Internet companies) have been required to be 'tap friendly', so that the government can read everyone's data (like email).
So when more and more people starts using Glass, the government will also want to tap into that. I am sure some will say that such ability will only be used to prevent crime, but we already know how well the government abuses power to their own enjoyment like it happened with the porn-scanners which pictures could never-never-never be saved...
People might say they're prepared to pay less for it now than when it's reached some adoption and they start feeling the social pressure of "everybody has it; I must get one." For now it's probably more of a futuristic toy to them.
I think I'll buy them if they are below $200 but I won't use them much. Watching Terminator is much cooler anyway ;)
The only killer app I think is driving directions, that was nice.
I do think it is cool tech and probably the next logical step in personal computing, I'm just at the wait-and-see stage. Mainly waiting to see if there will be competition and what everyone will do with it.
The next step is a brain computer interface so you don't even have to say commands out loud.
I would like map app prebuilt on it
Maybe I'm not reading this sentence right, but isn't it quite obvious that Page is doing the quite opposite?
james@livcard.com
Sometime ago I chanced upon one of his posts and it had the same mood - an attempt be voracious and fanatic about sth even though he would be actually sounding extortionately absurd.
I jumped from Google's ecosystem to Microsoft and I'm totally happy with the Outlook.com/Skydrive/Office trifecta. The Windows Phone 8 is awesome and integrates nicely with Windows 8 OS. Even Bing has strengths that Google search can't touch.
Internet Explorer 10 is almost tolerable.
So yeah, lets see what Microsoft brings to the party.