Google Glass, but it's 2024.

[dr.acula]

Considering what Google has become recently, imagine you're making spaghetti with google glass on and a popup appears in front of you. "did you know? Spaghetti cook faster if you add petrol!"

[archammer]

I was so excited about these. Got to work with them on my job, and we were trying to make apps for them. Here's some notes of what I remember...
1) it's not made to run for very long. It gets REALLY hot REALLY fast. Hot enough to burn the skin if the screen stays on for too long.
2) If there was bright lights, it was practically useless.
3) It ONLY works on the right eye. If you have an eye condition where your right eye doesn't work (like me), you were shit out of luck. I actually talked to a Google rep in person and suggested a left-eye version and he literally rolled his eyes at me.

I'm not surprised it died.

[FrancNotFrank]

I genuinely believed Google Glass just never came to market. Figured it was just a hypothetical tech demo that never launched.

[austinfarley]

My old boss got talked the CTO into these to "Test for work applications." He wore them to the park with his daughter who started telling everyone "My Daddy has a camera in his glasses!!" to which he decided it was best to leave very quickly once the other parents started to look at him.

[PetroklosZDM]

0:20 don't you love it when you're about to end it all but a call from Jessica on your Google Glass stops you from taking the leap? Thank you Google. 🙏

[josephfowler]

This bombed so hard I didn't realize it ever released until it was discontinued

[Markyparky]

I'm reminded of the old joke about Tech Enthusiasts vs People who work in Tech. Where the Enthusiast has everything "Smart" and the Tech doesn't even trust their mechanical toaster.

[CobraDBlade]

The only thing I know about Google Glass is that if you were wearing one in a big city you were immediately targeted to be mugged.

[liammccauley]

"This is going to change everything" says company about a product nobody wants. Some things havent changed

[bibasik]

$1500 in 2013 is over $2000 in today's money!

[slayergundam]

Ahh, we used the Google Glass as part of our thesis. We created a prototype indoor navigation system similar to what you see in the movies. We wanted to help firemen and policemen to navigate unfamiliar buildings/locations. Good times.

[MostlyPennyCat]

"people were worried about cameras starting at them all the time"
2020: WOO! CAMERA ON MY TV! CAMERA ON EVERY TV! AND EVERY PICTURE FRAME! DOOR BELL! 10 IN MY CAR! ON MY CHILDREN! MY CAT! AMAZON FACEBOOK YEAAAH!!

[SYNTAAX]

I love how dirty and banged up the green iPad has gotten from him smashing things on it all the time lol

[KlausKlass]

I got to work with the 2021 Enterprise version of these last year as part of a research lab at my university. It did fold and had a better battery and processor. We created an app that helped blind people detect obstacles in front of them. Using it while testing over a few weeks, I found it to be very clumsy. The touch gestures worked inconsistently, the weight was annoying, and the screen was distracting. Overall it's a very interesting piece of tech and had a bunch of very successful research projects. One of them was using it to help doctors to get live notes of a patient visit. This project was well received, but never commercialized. I think all the good research applications were too niche to keep it a viable product.

[URSHORTS]

Yeah, the most geeky accessory ever created. You can't wear one without being bullied lol

[rabiroden]

My prevailing memory of these things is the news story about someone wearing them into a bar and getting punched out for it because nobody is comfortable with strangers walking around with cameras attached to their face.

[AndrewBoothOfficial]

"What does it actually do?" Today, almost nothing.

The final official update that Google released mostly unGoogles the whole device, removes all the Plus and Hangouts integrations. The app was unpublished a long time ago now. The most it can do is show you the time and take photos and video with the only way to get that off is to plug it into a computer that supports MTP. For the age of the device, the camera isn't too bad. This one looks like someone has dropped some custom ROM on it. The original UI is very similar to Android Wear 1. Google took the learnings from Glass and refocused everything into wearables that people actually wanted to wear.

[tdata]

The best thing to happen to Google Glass was a game journalist by the name of Dan Rykert who was working for Game Informer. He ran into a guy wearing one at E3, and the guy was operating it for Dan, and was flipping through open apps and one of them was a Butt Tumbler page. It's a great YouTube video.

[shaikhulud]

A lot of criticism aimed at Glass could be said about Vision Pro as well, sadly. AR in general steel feels like an answer in search of a question even 12 years after the Google Glass announcement.

[adamsjoh]

The introduction of Google Glass at Google IO in 2012 was amazing. They jumped out of a blimp, rode mountain bikes on the roof, repelled down the side of a building, and rode through the auditorium to hand the glasses off as a live demo. Somehow that was the coolest thing these were ever able to accomplish.

With Apple making the same mistakes on the Vision Pro, it seems like Microsoft is the only one who figured out the secret: AR is not a viable consumer technology today, Enterprise applications are where the value is. Google learned that lesson far too late, and in a market they didn't understand at the time.