These are some good questions from Federico Viticci.
What I am most curious about — if not even somewhat befuddled by — is the juxtaposition between the project’s vision statement and the actual product shown in the concept video. I think the video and the idea, in and of itself, is cool. But that’s not my point of befuddlement. Rather, it’s that not one iota of Project Glass comes across to me as demonstrating a technology which is out of your way when you don’t need it.
How are a pair of 24/7-connected glasses, that you wear, and that pop up notifications before your eyes, more out of your way than a smartphone that’s hidden away in your pocket?
Why doesn’t Google just say it like it is? Putting it nicely, something like:
We think people want to be even more connected to their social networks. We know that you get incoming texts and tweets all the time and that you are always coming across things you want to share. And so why should the device you do this from — your smartphone — be kept always at arms distance, and hidden in your pocket?
Therefore we’ve thought up a product that we believe is more convenient to use than a smartphone.
Our idea behind Google Glass is that you can text and tweet and send emails 24/7 while keeping your hands free and not having to take a break from what you do throughout the day. No longer will you have to tediously pull your phone out of your pocket when you get an incoming text message. No longer will you have to waste time by pausing to launch the camera app, snap a photo, and then launch the Google+ app just to share a memory with your Circles.
We want to invent a pair of glasses that lets you do all this and more while walking to your favorite coffee shop and using our maps and location services to get there.
Putting it not as nicely, Google Glass doesn’t strike me as a product which gets out of the way but instead as a product which would only give more fuel that “always connected addiction“.