Seeing the future

It’s the company’s first step into the world of augmented reality and wearable computing,one that has been dreamt of in science fiction,laboured over in laboratories,seriously awaited since the 1990s — but one that never seemed so immediate until now,as a working,mass-produced Google gadget. Of course,Project Glass vision may have put some people off the idea of immersive computing for good: the prospect of living with all that visual clutter,a profusion of icons and popups,isn’t entirely appealing. Many have also pointed to the too-good-to-be-true absence of ads in Google’s demo video.

Either way,wearable computing is the natural next frontier. It’s not hard to wrap our heads around the concept — after all,we’re already physically hooked up to information systems,to artificial extensions and aids. Augmented reality applications are already being tried out for the military,for surgeons and game designers. Project Glass hasn’t envisioned anything creepier than a hands-free smartphone,so far. And until Google’s developers give us a little more to look at,we can have fun imagining the possibilities.