After watching the new Google X Lab advert for their new future vision of augmented reality, Project Glass, you may come away a little shocked, a little confused, and a tiny bit scared. Augmented Reality is fundamentally about wearing some special glasses that are like mini-portable computers that use Android technology to digitally transfer data across your field of vision, in real time. For someone who has to wear glasses and hates them, I’m not sure if this is some kind of geek revenge to get everyone wearing glasses again.
Instant Messaging With Your Instant Coffee?
Google is going for the ultimate in social interaction and networking, so the scenario they put forward has all the classic advert ingredients – the morning coffee, the mate, the girlfriend, and a cheesy sunset. It concentrates on the point of view of the wearer, a sort of first-person look at augmented reality, so we don’t know what the hardware actually looks like.
Our hero is so cool, he wakes up, puts on his Google glasses, and instantly can see all the icons he needs for his day, right in front of his eyes!
As he makes his coffee, his instant alerts come up in front of him – he has to meet his girlfriend at 6 pm that evening, says the reminder.
Phew! No need to have your own memory anymore!
As he is drinking his coffee a friend, appearing in avatar form in the field of vision, sends him an instant message, “Want to meet up today?” Our hero messages back, able to see his own reply, “Let’s meet at 2pm at the book shop”. These guys are determined to put BT out of business.
And coming to think of it, where’s his Kindle?
Before he leaves the house, he takes one quick glance out of the window to be told instantly what the temperate is, and the chance of rain for that day. No more getting caught out by downpours; unlike those romantic movies, we all remember and love. Unfortunately for retailers, sales of umbrellas will be down. But he is taking no chances.
The Future is ….. Over-Sharing
He leaves the house and makes his way to the underground station, where he is alerted by his plugged-in augmented reality app that this subway is actually closed right now.
To think, he may have had to walk down the stairs to the subway to find that out, taking all of those precious three minutes!
The dude then switches straight into walking route mode on Google, which gives him directions in real-time, right in front of his eyes, until he is at the bookshop. Once in the shop, he wants to find the music section, but luckily he doesn’t have to interact with anyone to find out where that is. He can find it with his location finder!
He buys a book called “Ukele in one Day”, which must totally say everything there is to know about this “I-want-it-this-instant” guy, who wouldn’t even know what delayed gratification was if it bit him on the arse.
Suddenly, his friend is sharing his location with him, alerting him to the fact he is but 400 feet away. He heads for the door and they go to grab the briefest coffee in history at a truck stop, which the guy can’t resist “checking into” therefore sharing this formidable knowledge with all of his virtual friends.
You Can’t Control a Sunset
The last portion of the video shows our hero climbing stairs onto a city roof, where suddenly his girlfriend “wants to talk”. You may wonder if he was going to throw himself off the roof, what with the constant flow of words and information floating in front of his eyes all day – but sadly no.
He answers his girlfriend Skype-style, so he can see her, and she can see him. Do notice that when she wanted to “meet” earlier in the day, this didn’t mean actually meet, it meant, logging in. That will save on fuel prices.
He glances down so we can see his ukelele (this is not a euphemism), and he looks up and switches to the ‘share vision mode’ with her – and there’s the lovely sunset. What a romantic beast!
If this is really the future, some less tech-savvy people may want to live in a cave.
What do you reckon? Check out the video here:
