Are Googles augmented reality glasses inevitable? Or would you rather just look straight?
Heres Googles latest,bravest piece of whimsy yet a clunky pair of glasses that will annotate your entire field of vision,provide weather,maps,contacts,alerts and more. Though the project is far from being physically rolled out,it seems there will be some kind of retinal tracking mechanism that will act like a touchpad,though you can also speak directly to it. Of course,Project Glass is partly wish-fulfillment it gazes into a world where Google is centrally and seamlessly fitted into our lives and partly a reminder of Googles cosmic ambitions,unmatched by any of its competitors.
Either way,wearable computing is the natural next frontier. Its not hard to wrap our heads around the concept after all,were 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 hasnt envisioned anything creepier than a hands-free smartphone,so far. And until Googles developers give us a little more to look at,we can have fun imagining the possibilities.