Google's glasses make sound through skull vibrations!

Google's hotly anticipated new glasses- which will wearers to summon up maps and other useful data on a screen in the lens- will create sound by sending vibrations directly through the wearer's skull, it has been revealed.

The features are included in documents filed with American regulators, and show how the futuristic specs will use "bone conduction", which sends vibrations to the inner ear through the skull instead of speakers.

Though not a new kind of technology- Panasonic exhibited prototype bone conduction headphones at this year's Consumer Electronics Show- the process is yet to be widely adopted.

One of its advantage is that it allows listeners to hear the noise in the environment too.

The Federal Communication Commission this week approved the web giant's patent for Google Glass, including "integral vibrating element that provides audio to the user via contact with the user's head".

Google co-founder, Sergey Brin, is leading the development, and last month he was pictured testing Google Glass on the New York subway.

The glasses also boast Wifi and Bluetooth connectivity, and a small screen that appears in the wearer's normal field of vision. A tiny, voice-operated computer inside Google Glass runs the Android mobile operating system.

It is planned that wearers will be able to summon up maps and other useful data from the web straight on to their lenses.

The first complete Google Glass hardware will be sent to developers who have paid $1,500 to help refine the technology.

Google has said it hopes to introduce Google Glass commercially in 2014.

Google Glass Graces the Runway at New York Fashion Week

September 9, 2012

 

A model wearing Google Glass backstage at Diane von Furstenberg’s show in Lincoln Center.

Google Glass and Google co-founder Sergey Brin made a surprise appearance at New York Fashion WeekSunday afternoon.

Models walked down the runway at Diane von Furstenberg’s Spring/Summer 2013 collection show wearing Glass, the upcoming headset/eyewear device that Google is developing. The augmented reality-enhanced glasses have many smartphone-like functions: users can take pictures, record video, receive messages and check calendars, among other things.

The bands of each pair were modified to complement the collection’s palette of corals, blues, whites and grays. It was the first time Glass had ever appeared on a runway.

Models recorded video using Google Glass, which will be compiled into a short film.

At least one model turned on Glass’s video-recording function to capture her view of the runway (see above). Furstenberg and other members of DVF’s team also donned glasses during show preparations. That footage will be released in a short film, “DVF through Glass,” on DVF’s Google+ page Thursday, a DVF spokesperson said.

At the show’s conclusion, a Glass-clad Fustenberg and Yvan Mispelaere, creative director of DVF, took a celebratory lap down the runway. Halfway down the left aisle, Furstenberg reached over to Sergey Brin, who was sitting front row. He joined Furstenberg and Mispelaere for the rest of the walk amid wide applause.

My Current Vision: #TBD Project Prototype:

Updated Information I/O: Glass Hardware Specs from Patent:

Google Glass is likely to include a touch-pad, camera, microphone and see-through display all rolled into one to fit on the bridge of your nose.

A patent document submitted to the United States Patents and Trademarks Office gives a few hints about Google Glass' controls, specifications, features and design.

Google Glass is described as a "wearable computing device" in the document, comprising of a see-through display lens with a projector, a camera positioned on the extending side-arm and a touch-pad interface including a keypad.

Apart from the buttons and touch-pad, the glasses will also detect speech commands. Shout out a name of a friend, and it will open your contacts book. Start the engine of your car, and Glass could throw up GPS directions.

Controller

Even cooler is the mention of a "controller" which can determine the wearer's skin tone, hand shape and size based on an image of the wearer's hand.

The user interface for the glasses is located "outside of the field of view of the wearer", which means it is probably located near the temple of the user's head, along one of the arms of the glasses.

The patent, which names Google's David Petrou as the inventor, explains user interaction through an interface that "could be, for example, a touch pad, keypad, an arrangement of buttons, or any combination thereof".

For the sake of imagination, Google says it is considering using "coloured dots" for visual representations.

"Coloured dots may appear in response to physical contact or close proximity with the interface. Further, the dots may create an illusionary effect such that the wearer feels like that the interface is right in front of the wearer," the application reads.

Sources of input data

Some illustrations, which you can see as part of the patent applicationshow that the glasses include a microphone, a keyboard, a camera, and a touch-pad.

Project Glass speech commands can also be used to play videos, open applications, translate sentences heard or spoken, answer questions and convert spoken words to text.

Winter is coming? No problem

It seems like Google Glass is also winter-friendly. Glass will detect the temperature outside and switch to a hands-free mode, in case the user is wearing gloves.

Glass will include "an antenna and transceiver device" for wired/wireless communications between itself and "a remote device or communication network". This could mean 3G and 4G networks, as well as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

This will probably allow connectivity between Glass and phones, tablets or other "wearable computing devices or a server in a communication network".

Via SlashGear

Our #ARSSN QR:

QR Code: ARSSN

I thought that glasses with "augmented reality" would be hopelessly dorky and could never go mainstream - until I saw the technology in action.

At first glance, Thad Starner does not look out of place at Google. A pioneering researcher in the field of wearable computing, Starner is a big, charming man with unruly hair. But everyone who meets him does a double take, because mounted over the left lens of his eyeglasses is a small rectangle. It looks like a car's side-view mirror made for a human face. The device is actually a minuscule computer monitor aimed at Starner's eye; he sees its display—pictures, e-mails, anything—superimposed on top of the world, Terminator-style.

Starner's heads-up display is his own system, not a prototype of Project Glass, Google's recently announced effort to build augmented-reality goggles. In April, Google X, the company's special-projects lab, posted a video in which an imaginary user meanders around New York City while maps, text messages, and calendar reminders pop up in front of his eye—a digital wonderland overlaid on the analog world. Google says the project is still in its early phases; Google employees have been testing the technology in public, but the company has declined to show prototypes to most journalists, including myself.

Instead, Google let me speak to Starner, a technical lead for the project, who is one of the world's leading experts on what it's like to live a cyborg's life. He has been wearing various kinds of augmented-reality goggles full time since the early 1990s, which once meant he walked around with video displays that obscured much of his face and required seven pounds of batteries. Even in computer science circles, then, Starner has long been an oddity. I went to Google headquarters not only to find out how he gets by in the world but also to challenge him. Project Glass—and the whole idea of machines that directly augment your senses—seemed to me to be a nerd's fantasy, not a potential mainstream technology.

But as soon as Starner walked into the colorful Google conference room where we met, I began to question my skepticism. I'd come to the meeting laden with gadgets—I'd compiled my questions on an iPad, I was recording audio using a digital smart pen, and in my pocket my phone buzzed with updates. As we chatted, my attention wandered from device to device in the distracted dance of a tech-addled madman.

Starner, meanwhile, was the picture of concentration. His tiny display is connected to a computer he carries in a messenger bag, a machine he controls with a small, one-handed keyboard that he's always gripping in his left hand. He owns an Android phone, too, but he says he never uses it other than for calls (though it would be possible to route calls through his eyeglass system). The spectacles take the place of his desktop computer, his mobile computer, and his all-knowing digital assistant. For all its utility, though, Starner's machine is less distracting than any other computer I've ever seen. This was a revelation. Here was a guy wearing a computer, but because he could use it without becoming lost in it—as we all do when we consult our many devices—he appeared less in thrall to the digital world than you and I are every day. "One of the key points here," Starner says, "is that we're trying to make mobile systems that help the user pay moreattention to the real world as opposed to retreating from it."

By the end of my meeting with Starner, I decided that if Google manages to pull off anything like the machine he uses, wearable computers seem certain to conquer the world. It simply will be better to have a machine that's hooked onto your body than one that responds to it relatively slowly and clumsily.

I understand that this might not seem plausible now. When Google unveiled Project Glass, many people shared my early take, criticizing the plan as just too geeky for the masses. But while it will take some time to get used to interactive goggles as a mainstream necessity, we have already gotten used to wearable electronics such as headphones, Bluetooth headsets, and health and sleep monitoring devices. And even though you don't exactly wear your smart phone, it derives its utility from its immediate proximity to your body.

In fact, wearable computers could end up being a fashion statement. They actually fit into a larger history of functional wearable objects—think of glasses, monocles, wristwatches, and whistles. "There's a lot of things we wear today that are just decorative, just jewelry," says Travis ­Bogard, vice president of product management and strategy at Jawbone, which makes a line of fashion-conscious Bluetooth headsets. "When we talk about this new stuff, we think about it as 'functional jewelry.'" The trick for makers of wearable machines, Bogard explains, is to add utility to jewelry without negatively affecting aesthetics.

One criticism of Google's demo video of Project Glass is that it paints a picture of a guy lost in his own digital cocoon. But Starner argues that a heads-up display will actually tether you more firmly to real-life social interactions.

This wasn't possible 20 years ago, when the technology behind Starner's cyborg life was ridiculously awkward. But Starner points out that since he first began wearing his goggles, wearable computing has followed the same path as all digital technology—devices keep getter smaller and better, and as they do, they become ever more difficult to resist. "Back in 1993, the question I would always get was, 'Why would I want a mobile computer?'" he says. "Then the Newton came out and people were still like, 'Why do I want a mobile computer?' But then the Palm Pilot came out, and then when MP3 players and smart phones came out, people started saying, 'Hey, there's something really useful here.'" Today, ­Starner's device is as small as a Bluetooth headset, and as researchers figure out ways to miniaturize displays—or even embed them into glasses and contact lenses—they'll get still less obtrusive.

At the moment, the biggest stumbling block may be the input device—Starner's miniature keyboard requires a learning curve that many consumers would find daunting, and keeping a trackpad in your pocket might seem a little creepy. The best input system eventually could be your voice, though it could take a few years to perfect that technology. Still, Starner says, the wearable future is coming into focus. "It's only been recently that these on-body devices have enough power, the networks are good enough, and the prices have gone down enough that it's actually capturing people's imagination," Starner says. "This display I'm wearing costs $3,000—that's not reasonable for most people. But I think you're going to see it happen real soon."

One criticism of Google's demo video of Project Glass is that it paints a picture of a guy lost in his own digital cocoon. But Starner argues that a heads-up display will actually tether you more firmly to real-life social interactions. He says the video's augmented-­reality visualizations—images that are tied to real-world sights, like direction bubbles that pop up on the sidewalk, showing you how to get to your friend's house—are all meant to be relevant to what you're doing at any given point and thus won't seem like distracting interruptions.

Much of what I think you'll use goggles for will be the sort of quotidian stuff you do on your smart phone all the time—look up your next appointment on your calendar, check to see whether that last text was important, quickly fire up Shazam to learn the title of a song you heard on the radio. So why not just keep your smart phone? Because the goggles promise speed and invisibility. Imagine that one afternoon at work, you meet your boss in the hall and he asks you how your weekly sales numbers are looking. The truth is, you haven't checked your sales numbers in a few days. You could easily look up the info on your phone, but how obvious would that be? A socially aware heads-up display could someday solve this problem. At Starner's computer science lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology, grad students built a wearable display system that listens for "dual-purpose speech" in conversation—speech that seems natural to humans but is actually meant as a cue to the machine. For instance, when your boss asks you about your sales numbers, you might repeat, "This week's sales numbers?" Your goggles—with Siri-like prowess—would instantly look up the info and present it to you in your display.

You could argue that the glasses would open up all kinds of problems: would people be concerned that you were constantly recording them? And what about the potential for deeper distraction—goofing off by watching YouTube during a meeting, say? But Starner counters that most of these problems exist today. Your cell phone can record video and audio of everything around you, and your iPad is an ever-­present invitation to goof off. Starner says we'll create social and design norms for digital goggles the way we have with all new technologies. For instance, you'll probably need to do something obvious—like put your hand to your frames—to take a photo, and perhaps a light will come on to signal that you're recording or that you're watching a video. It seems likely that once we get over the initial shock, goggles could go far in mitigating many of the social annoyances that other gadgets have caused.

I know this because during my hour-long conversation with Starner, he was constantly pulling up notes and conducting Web searches on his glasses, but I didn't notice anything amiss. To an outside observer, he would have seemed far less distracted than I was. "One of the coolest things is that this makes me more socially graceful," he says.

I got to see this firsthand when Starner let me try on his glasses. It took my eye a few seconds to adjust to the display, but after that, things began to look clearer. I could see the room around me, except now, hovering off to the side, was a computer screen. Suddenly I noticed something on the screen: Starner had left open some notes that a Google public-relations rep had sent him. The notes were about me and what Starner should and should not say during the interview, including "Try to steer the conversation away from the specifics of Project Glass." In other words, Starner was being coached, invisibly, right there in his glasses. And you know what? He'd totally won me over.

Written by Farhad Manjoo.

Farhad Manjoo is the technology columnist at Slate and contributes regularly to Fast Company and the New York Times. He is the author of True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society.

AUGMENTED REALITY and THE FUTURE OF GOOGLE #ARSSN

Project Glass Is The Future Of Google

by Peter Ha

Over the last few years one could easily say that Google had lost their way. They were no longer known for search. Somehow they’d turned into a company that acquired a series of nonsensical entities, launched half baked products that eventually hit the dead pool or just got into some really weird shit.

 The future of google is GLASS!

But last year that all started to change as the company announced that it would focus on its core products. Hindsight always being 20/20 it all makes sense. It’s like anything else, really. Spitball as many ideas as you possibly can just to see what sticks. And so whether it was by design or not, Project Glass is the future of Google. Not as a product that will make them billions of dollars but what it means for Google as a company and its future.

“The charter of Google X is to take bold risks and push the edges of technology beyond what they’ve been to where the future might be,” Sergey Brin told a small group of reporters duing demo of Project Glass. “We want you to be less of a slave to your devices. It’s been really liberating and I’m really excited to share it with all of you.”

Brin noted that Project Glass is what Google believes could be the next form factor of computing. As it stands now, many of us are willingly beholden to our smartphones with all the web browsing, twittering, pathing, instagramming and whatever else consuming most of our time. Human interaction has all but faded away. The fact that people play the “stacking game” is comical and cute but a sign of how infatuated we are with technology. Glass has the potential to buck that trend by “keeping people in the moment,” said Steve Lee, Product Manager for Glass. Brin also mentioned that Glass shouldn’t be used to fill idle time or to browse the web and that your phone or tablet perfectly fits those needs.

Dorky as they might look, Glass signals the first glimpse of how to integrate such invasive and important technology into our lives in a more seamless way. Isabelle Olsson, the industrial design guru on the team, says the design of Glass ensures “you can look into people’s eyes.” During my brief time with Sergey’s Glass, I can say that the display didn’t hinder my ability to see or look around. The display disappeared until I needed to see what was being shown. I might never have to pull my phone out again to reply to a text, get directions or snap a photo. So, yeah, I’ll deal with looking like a dork but don’t be surprised to see Glass integrated with existing glasses. Brin did mention that Google has been in talks with eyeglass makers and the like.

#PROJECTGLASS #EXPLOREREDITIONWhile the hardware is still in prototype phase, I overheard Brin say that he’s experienced up to six hours of juice off a single charge. But that can and will likely change based on usage (uploading photos, capturing video, etc.). Photos, for instance, will be stored locally and can by synced with the cloud later. Both Lee and Brin said that they’re working hard to optimize what data is being transmitted and stored both on the device and in the cloud to alleviate any battery woes. There may be settings that allow users to control the content being shared until you’re within reach of Wi-Fi or when you’ve plugged in your Glasses for the night. Babak Parviz, a contributor to Project Glass, said a previous build allowed him to query a voice search for the capital of China broadening his own knowledge base to everything that’s available on the Web.

I asked what actually worked on Glass now and Brin politely skirted the question by saying that they’re testing and implementing various features with each build to see what sticks. Facial recognition, while discussed and experimented with, doesn’t sound like it’s been compelling enough that the team wants to immediately integrate it.

Here’s what you won’t see in Glass: advertising. Brin stated pretty vehemently that they have no plans to integrate advertising into Glass and that the only plan is to simply sell the hardware, which will be “significantly” cheaper than the $1,500 Explorer Editions that were announced today. The Glass team says they’re focused on the quality of the experience and not making it as cheap as possible. (Thank gawd.)

Core Google apps like Gmail and Plus (Hangouts) are being tested now along with Android apps. What isn’t clear is whether or not the Android and Google apps teams are working with the team at Glass and vice versa.

So what was the reason for today’s announcement of the $1,500 Explorer Edition of Project Glass? It’s actually a slight pivot from what they’ve done in the past. For once, the typical Google way of pushing out half-done products might work to their advantage. Parviz, Lee and Brin emphasized how important it will be to involve the developer community to further push the platform before Glass becomes available to consumers some time next year. Speaking of ship dates, Brin says the consumer version will ship within a year of when the Explorer Editions ship. Developers will have access to a cloud-based API that is “pretty far along.”

Does this mean Google wants to compete with Microsoft or Apple toe-to-toe? No. Google will always be the weird kid in the corner who sporadically does something mindblowing. They’re not thinking about what’s going on now but what might happen in the distant future. Everything they’ve done up until now seems like a tiny spec of something larger and greater. The late Ray Bradbury said it best: “Life is trying things to see if they work.” And that appears to be what Google is doing.