So on Wednesday, Google finally unveiled their Augmented Reality Glasses. A small rectangular lens would go over your eye (or eyeglasses if you wear them) displaying things such as GPS and weather information, your daily schedule, and other miscellaneous data. There also would be an audio component. The cost? From $250 to $600.

So what I want to talk about in this thread are what some of the potential applications for this technology are. For example, the article talks about location specific events, such as the GPS service notifying you of a subway's status when you look at the painted sign. What if this applied to other signs, and billboards, as well? By combining GPS with a 3G connection you could have the system automatically search the web based on what you look at, giving you a detailed description of whatever's on the sign. Pretty neat in theory.

Another interesting application for the lens could be the ability to scan a text, and then make bookmarks and annotations that save themselves in a digital file accessible when you look at the text again. A lot of this interactivity would require an external keyboard or digital pen of some sort, so I'm sure that the glasses would have to connect to a computer in some way.

I see what your saying at the end there, however, it seems to respond to voice commands and possibly have its own memory. So in my opinion, a keyboard and computer are not necessary for this to work. Its still in the very early stages and it seems as though your thinking with current technology. By the time they release this or get halfway done with it, we could have already invented a small chip capable of holding say 10gb's of information. Look to the future. Its much more promising.

Just to add on to my previous post, they could also add translation software into it. It could translate languages verbally. So say someone speaks Japanese, it can pick that up and translate it to you. Or if you reading Japanese words or Kanji, it can translate that into your language.

>>2 >>3 Just want to say that I didn't think of the translation software. That is definitely a good possibility. And the reason I'm not so quick to put faith in voice control is because it only works 90% of the time. Take Tom Clancy's EndWar for instance. When the system gets confused because one word sounds like another, you end up having to repeat commands several times, which can be downright frustrating.

Augmented Reality card games on motorcycles in space!

>>5 BRILLIANT! Someone get on that already!

Geez, all we need is Twitch and Nat and we'd have the old group back together.

Augmented Reality First Person Shooter.

>>8 That's just the American Military.

Just cuz they have it, doesn't mean we can't. Think of it as an incentive to go outside with friends.

It'd take the traditional game of cops and robbers and make it cool again.

Exactly. I already thought the whole thing out. Sounds really sweet in my opinion.

First App for this thing:

Power Level App.

So you know when shit's over 9000.

Honestly I don't know about this thing. People are distracted enough with smartphones, and not paying attention completely to where they are going. I feel like if people are distracted directly in front of their eyes it will just get worst with accidents of all kinds. Also nice to talk to yall again.

>>13 If we can figure out the algorithm for measuring a person's strength.

>>15 I will admit, that is a possibility, but in its defense, the lens is tiny and the images are translucent. Now, I would not condone using this while driving, but while walking around it should be fine.

>>16 Actually, it would mainly be down to recognizing hand gestures and other things. Your hands would have to be in front of the lens at all times so it could pick it up.

Practical application.

^ true this would be the most useful

Nightvision and Heatvision apps would help this nicely...maybe a echo vision too(Watch the movie Daredevil incase your wondering)

Would make for good "Binoculars" also. Being able to zoom into places with just glasses.

If you've watched Ghost in the shell then you know the tech, so just imagine the possibilities with this device

>>22 I've yet to watch Ghost in the Shell in its entirety, but I'm getting the DVD set in a few days. I'll be interested to see what kind of augmented vision is used in the show.

>>23 Ghost in the shell prob inspired augmented reality lol
but seriously anime did play a major role.

They should have something like a clip-on thingy for people with glasses.

>>25 Odds are the frame will clip to a person's normal glasses.

>>18 This.

i say you should be able to play mmos with it. wouldn't it be cool to be walking around town and see it like it was a fantasy world?

Bump

uhhh thats a really big price gap

something that i almost immediately thought of, but has not yet been discussed is this

small device+high power capabilities= really shitty battery life

i can foresee this becoming really irritating really quickly

>>31 There have been talks of using an external battery pack, which would definitely increase the longevity of the device's use while out and about.

>>32 that would make some sense, but then there are further things that need to be considered or asked like:

-how big would the external packs be? (i assume they'd be larger than normal batteries, but not too big, but you never know)
-where would you store said pack? depending on how big they are, this could be an inconvenience
-being plugged in would require a wire from the glasses to the pack, could this be a further inconvenience?
-could you charge the pack on it's own, or would you have to buy new packs or batteries for the packs all the time? (seriously, we don't need another wii battery situation going down)

It could just have an elastic band/cloth band that connects at both ends of the glasses. That goes around your head, and the battery pack just snaps on, and the wire being neatly hooked on the inside of the band.

anything that gets us closer to living out the Ghost in the shell series is good in my eyes. or cyber-eyes.

>>35 Has a lot more to do with prosthetic limbs. There was an article some time last month where inventors were using Legos or K'nex pieces to create an artificial hand with a small motor and simulated neural connections. It sort of worked, but it will be a long time before we can do that much. Affixing data ports to our necks also has to do with the neural connections, so same problem.

Not sure how artificial eyes would be handled. I imagine it would be some sort of film or layer that encapsulates the eye and projects data into the retinas. It would require some sort of camera, however, and some sort of data analyzer.

The price is reasonable.

I can see someone getting hurt because this blocked their view.

>>38
Not the item's fault, then. It's the idiot who decided to use it while doing something.

>>35, >>36 I am going to stand corrected. It appears artificial retinas are indeed in development.

Bump for technology's sake.

This is cool. Actually it reminds me of the EyePhone from Futurama. XD Fiction is turning into reality day after day. I wonder though, if in the future we'll see a contact lens version of this. I wonder how they will fit that technology in something that goes in your eye. XD

>>40

That's amazing. :O

Going blind is one of my biggest fears, and now it's all okay. :D

if only the apple company got this done already, I-phones would be a literal thing

if the future is coming.. this means the past is dying. I still use Gameboy advance and Gamecude at times... but this tech? Soon the world will be like Futurama! or the Jetsons. My bet Futurama

How awsom Futurama i havent watched that in a long time.HAHAHAHA!!!

No matter what i want to buy the google glasses, i dont care how much they cost .. I just wont buy the first generation of course

They would make traveling and certain other things harder thought with a map in your sight instead of a road that you might be driving.

NICE!!!

>>48 It's no different than talking on a cell phone while driving in terms of danger; you have to also consider that the images are on a variable translucency.

my dad showed me this on a video, looks cool i guess O_O people are gonna run into stuff...

>>51
They won't, if they aren't complete morons.

i think every dollar should have one so we can organize and find events like meetings or missions....
i know i wish i had a pair....

>>28 I'm with you on that one, perhaps a helmet with motion sensing so the screen follows you head and retina sensing so it also follows your eyes? I'm not sure how the rest of the controls would work though besides a standard controller, unless some lunatic wants to try and connect the helmet to his nerves so that it intercepts the signals and transmits them to the game instead.....That's as far as my imagination has taken me. ._.