My Thoughts on Project Glass

[G+_Graham Forte]

My Thoughts on Project Glass

 

TL;DR: Project Glass is NOT the Terminator style, in your face HUD you were hoping for, and that's a good thing.

 

The presentation Timothy Jordan gave below is pretty much the same slideshow he gave us at the NYC Glass Foundry Event.  It lays out everything you need to get started creating your own application using the Mirror API.  Also, by now, you must realize that the glasses do not run apps natively.  They just show the cards in a very minimalistic, beautiful, intuitive UI.

 

Now, just because the glasses do not run apps natively, does not mean your app cannot be local to the user.  By this I mean everyone that has glass will almost definitely have a smartphone as well, and can have a service running natively collecting whatever data you need in the background (granted Android lends itself better to this than iOS; not sure about Windows, Ubuntu or BlackBerry).  And, since the Mirror API is a cloud platform (i.e. - using HTTP requests), it is device and OS agnostic.

 

Picture this.  In the latest Google Search APK teardown from Android Police, they discovered location-based reminders lying dormant.  So, when you and your Android device leave work, it triggers a reminder.  Obviously, you will get a notification on your device, but this app can also send a card to your Glass.  All of the sub-actions can be sent to the card as well: Completed; Delete; Snooze, etc.  These could then be sent back to the device in your pocket to perform these actions.  Likewise, if these actions were done on the device, the app would update the original Card with the updated information (Completed or Delete would probably just remove the Card and Snooze would probably update it to say what time it will be brought back to the foreground).

 

Granted, the prior example uses Google services, which would most definitely just interface with its servers instead of the device, but it was the first thing that popped in my head.

 

One of my initial thoughts for Glass was to interact with Ingress, but the limitations built into Glass make this very difficult, if not impossible, to do.  And, even still, Ingress is a battery killer on a normal device.  I would hate to see what would happen if it ran natively on Glass.

 

I think +Project Glass is great, but will be a niche device until they can get it below $200, which will, I'm sure, take many a year to achieve.  Remember, back 10, maybe even 5, years ago, only photographers had SLRs, and now, almost all of my friends have one.  This, too, will follow suit, if they can price it properly for the average consumer.

 

So, now it is time for me to save up or sell off so I can get my Explorer Edition.  I can't wait!

 

#projectglass   #googleglass   #mirrorapi   #glassfoundry   #glassexplorers

 

Originally shared by Timothy Jordan

 

A few weeks ago at SXSW in Austin, TX, I gave developers a sneak peek at the Google Mirror API, which is what they'll use to build services for Glass.  With the presentation, we set out to help developers and entrepreneurs start imagining what they could do on Glass.

 

The Mirror API is a cloud platform that uses OAuth 2.0 and REST as an architecture for delivering a new class of experiences to people using Glass.  We walked through the basic building blocks of the API: timeline cards, menu options, share contacts, and subscriptions.  We then demonstrated some early uses of the Mirror API on Glass that were built by Evernote, The New York Times, Path, and our own Gmail team.  

 

Developing for this type of device is a little different because you’re wearing it and it’s a very intimate experience.  So we also gave would-be Glass developers some recommended guidelines:

 

Design for Glass - The Glass design is unique and fundamentally different than existing mobile platforms.  It's important to build and test specifically for Glass to create a great service.

Don't get in the way - Services should be there when you want them and out of the way when you don't.  They should never take precedence over what else the user may be doing.

Keep it timely - Glass is most effective when in-the-moment and up-to-date.  User requests should be handled immediately and information should always be fresh.

Avoid the unexpected - Giving users unexpected and unpleasant functionality is bad on any platform, but particularly bad on Glass given how close it is to the user's senses.

 

For more, watch the video on this post.  Keep in mind that we haven’t launched the Mirror API yet; we’re still building it and getting feedback from a small group of testers. Stay tuned for more updates in the coming months.

 

Please note, unfortunately the demo & slides stream at SXSW wasn't recorded. The demos in this video were redone to match the presentation.  Please forgive any slight discrepancies.