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Through The Googling Glass: A Day With Google Glass Explorers at USC

Shruti Sharma |
August 28, 2013 | 8:27 p.m. PDT

Staff Reporter

Google Glass Explorers each were able to talk about how they received and what they've done with their google glasses (Shruti Sharma)
Google Glass Explorers each were able to talk about how they received and what they've done with their google glasses (Shruti Sharma)
Google envisions a day when it wouldn’t be unlikely for you to walk in to a room full of people wearing its Google Glass AND not be unnerved by it. Although that hasn’t quite happened yet, a USC event yesterday had the closest precursor to a not-so-distant future yesterday at the Journalism Forum: Storytelling with Google Glass at USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, where there were not one, not two, but five people wearing the futuristic Google Glass.

Glass Explorers Robert Hernandez, Dr. Marcia Dawkins, Francesca Marie Smith, and Alex Leavitt came together at this forum to share their experiences about the wearable device from the folks at Mountain View. Robert Hernandez’s tweet about the event even encouraged a student from USC Viterbi School of Engineering, David Carr, to come to the event to talk about his Glass and the apps he builds for Glass. At the forum, all the explorers shared their stories about how they became one of the 10,000 invited members in the world to have Google Glass, along with what they use the Glass for, and their personal views on what the pros and cons of Glass are.

READ MORE: Google Seeking "Bold, Creative Individuals" To Test-Run Computer Glasses

Robert Hernandez (Shruti Sharma)
Robert Hernandez (Shruti Sharma)
Robert Hernandez, wearing a black Google Glass merging with his own black glasses, mainly talked about Glass journalism - how Glass can be used to record instantaneous videos or take pictures on the go with a Point-Of-View perspective. He also talked about how Google has been very strategic about the way Glass is only compatible with Android phones and how he ended up buying an Android just to use Glass – though he added that he considered it to be one of the biggest limitations of Glass apart from the short battery-life. He went on to say that the fact that it charges really fast did compensate and that the directions on Glass are more accurate than on the phone but are a boon for him because of his “bad sense of direction”.

Dr. Dawkins made quite the fashion statement with her tangerine-hued Glass. Her purpose for getting a glass, aside from it being a must-have fashion accessory, is to find uses for it in teaching and other academic environments.

Alex Leavitt kept his Glass on his head for most of the time through the forum, except to give a demo of how quickly he can take a picture and upload it to facebook. Being a pro-biker, he uses Glass to film his bike rides across the city. He has tested the battery to its limit (1.5 hours with the Glass recording video the entire time). His main concern about Glass is the need for internet connectivity. For any real time updates, the Glass needs to be connected to internet via your phone or wi-fi. If the internet connectivity breaks, there are serious issues with uploads.

Francesca Marie Smith (Shruti Sharma)
Francesca Marie Smith (Shruti Sharma)
Francesca Marie Smith had a different opinion about the internet connectivity, as she said that she uses her light-blue Glass in offline mode fairly often. She uses it as a “camera on her face” and is using Glass in that way. Her other ideas and work about the use of Glass includes the use in storytelling via digital cinema - for subtitles, or extra content for the blind.

David Carr, an intern at Symantec and a Glass app-development enthusiast, talked about the challenges in the type of apps that Glass uses. Glass does not actually let you install anything on to the device. The apps are all web-apps, accessible through cloud. Whenever one connects to an app, the data is sent to the web app, which sends the required data in a reply. All of it happens so quickly that it’s hard to realize that it is all happening through the internet. He feels that the next step forward would be to have the apps to be on Glass for faster response time.

The researchers all had some common concerns about whether or not Glass will take off as a product when it does come in to the market (probable release date being somewhere in 2014). Leavitt felt that Glass will become popular only if the price range lies somewhere in the range of $300 to $500. All of them expressed concerns about how the people who do not have Glass feel that it can be a breach of their privacy - for example, filming something without their knowledge. 

Glass is still a rather unusual device at this point of time, and there is a sort of social stigma attached with having it that makes the Explorers wary of wearing it all the time. However, all of them do believe that even though Glass cannot do anything that a cell phone cannot already do, it is a quickly accessible camera and a more personal PDA and GPS device than any phone can possibly be. 

David Carr (Shruti Sharma)
David Carr (Shruti Sharma)

While the Google Glass’ market price still remains to be seen, the Explorers had to pay a hefty amount to be amongst the “chosen few” – a whopping $1500 (plus taxes). Robert admitted that he sometimes just forces himself to wear the Glass because he has invested in it, and otherwise he chooses not to wear it in order to avoid being questioned about it. On being asked whether he thought that there will be a day when there could be something called “Glass reporting” - reporting to and from Glass users with exclusive journalism targeted towards Glass users - he said, “It can happen if people are open to having a POV recorded report, or if Glass allows live reporting at all, but to maybe watch a movie on Glass would be just painful because I would have to keep my eyes looking upwards all throughout.”

READ MORE: Google To Block Resale Of Google Glass

David Carr had a different story from all of the other Explorers, as he said that he bought the Glass by himself simply because it was a cool gadget and he just had to have it. He has been working on developing apps for it, which can be tested on the Glass in “debug mode”, quite like Android. He said he was really comfortable wearing the Glass around campus and was not bothered by the stares or questions. He even let me try his Glass on. 

I woke it up by a tap on the side touchpad and before I could think of anything to say to it, it quickly went back to sleep. I woke it up again and said the magic words “OK, Glass”, on which it showed me a list of things I could follow that up with to make Glass do what I want. 

Shruti Sharma
Shruti Sharma
After repeating, “Take a picture” three times, it finally could interpret the voice command, and did what it was supposed to. I then followed David’s instructions and slid the touchpad forward and backward to move across an array of apps. I could relate to Robert’s statement about how the experience feels a lot like Minority Report, albeit with a smaller screen to the corner of your eye instead of it covering your whole vision, which he feels is the direction we are going to move into.

All in all, my take on Google Glass is that it looks cool, feels cool and is definitely a must-have (if you can afford it). 

There are a few riders, though - Glass is not of much use if you do not have an Android phone and aren’t in an area with good data connectivity. 

Then again, Google may just have some plans up its sleeve to iron out the issues in Glass before its public release, and transform it from being the geeky oddity that it is right now, into a ubiquitous lifestyle accessory. 

 

You can reach Shruti Sharma here.



 

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