Liz Gannes

Recent Posts by Liz Gannes

Google Glass in Everyday Life: Now That’s a Little More Like It

There’s no way that Google Glass is not odd. It’s a computer on your face that you talk to, and break eye contact to glance at, and is able to record your surroundings.

And Google’s efforts to generate early demand for Glass seem to be even further alienating the device from larger potential audiences. Today, Glass is a status marker of smug elite techies. Only 10,000 of the early version of the device are being distributed to developers and social media evangelists, at a cost of $1,500 each.

So far, Glass promotional videos show people who skydive and carve tiger-shaped ice sculptures and give virtual bike tours of the Large Hadron Collider. Awesome, but not exactly relatable.

Remember, Google Glass is a device built to be worn throughout the course of a normal day (as long as the battery lasts, that is). It would be weird if someone walked through daily life with a GoPro camera mounted on their head, too.

The latest Glass video, which Google released today, takes a different tone. A group of employees wearing Glass goof off together and search for random stuff. It’s not overproduced (it was shot with Glass); in fact, it’s refreshingly amateurish.

You come away with a better idea of why you might want to wear Glass: To win an argument about Prince’s real name while you’re holding a beer; or to look up nearby restaurants on the fly; or to check arrival times of a friend’s flight while driving to the airport.

You can also get a better sense of what it feels like to be in a conversation with someone looking up random facts on Google Glass.

If I were Google, I’d say, forget about the moonshots for just a second — and make more videos about wearing Glass while playing with your kids, or going for a run, or shopping for groceries. You know — the kind of stuff normal people do every day where it’s awkward or inconvenient to pull out a phone.

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