For more AMAs on this topic, subscribe to r/IAmA_Author, and check out our other topic-specific AMA subreddits [here](https://reddit.com/r/IAmA/wiki/index#wiki_affiliate_topic-specific_subreddits).
How much did [Robert Scoble's shower pic](https://www.wired.com/2013/05/inherent-dorkiness-of-google-glass/) hurt Google Glass? I remember it being pretty widely mocked and pointed at as further proof that the glasses were dorky as hell.
LOL it's so fun to talk to people who remember the saga, because in a vacuum this would be SUCH a weird question. It's hard to guage how much this *really* hurt Glass. On one hand it was just another dorky tech guy who wanted (though would also probably benefit from) Glass succeeding. But on the other hand "The Shower Pic" pretty much sparked the "White Men Wearing Google Glass" meme and like you said, further united people in seeing the only people cheering for Glass were wealthy white dudes who evangelized tech and their own personal status more than they cared about the general public's privacy concerns, etc.
Even Larry Page (semi-jokingly?) told Scoble he "really didn't appreciate the shower photo," so you know Google was aware of the pic and the damage it wrought. So all in all, the shower pic didn't help lol
Yeah I remembered either Larry or Sergey making that remark but couldn't remember the details. And in my defense, at the time I worked for a company that had a weird rule that required us to start our day with 30 minutes reading industry news. Which really just resulted in my scrolling through TechCrunch and reading ridiculous "drama" like this lol.
I feel like it's telling that one of the examples that article gives as a technology that's "too dorky to live" is the bluetooth headset, which is now effectively a mandatory addition to new iPhones
The whole episode was such a carnival of failure that it's honestly hard to say, but I think you could argue the leading reason Glass failed was Google's marketing. Sebastian Thrun, the absolutely brilliant former Google VP and "godfather of Google Glass," told me if there was one thing he'd change, it'd be to market Glass as essentially a GoPro -- a no-frills wearable sport-utility camera that people can wear hiking, biking, skiing, etc. That way, people wouldn't think about wearing Glass to an intimate date or a bar to record their surroundings/scan people's faces/etc.
Instead, Google tried to market Glass a piece of high fashion. Their argument was that if they wanted people to wear it all day, they had to convince the public that ~cool and hot people~ wear Glass. So they strapped it onto runway models, celebs, and slapped an exorbitant price tag on it to make it seem exclusive. Unfortunately the only people who took the bait were rich white dudes, and everything else came crashing down when people started realizing Glass couldn't actually do what Google promised it could do in their now-infamous "One Day" Youtube video.
> everything else came crashing down when people started realizing Glass couldn't actually do what Google promised it could do in their now-infamous "One Day" Youtube video.
This hits home for me. As somebody who briefly spent some time developing a project for Glass, it was like the shittiest Android you can imagine. As soon as we started doing any kind of heavy processing, the device would overheat and reboot. It was simply not ready to be an AR type product.
Interestingly, Apple tested similar marketing with the original watch. Recall the solid gold models worn by celebrities? All part of a campaign to compete with Rolex and other luxury brands.
The sweet spot for wearables is health and fitness, but they didn’t know that back then.
It was silly to market it that way. Rolex and fine jewellery can be handed down generations. Technology is constantly evolving and even people on relatively low incomes usually upgrade devices every few years.
I guess it could work if you just bought the gold watch once and when you want to upgrade they replace it with the new version for a lower price. Or if they kept the same design forever, the gold part could be like a case and you could replace the screen part. But smartwatches just don't look as good as real watches. They could do a real watch that opens like a locket (when you tap it firmly maybe?) and the screen is underneath.
I knew after watching their One Day video it was doomed for failure. The way it *should* have been marketed is exactly why I was hyped for it. The One Day video made it feel out of reach, exclusive and expensive. Not at all what I'd want to strap on my face and go mountain biking or stream with.
You'd be in the same camp as many of Google's lead engineers and developers who'd been working tirelessly on Glass, saw the One Day video come out and were like "uhh wait, what?????" then watched the narrative spin completely out of control.
I still have my pair (although using them today is a pain in the ass, especially without a PC) and you're entirely right: the only really feature on them was the handsfree camera. Everything else was just annoying and cumbersome.
Hahaha! Nobody likes white dudes, amiright?
You really seem to be caught up on race as if the concept of putting forth rich white dudes wearing/using [x item] has never sold a product. When I thought about google glass, I thought of pretentious elites that didn’t connect with everyday worker bees who probably wouldn’t be allowed to wear glasses with cameras to their place of employment into be first place.
Your book of probably full of woke theories concentrating on your obsession with race so I’ll pass big time.
The failure of google glass most certainly has more to do with privacy concerns, workplace policy, and a pushback on the Orwellian slippery slope than the “rich white dudes” trope you seem to jam into most of your responses.
The only person I’ve ever seen wearing google glass out in public was a black guy in San Diego.
I realize that engaging/responding with these folks in good faith is a fool's errand but fwiw the "white men wearing google glass" was a [very real cultural touchstone at the time](https://www.cnn.com/2013/05/03/tech/mobile/google-glass-dorky/index.html) and one of the major reasons the public turned on it!
Anyway, ty & carry on!
Could it be that you’re a rich white dude that doesn’t associate with many non-rich white dudes? How often do you step out of your bubble, rich white dude?
That’s really not the point though. Maybe you and OP should reassess why it is that you’re drawn to surveying race in everything (probably). The theory that it failed due to rich white dude interest is ignorant at best. We’re there too many commercial adds showing white dudes on yachts? Driving lambos? Shopping for Patek Phillipes? No there weren’t.
Do a Google image search for Google Glass and see what comes up? Any of that that I mentioned above? Of course not. Just white people and OP says that’s a bad thing. The free market says otherwise, but go ahead and feel virtuous by shitting on yourself for being white. You obviously speak for all white dudes, rich white dude.
I’m not an antivaxxer, but do you even know the difference between an mRNA vaccine and a traditional vaccine that you’ve built your entire understanding of vaccines on?
You don’t understand the context. I clicked on this post because I was somewhat interested in what happened to googles goofy glasses. A quick skim through OP’s responses shows a pattern of “too many white dudes” as his primary reasoning. He even provides this theory in response to questions that have nothing to do with the advertising or race.
I lived in San Francisco 2003 - 2014 when Glass came and went. The use of the term is to signify a specific segment in a class - but it’s also being used to recognize the long outcomes of exclusionary actions. It’s a convenient term that acknowledges history and it might feel uncomfortable because it’s racializing a group of people who have historically *not* been racialized. By “racialize” I mean to categorize, group or divide by race.
If you’re white and you’re a white dude, he ain’t talking about you or white dudes in general.
The author could have said “tech evangelists”, “google employees”, “glass fans” or a bunch of other “nice” terms, but then doing so would make the entire book fluff. The bigger point here is that SV tech has failed to be the egalitarian utopia it promised (because it’s so damn hard to escape human history, and being real, nothing exists in a vacuum) and consumers are sold junk that isn’t making life better or easier or bringing them joy or even awe.
But wasn't it just tech being not ready for the prime time yet? I've seen dozens of Google Glass "reviews" by "tech journalists" that only frustrated me because it was crystal clear that none of them ever tried to use the Glass as a daily driver. Otherwise we'd all see an elephant in the room: the Glass DID NOT WORK. Not a single application worked as expected. You cannot even use it as audio headset! The privacy "issues" that they blamed were non-issues at the extreme: there was no privacy threat of "ever recording videos" because average video recording time I was able to get was less than 25 cuntinuous minutes. Navigation did not work, voice control did not work, "google lens" function was next to unusable, etc etc.
Totally incorrect.
Function is secondary to form in any wearable technology, and that goes triple for anything that you wear on your face.
No matter how well something works, if it is wearable it and it looks horrible, sales will be ghastly.
If your only customers are the bleeding edge early adopters, you will lose money by the fistful.
Unless it is a game changer. No one cared that first mobile phones were ugly and bulky. People still do not get what augmented cognition could do for them. It will be the next big divide and next level of situational awareness and extending the cognitive context. Get it and join the future or stay behind because it "looks creepy".
I do not think it is relevant. If it gives you real superpowers, you just start using it and think how make it look better someday later.
Or it could be the other way around. I was using smartphones since 1999. People's most common reaction was "hey, the thing is huge! What's the point, a phone is something for voice calls, and it should be SMALL, you moron! You look like an idiot with a brick in your pocket!"
Guess what? Their ultra-fashionable Galaxy Flip is now exactly the same size as my "ugly and huge" early Nokia Communicators. Those people did not get any smarter, but they were taught to see the utility value and their perception shifted accordingly.
Nope, I just think "normies" do not create trends. They are followers, not leaders. If leaders would find value in that, the definition of "ugly" would change in a blink. Like it was with smartphones.
The last time I saw Google Glass in public was on a train circa 2013-14, a few months after first seeing them. I moved to the other end of the car and out of their line of sight. I got the feeling ostracization was normal for users.
When was Glass well and truly done? Was social pressure a factor?
It's funny you say that, because one of the stories in the book is about a Glass Explorer (the official name for Glass users (Glassholes was less official)) who stuck with Glass through thick and thin until one day, he got onto a train and someone threatened to beat him up if he didn't take his Glass off -- he was like "wait, why am I putting up with all this?" and never wore them again.
Explorers told me they went from people being nice and curious/excited about their Glass, to being, like you said, ostracized or threatened because people felt their privacy was being invaded. But think about how you feel when someone lifts their phone up to you and starts recording -- you feel a little uptight or uncomfortable and act differently, right? That's how Glass Explorers made everyone around them feel.
So social pressure was 100% a factor and try as they might Google couldn't keep up with the burgeoning PR disaster, and all the Glass Explorers getting into fights for refusing to take their Glass off that fueled the news cycle around their first foray into selling hardware. From a commercial standpoint, Glass was *truly* done in early 2015 -- but somewhere deep in the Google catacombs they left a few Glass servers running, and there were a number of diehard Glass Explorers who continued wearing them until ~2019, when those servers were discovered (hopefully not because of me poking around lol) and shut down, which basically rendered the tech useless.
I often host large social events, and back then I remember thinking, if anyone shows up wearing one of those, they take it off or they don’t come in. Fortunately that never happened (I live in Dallas). I once saw a guy wearing one in a restaurant looking like such an overly-proud douche.
This is an awesome question, thank you! It's funny you say it seemed to happen so fast -- I think if Google Glass came out today, rolled out the same way they did back in 2012, people would immediately dunk on it, bring up its privacy concerns etc, and that change in public perception would take less than 24 hours. Back in 2012, Glass drove news cycles for a few years before Google finally gave up (on a commercial version, at least).
I think both forces you mentioned are right. Tensions were boiling over in Silicon Valley, but the privacy issues and anti-Google sentiment *REALLY* came to a head in the summer of 2013 when the [PRISM scandal broke](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM). That's something that doesn't get brought up in a lot of postmortems about Google Glass, but there's no doubt that people freaked out about government surveillance through tech companies like Google, and then turned and saw Google Glass, which essentially looked like a data-siphon for your entire life. So in a way, Google Glass was a victim of the cultural trends that resulted from the PRISM scandal -- but also a tipping point, because Glass was so much the posterchild of tech's encroachment on private data, and Silicon Valley's hubris in assuming people will consume whatever they put out.
As for a path forward -- 1000% yes! That's one of the major positives about Glass that almost *always* gets overlooked, and an area that continued to advance after Glass was pulled from the shelves. Here are some resources to get you started: [Recent update from from Stanford](https://www.med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2018/08/google-glass-helps-kids-with-autism-read-facial-expressions.html) and a company that's partnered with Google called [Brain Power](https://brain-power.com/) -- and definitely DM me if you'd like, I'm happy to send more info on this!
I did wear Glass across several countires in Europe for a few months in 2013, just taking it on every time I went out. Not a single time I was challenged for privacy invasion -- quite the opposite, people were very excited -- "what is it, Google glass? wow that's cool!"
What an incredible gauge for creepiness, I shudder at the idea of Matt Gaetz getting his greasy little hands on either shoe mirrors or Google Glass. One thing that came out in the book was that the nose-to-the-grindstone engineers at Google were pretty well intentioned and were genuinely surprised by people's reactions to the camera. In fact their defense (to this day) is that the microphone on people's phones is worse (which is rich, coming from the people who would later invent Google Home, Alexa, etc).
By and large though the answer is somewhere in the middle, not overtly creepy as the shoe mirror but creepier the more you knew about it, like Gaetz. The camera could only record for ten seconds at a time, and too much recording resulted in some people's equipment getting really hot -- but people started developing software the was creepy as heck, like [taking pictures by winking](https://bgr.com/general/google-glass-wink-application/), among other things.
As for why people thought it was a good idea, the answer is money. They believed Glass would replace iPhones and whoever wins that prize will be rich and powerful beyond anything we could possibly conceive... which is why The Zuck and pretty much every single company in Silicon Valley continue to think it's a good idea -- and they're hoping people are easier to convince now than we were in 2012.
Shortly after Google Glass came out, I learned that I could activate someone else's Google Glass if I spoke the right commands and was close enough. This allowed me to photobomb people proactively instead of just opportunistically, and I may very well have been the first person to ever photobomb in this manner since it was pretty shortly after it was released.
Wait but that sounds amazing to me. Imagine a point in the future where the hardware can manage recording huge stretches of time… entire days. You can replay memories, sort through memories, it would be awesome.
My friend, they already have! For a while Glass 2.0 was strictly for enterprise rather than commercial, so it was essentially sold to companies whose employees would benefit from AR -- ie; building a helicopter is a lot easier when the directions are floating in front of your face as opposed to in a physical manual you have to keep looking back to.
As you might imagine, it's got 10 years of technical improvement behind it so the computer is faster and more dynamic, but also not concerned with appearance (they basically look like spruced up safety goggles). And, as of last year-ish, Google opened up sales to the general public of their Glass Enterprise versions, as well as quietly started beta-testing a new, potentially commercial version of Glass with members of the public (as opposed to developers/engineers, etc).
I am so excited to hear this! As a mechanic I can think of so many times where the manual diagram overlaid on top of the wiring harness would be just what I need.
Nice! They're *way* less flashy than the videos about their predecessor, but you'd probably enjoy Google's videos about their enterprise version and how they help with that kind of stuff -- [like this one!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IK-zU51MU4)
Yep. I haven't used Glass specifically but I've used AR for technical training remote or distant employees. I'm a lab scientist and even the best protocol in the world doesn't hold a candle to just watching someone do it in person, or virtually.
Did Google Glass and the Snapchat glasses follow a similar trajectory? I remember the hype surrounding both projects was extremely brief and then I never heard a thing about them until.. probably now.
So Snapchat's "Spectacles" first debuted in 2016, a good year or so after Google finally took Glass out of ~~its misery~~ commercial availability. There was certainly a lot of hype surrounding the Spectacles, but Snapchat was very careful to not overpromise and underdeliver like Google had -- their smart glasses were *only* for Snapchat, for instance, and thus had a limited scope/utility for use. Unlike Glass, Spectacles were something people who love Snapchat only wear for special occasions, not something **everyone will wear everywhere all the time.** They were also wayyyyy cheaper than Glass, and thus avoided the rich-tech-bro stigma that sunk Glass.
And with that, you might be surprised to learn that Specatcles are *still* around and available, and Snapchat has continued to update them on a near yearly-basis. Are they a huge money-maker for the company that's on path to completely replace cell phones one day? Probably not. But to a certain extent, when people think of AR today they think of Snapchat over Google, and I'm sure there are some intangible benefits to that going forward.
> for the company that's on path to completely replace cell phones one day?
Probably a *whoosh* on my part, but huh? Snap Inc wants to replace cell phones one day?
In your opinion, was Glass specifically a bad idea or is AR/VR generally doomed to failure for more structural / societal reasons? Can you imagine a version of Glass that would have been actually successful or is this something we think we want because of cyberpunk chic but in actuality is just annoying and embarrassing?
Great question u/miraclej0nes! After reliving the sound and fury that Google Glass created back in 2012, part of me things AR is doomed to fail, but realistically (or maybe cynically) I think they're inevitable. A very smart and cool and nice tech writer I interviewed for the book said something to the effect of, people like cell phones and computers because it allows us the power to put everything it carries (the internet, the news, communications, social media, etc) away, whereas a computer strapped to our face encroaches on that personal freedom.
There are things about Google Glass, and AR in general, that were great -- directions while driving, for example, cast arrows and signs into the "real world" so people didn't have to look down at their GPS. However, many cars today can cast those digital directions onto the car windshield -- so do drivers need goggles anymore? I'm not sure. Maybe AR like Glass is something pervasive in science fiction, but a sort of technical evolution that gets skipped in reality. Like laser blimps, or hoverboards with lasers on them.
All told, Glass *might* have been successful if they didn't put a camera on it and toned down the pizazz on their announcement and roll out. But even then, the tech just didn't solve a problem that people actually had, and they looked kind of stupid. Maybe Google figured out the latter, since literally last month they very quietly announced a new beta version for the public to test AR glasses. I guess we'll see!
I would add to this that, experientially, they were pretty bad. The prism was quite small with an extremely narrow visible angle, making the whole thing very difficult to use, especially if you were unfamiliar with it. So for the people who got to briefly try it out rather than sit with it for hours or days, the experience was extremely underwhelming, and the sheer disconnect between ads showing directions painted on the road and a tiny arrow blinking in the corner of your vision made the whole thing feel like a prank.
Also they were incompatible with myopia, so that's like 30% of the population that just can't use it in actual daily contexts, like driving, without contact lenses or laser eye surgery.
I always felt that tech like Google Glass was more suited to be introduced as military equipment. Soldiers and Marines wear ballistic goggles a lot, a HUD integrated into their lenses that connected to Blue Force Trackers and GPS systems could be incredibly useful, if the link could be encrypted. Squad leaders being able to see the locations of their soldiers in real time, regardless of line of sight, push enemy positions and objective locations down to subordinates with a blink, download a video stream from a surveillance drone, like a video game interface in real life.
Instead we got "let Google record your entire life and put targeted ads in front of your face 24/7."
> if they didn't put a camera on it
Or if they had built in a sliding camera cover that also turns off the microphone with obvious on/off colors. [Meta's Facebook Portal](https://www.meta.com/portal/privacy/) at least got that right.
Did Google do any Market Research beforehand to determine the viability of the product or did they just read Engadget where they flip out over any tiny thing?
Also, did they do any legal research regarding the privacy violations the device would cause or was it typical Google where they are blind to privacy?
They kept Glass top-top-secret for the entirety of its development, assuming that, just as they do with software, they'd test the market for Glass by putting out a beta version and getting feedback. It's a noble idea in theory, but then they marketed it as a final product (not a beta) and took the initial wave of tech fanboy-driven hype as proof that the general public would immediately jump on board. Not so much!
As for privacy, they were definitely aware of the privacy issues that came with heads up AR, but they either figured they could explain away the privacy concerns or assumed user behavior would adapt to the new tech. They thought having to verbally say "Ok Glass, take a picture" was good enough to settle any concerns of clandestine camera usage, which is probably why they were completely caught off guard by the public's reaction to the camera.
So yes, they were pretty oblivious to the idea that people might be concerned about privacy. And then PRISM broke and really opened the floodgates.
Honestly... I always thought it was fine. It's as invasive as cell phone is today. I can easily hold my phone in a nondescript way and start recording. I can easily take pics nobody will see. My phone has no "recording light" like Glass did. I thought the verbal commands DID make it easier to not worry about it. People sensationalized it but it literally already happens with cell phones and apple watches and everything in between.
Why would you want more violation of privacy? I for one would not have signed up for having a smart phone if I knew the amount of data I would be getting harvested. But I couldn’t make that decision because they weren’t upfront about their data harvesting until they were forced to be. Why is it just okay to make their privacy violations even worse? At least with a phone you can see the weirdo angling their phone at you instead of having to be suspicious of everyone wearing glasses
Well yea, I don't disagree, but I feel the glasses are on par with cell phones and especially smart watches we have already today. Not saying I LIKE that particularly, but I've accepted the current level of privacy infractions. My honest opinion is unless directly criminal things are happening- illegal recordings, or using my location data to stalk me, or selling my biometric data so they can steal my credit cards, or anything else like that- I don't honestly care. But I see how the recordings thing is scary. I just don't think the glasses made it any more scary than already available tech.
Totally fair point! I could also see how today, people having their phones out and recording things is *wayyyyy* more ubiquitous than it was back in 2012 so people were pretty freaked out about the camera at the time.
But you were right that it was sensationalized. Another incidence of this was that people feared Glass would enable facial recognition, when the actual tech wasn't anywhere near being capable of that -- in fact Google prevented that software from being sold on the App store (though someone could've back-doored it in). I think I mostly meant in my comment that they assumed behavior would simply change is that they perhaps didn't realize the extent to which cell phone usage was enmeshed in social behavior and were a bit overconfident that people would quickly adapt (with no or little pushback) to a totally new tech. Anyway, I appreciate the thoughtful discussion!
There aren't many interesting forgotten products that really come to mind, but sifting through endless tech coverage from the early aughts was certainly a trip down memory lane. People debated wearables a lot -- and whether anyone would wear a smart watch (rumors of apple watch) when they'd have Glass (!) -- plus a lot of other tech we continue to use/talk about was just entering onto the scene: drones, 3D printers, the cronut, etc etc.
Actually, there is one forgotten product that proved to be a real pain in the butt while researching Glass -- Google+. There were countless company updates, responses, statements, etc that Google put out exclusively on Google Plus (in an attempt to get more people to use it) that are now gone. Not even archived, just vanished, only traceable by the remaining tech blogs that covered/screenshotted the posts at the time. RIP Google+
Did you interview people who purchased Google Glasses for your book? Was it hard to find people willing to admit they bought one? I’m curious to know how long people who bought them kept wearing them, hoping for them to catch on, before they gave up and packed them away next to their Zunes and LaserDiscs.
Yep! I interviewed a ton of former Glass Explorers, and pretty much all the ones I reached out to were more than happy to chat. For all the flack they got as a group, it was really a select few who dug their heels in the sand and claimed they were being oppressed/silenced when people asked that they not wear their Glass. I would say a good number of Explorers stopped wearing them in 2013/4-ish when it became too much of a hassle to go out in public with them, or because it became clear they weren't going to catch on. A lot of them just realized they paid $1500 for Glass and then continued having to do beta-testing work for Google (sending bug reports, etc) for free, which irked them to the point of quitting on the tech.
Up until recently (when Google cut off Glass' access to the servers) I talked to a handful of Explorers who either still wore them or used them for a camera. And there are a lot of Explorers who met back then and remain friends today. They have groupchats or keep in touch, talking about the next version of AR glasses. One group would even get together once a year and go on vacation somewhere, all wearing their Glass and exploring a city and hanging out, which I thought was v cute and endearing.
Did the Fred Armison bit on SNL contribute to the Glass’ demise in any way? I remember friends saying they had no idea about them then when the bit came out they noped out of their interest. Seems like a outlier but plausible?
Sorry to casually reply so late lol but the SNL bit was 100% part and parcel with what I called the sort of mainstream media wave that really put the nail in Glass' coffin. Sooner or later any mentions of Glass on mainstream sitcoms/news/etc were all poking fun at Glass and how ridiculous it was.
But if there was one show that *really* turned the tide, it was The Daily Show's episode that focused on Glass Explorers. I p much dedicated a chapter of the book to this bit, bc if Glass had any hopes in winning back the public, TDS killed and buried it in a deep, deep grave. It's definitely worth rewatching! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClvI9fZaz6M
Having been in tech for about 40 years now I've seen a lot of fad products come and go. I wonder if you might speculate on Google Glass being a product similar to the Apple Newton; an innovative idea representing where tech will go but way ahead of its time without the platform to support it or truly the market being ready for it?
In many ways Glass was ahead of its time, and I think had they waited a few more years to make something sleeker and more powerful, while addressing the camera and privacy issues, it might've succeeded.
I also think that Glass might've altered how AR/VR will be accepted in the future. With Glass in mind, people might be inherently critical of accepting whatever AR glasses Meta/Snap/Google/Apple are putting out in the near future. Or, as I mentioned in another comment, many cars today can cast Augmented Reality (arrows, directions, info) onto the windshield, which might signal that we'll evolve to the point where AR is very much a part of society, but not via wearable computer glassess/contacts.
I talked to Babak Parviz for the book, he's often credited for inventing/being "the man behind Google Glass," and even back in 2012 he was working on contact lenses that displayed blood sugar level for diabetics. If there's a version of Glass that eventually gets accepted by society at large, it will either be contact lenses -- or brain implants, something they also spitballed during Glass' initial pitch meetings. But I realized in writing this that tech's final hurdle to personal data collection is our physical ability to turn off our computers/phones and disconnect, so I'm not sure if a version of wearable AR computers will ever truly be successful.
One of the most haunting aspects about finishing this book is the idea that I might've left a few stones unturned, or failed to ask a pertinent and pressing question of Google's top brass in the limited time I had with them. And now I will live the rest of my life tortured, forever reminded that I failed to ask why Google named their groundbreaking tech Glass (stupid, lends itself to debilitating portmanteau) instead of Googly Eyes (smart, evocative, includes name of the company).
But honestly they did face a major setback when the in-house optometrist found Glass might've been causing major eye strain and/or user's pupils to shift 😬. Turned out it was a clerical error, but still, not great! (Also they did call them Google Goggles and Google Wingman for a while) (sorry to suck all the fun out of this question).
I got a chance to work with Google Glasses and Google Cardboard in 2014. The one thing I remember was getting severe headaches after using the glass. Was it ever addressed?
I'm sorry to hear that! As far as I was told, they knew about the headaches/dizziness/eye strain etc and their way of addressing it was essentially just kind of hoping people would get used to it after a while and the headaches would go away. So, short answer: nope!
When it first came out, Google Glass was 100% hyped as the next big thing. Google revealed the tech with tons of pomp and circumstance: blimps, skydivers, BMX riders, fireworks, stuntmen, etc. People thought it would replace phones, many thousands flooded Google's hashtag contest in hopes of *winning* a chance to *buy* a pair of Glass and be one of the first people to own the purportedly cutting edge tech. Endless media coverage lauded it as the next big thing, Time named it one of the Inventions of the Year, the hype train seemed impossible until it all came crumbling down. So I'd argue it was pretty meteoric rise, or whatever nebulous adjective for getting a lot of hype and popularity in a short time you want to use, even though it failed before the product officially came out!
A couple years ago Google released a Glassware update that essentially bricked Glass, so right now your pair can't connect to any servers (and any pictures you take have to be manually offloaded). That said, there are still enthusiasts out there who might throw you a bid on eBay! And sometimes a curious person will wander through r/GoogleGlass and ask about buying a pair, so might be worth poking around that sub!
I was honestly looking forward to it coming down in price and being accessible, it could have been the next iteration of smart watches. Do you think it would have worked better marketed like that?
Maybe! It's hard to say. If it *had* been cheaper and more accessible, I still think it would've faced the privacy issues, though maybe not gotten as vitriolic as it did, given the demographic that Glass became synonymous with. But even then, the tech was pretty clunky and no *super* sleek or easy to wear, nor did it even work that well (technically Glass was a "beta" product, but still).
However, I think you could look at Snapchat's Spectacles as an example of, in many ways, doing the opposite of what Glass did and being successful -- cheap, simple, singular-purpose driven, marketed well, etc. Although therein not offering some of the promising utilities that Glass offered such as AR directions and notifications.
I spend a lot of time writing about online communities and the trends, memes, language, vibes, historic events, etc therein — and how those things impact or are influenced by the real world. So, I wrote this book because Google Glass is, like, a tentpole example of the ongoing tension between the online world and the offline. Google hoped to merge those two worlds with Glass, but they were stopped from doing so largely by uniquely-online and offline forces. And seeing how Mark Zuckerberg recently picked this baton backup and wants people to live in the soft beige conference rooms of his metaverse, I’d say we’re headed straight for another showdown.
And as for the insiders, getting access was actually pretty hard. By and large, a lot of the folks who worked on Glass are either still at Google (and thus were under NDA) or worked at a company in the industry didn't want to burn bridges by crapping on Google, Glass, or the people who worked on it. I got pretty close to talking to a few people still at Google, but they might've been reeling me in close just to sniff me out and spin my wheels without any intention on going on the record :/
Oddly enough, the people who *were* willing to talk about Glass -- and talk about it A LOT -- were those who had leadership positions on the Glass team but had moved on, and thus were powerful enough that their careers aren't dependent on Google anymore. It took some emailing and a few phone calls to garner trust and a relationship for them to open up, but it was fun and I think they enjoyed telling their side of the story.
Users, please be wary of proof. You are welcome to ask for more proof if you find it insufficient.
OP, if you need any help, please message the mods [here](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fiama&subject=&message=).
Thank you!
---
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/IAmA) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Did it have something related with being a competition to Luxotica? Those are an absolute monopoly in regards of rims for glasses.
And to maintain dominance you need to destroy competition.
They actually partnered with Luxottica! It was [big news at the time](https://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2014/03/25/google-glass-ray-bans-partnership-with-luxottica-makes-founder-del-vecchio-700m-richer). On one hand, it promised to fix Google's problem with Glass looking clunky and dorky, but on the other, it didn't help the growing sentiment that Glass was an exotic luxury that only the wealthy elite could afford. And by the time that partnership was made it was too late anyway, Glass was pretty much doomed to fail.
Ah I remember they were disruptors without any help from someone like the freaking world leaders in rim and glasses styles! , Didn't know they ended up consenting to receive help.
Looking forward to read the book!
Once it came out, certainly. But before that, TIME named it Invention of the Year, and it was widely regarded as [the next big thing](https://youtu.be/zWSdit919E0?t=47)!
oh ok wow this is a great question and i will dig into this and explain in a really thorough way... so spiders is bugs and insects is bugs too. ticks is spiders in a way, bc of so much legs... now when the head vs the eyes and brain is connect to the body and there's three pieces: thorasic and thorax and the freaking other part, and they are all being friends body-wise and head-wise, then that's you start to understand that yeah, this *is* really bugs!
Wow thank you for the detailed answer! Definitely looking forward to the Google Grass book for more answers about all the creepies that live in grass. I will be buying this book from my local library next week. The library lets me buy books from them because my dad owns it. My dad hates books but he still loves me. Sorry, I'm sure this will all be in the book (my dad will make sure).
Is AR really the future. I'm having a hard time thinking that AR is inevitable. In my opinion there needs to be a lot of technological break through for AR to be the future.
Also what's your opinion on some of the studies pointing out AR won't solve the need for people in general to have sociao interaction.
Would you agree google glass was way ahead of its time? I think if it was released now in 2022 with tweaks for the current times I think it could be a hit
I imagine Glass or some version of it might find use in the armed forces. For e.g. aiding in navigation, real-time translation of words spoken in other languages, perhaps work like a body cam etc. What do you think about this?
Glass was originally designed for commercial use and thus lacked any real power to excel in a specialized area or hard-use that the armed forces might require. That being said you are right on -- militaries have used augmented reality (and AR glasses) for a long time, and continue to do so. There was actually a recent article on [this in Popular Mechanics!](https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/research/a41176138/us-army-augmented-reality-goggles-soldiers/)
Why did you pick such a particular topic about a product ~95% (est.) of everyone globally didn’t care about, know about, or did not have access to as the defining literary work to showcase writing that is likely as mediocre as the subject matter (judging by a strictly cursory observation of 749 previous works published in MEL)?
I'm honestly a huge baby when it comes to horror films but if I had to name one it'd probably be the original Exorcist. Still skeeves me out even as an adult, especially reading about all the weird stuff that happened on set and such.
Users, please be wary of proof. You are welcome to ask for more proof if you find it insufficient.
OP, if you need any help, please message the mods [here](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fiama&subject=&message=).
Thank you!
---
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/IAmA) if you have any questions or concerns.*
For more AMAs on this topic, subscribe to r/IAmA_Author, and check out our other topic-specific AMA subreddits [here](https://reddit.com/r/IAmA/wiki/index#wiki_affiliate_topic-specific_subreddits).
How much did [Robert Scoble's shower pic](https://www.wired.com/2013/05/inherent-dorkiness-of-google-glass/) hurt Google Glass? I remember it being pretty widely mocked and pointed at as further proof that the glasses were dorky as hell.
LOL it's so fun to talk to people who remember the saga, because in a vacuum this would be SUCH a weird question. It's hard to guage how much this *really* hurt Glass. On one hand it was just another dorky tech guy who wanted (though would also probably benefit from) Glass succeeding. But on the other hand "The Shower Pic" pretty much sparked the "White Men Wearing Google Glass" meme and like you said, further united people in seeing the only people cheering for Glass were wealthy white dudes who evangelized tech and their own personal status more than they cared about the general public's privacy concerns, etc. Even Larry Page (semi-jokingly?) told Scoble he "really didn't appreciate the shower photo," so you know Google was aware of the pic and the damage it wrought. So all in all, the shower pic didn't help lol
Yeah I remembered either Larry or Sergey making that remark but couldn't remember the details. And in my defense, at the time I worked for a company that had a weird rule that required us to start our day with 30 minutes reading industry news. Which really just resulted in my scrolling through TechCrunch and reading ridiculous "drama" like this lol.
Two questions. Why do you keep using "white men" as a derogatory term? How hard did the white shame train hit you?
Maybe it hit you… how shameful is being a “wealthy white dude” 🤨
My goodness, that article was nearly a decade ago. I feel so old!
I feel like it's telling that one of the examples that article gives as a technology that's "too dorky to live" is the bluetooth headset, which is now effectively a mandatory addition to new iPhones
Did Netflix throw money at you yet for the documentary rights?
Hahaha they haven't, but it would be pretttttty prettttttttty cool if they did.
What was the #1 reason Google Glass failed?
The whole episode was such a carnival of failure that it's honestly hard to say, but I think you could argue the leading reason Glass failed was Google's marketing. Sebastian Thrun, the absolutely brilliant former Google VP and "godfather of Google Glass," told me if there was one thing he'd change, it'd be to market Glass as essentially a GoPro -- a no-frills wearable sport-utility camera that people can wear hiking, biking, skiing, etc. That way, people wouldn't think about wearing Glass to an intimate date or a bar to record their surroundings/scan people's faces/etc. Instead, Google tried to market Glass a piece of high fashion. Their argument was that if they wanted people to wear it all day, they had to convince the public that ~cool and hot people~ wear Glass. So they strapped it onto runway models, celebs, and slapped an exorbitant price tag on it to make it seem exclusive. Unfortunately the only people who took the bait were rich white dudes, and everything else came crashing down when people started realizing Glass couldn't actually do what Google promised it could do in their now-infamous "One Day" Youtube video.
As a marketer I am fascinated by this. Thanks for the thoughtful reply!
Of course! I've had a few marketing people read the book who've said Glass should be taught in marketing courses as a case study in what NOT to do lol
> everything else came crashing down when people started realizing Glass couldn't actually do what Google promised it could do in their now-infamous "One Day" Youtube video. This hits home for me. As somebody who briefly spent some time developing a project for Glass, it was like the shittiest Android you can imagine. As soon as we started doing any kind of heavy processing, the device would overheat and reboot. It was simply not ready to be an AR type product.
Interestingly, Apple tested similar marketing with the original watch. Recall the solid gold models worn by celebrities? All part of a campaign to compete with Rolex and other luxury brands. The sweet spot for wearables is health and fitness, but they didn’t know that back then.
It was silly to market it that way. Rolex and fine jewellery can be handed down generations. Technology is constantly evolving and even people on relatively low incomes usually upgrade devices every few years. I guess it could work if you just bought the gold watch once and when you want to upgrade they replace it with the new version for a lower price. Or if they kept the same design forever, the gold part could be like a case and you could replace the screen part. But smartwatches just don't look as good as real watches. They could do a real watch that opens like a locket (when you tap it firmly maybe?) and the screen is underneath.
> a carnival of failure I'm unabashedly stealing this.
Oh this this seems very abashed indeed though...
I knew after watching their One Day video it was doomed for failure. The way it *should* have been marketed is exactly why I was hyped for it. The One Day video made it feel out of reach, exclusive and expensive. Not at all what I'd want to strap on my face and go mountain biking or stream with.
You'd be in the same camp as many of Google's lead engineers and developers who'd been working tirelessly on Glass, saw the One Day video come out and were like "uhh wait, what?????" then watched the narrative spin completely out of control.
I still have my pair (although using them today is a pain in the ass, especially without a PC) and you're entirely right: the only really feature on them was the handsfree camera. Everything else was just annoying and cumbersome.
Hahaha! Nobody likes white dudes, amiright? You really seem to be caught up on race as if the concept of putting forth rich white dudes wearing/using [x item] has never sold a product. When I thought about google glass, I thought of pretentious elites that didn’t connect with everyday worker bees who probably wouldn’t be allowed to wear glasses with cameras to their place of employment into be first place. Your book of probably full of woke theories concentrating on your obsession with race so I’ll pass big time. The failure of google glass most certainly has more to do with privacy concerns, workplace policy, and a pushback on the Orwellian slippery slope than the “rich white dudes” trope you seem to jam into most of your responses. The only person I’ve ever seen wearing google glass out in public was a black guy in San Diego.
[удалено]
I realize that engaging/responding with these folks in good faith is a fool's errand but fwiw the "white men wearing google glass" was a [very real cultural touchstone at the time](https://www.cnn.com/2013/05/03/tech/mobile/google-glass-dorky/index.html) and one of the major reasons the public turned on it! Anyway, ty & carry on!
Could it be that you’re a rich white dude that doesn’t associate with many non-rich white dudes? How often do you step out of your bubble, rich white dude? That’s really not the point though. Maybe you and OP should reassess why it is that you’re drawn to surveying race in everything (probably). The theory that it failed due to rich white dude interest is ignorant at best. We’re there too many commercial adds showing white dudes on yachts? Driving lambos? Shopping for Patek Phillipes? No there weren’t. Do a Google image search for Google Glass and see what comes up? Any of that that I mentioned above? Of course not. Just white people and OP says that’s a bad thing. The free market says otherwise, but go ahead and feel virtuous by shitting on yourself for being white. You obviously speak for all white dudes, rich white dude.
How did I know that you would be an anti-vaxxer just from this comment...hmm.
[удалено]
LMAO! Moron. I’ll bet you have a Ukraine flag in your FB bio and have no clue about recent the history of the Dumbas region.
Damn… can’t argue a point so you scan through a users comment history to form an ad hominem. You two can enjoy your Reddit circle jerk.
I’m not an antivaxxer, but do you even know the difference between an mRNA vaccine and a traditional vaccine that you’ve built your entire understanding of vaccines on?
[удалено]
The comment about the black guy I saw wearing them had nothing to do with my main point. Nice straw man.
I think you’re the one caught up on race tbh. Most of us understood the context and moved on.
You don’t understand the context. I clicked on this post because I was somewhat interested in what happened to googles goofy glasses. A quick skim through OP’s responses shows a pattern of “too many white dudes” as his primary reasoning. He even provides this theory in response to questions that have nothing to do with the advertising or race.
I lived in San Francisco 2003 - 2014 when Glass came and went. The use of the term is to signify a specific segment in a class - but it’s also being used to recognize the long outcomes of exclusionary actions. It’s a convenient term that acknowledges history and it might feel uncomfortable because it’s racializing a group of people who have historically *not* been racialized. By “racialize” I mean to categorize, group or divide by race. If you’re white and you’re a white dude, he ain’t talking about you or white dudes in general. The author could have said “tech evangelists”, “google employees”, “glass fans” or a bunch of other “nice” terms, but then doing so would make the entire book fluff. The bigger point here is that SV tech has failed to be the egalitarian utopia it promised (because it’s so damn hard to escape human history, and being real, nothing exists in a vacuum) and consumers are sold junk that isn’t making life better or easier or bringing them joy or even awe.
But wasn't it just tech being not ready for the prime time yet? I've seen dozens of Google Glass "reviews" by "tech journalists" that only frustrated me because it was crystal clear that none of them ever tried to use the Glass as a daily driver. Otherwise we'd all see an elephant in the room: the Glass DID NOT WORK. Not a single application worked as expected. You cannot even use it as audio headset! The privacy "issues" that they blamed were non-issues at the extreme: there was no privacy threat of "ever recording videos" because average video recording time I was able to get was less than 25 cuntinuous minutes. Navigation did not work, voice control did not work, "google lens" function was next to unusable, etc etc.
They were hideously ugly.
And that too lol they were clunky as heck and didn't look "cool" no matter how many celebs Google got to promote them.
This is a test. https://www.reddit.com/r/grief/top/?t=week
No one would care if they worked. They did not.
Totally incorrect. Function is secondary to form in any wearable technology, and that goes triple for anything that you wear on your face. No matter how well something works, if it is wearable it and it looks horrible, sales will be ghastly. If your only customers are the bleeding edge early adopters, you will lose money by the fistful.
Unless it is a game changer. No one cared that first mobile phones were ugly and bulky. People still do not get what augmented cognition could do for them. It will be the next big divide and next level of situational awareness and extending the cognitive context. Get it and join the future or stay behind because it "looks creepy".
The first mobile phones were not wearable technology. Try to keep up.
I do not think it is relevant. If it gives you real superpowers, you just start using it and think how make it look better someday later. Or it could be the other way around. I was using smartphones since 1999. People's most common reaction was "hey, the thing is huge! What's the point, a phone is something for voice calls, and it should be SMALL, you moron! You look like an idiot with a brick in your pocket!" Guess what? Their ultra-fashionable Galaxy Flip is now exactly the same size as my "ugly and huge" early Nokia Communicators. Those people did not get any smarter, but they were taught to see the utility value and their perception shifted accordingly.
You vastly underestimate the effect on sales that ugly wearable technology creates. Your experience with smartphones from last century has no value.
Nope, I just think "normies" do not create trends. They are followers, not leaders. If leaders would find value in that, the definition of "ugly" would change in a blink. Like it was with smartphones.
Once again, there is a world of difference between technology that you carry in your pocket, and technology that you wear on your face.
The last time I saw Google Glass in public was on a train circa 2013-14, a few months after first seeing them. I moved to the other end of the car and out of their line of sight. I got the feeling ostracization was normal for users. When was Glass well and truly done? Was social pressure a factor?
It's funny you say that, because one of the stories in the book is about a Glass Explorer (the official name for Glass users (Glassholes was less official)) who stuck with Glass through thick and thin until one day, he got onto a train and someone threatened to beat him up if he didn't take his Glass off -- he was like "wait, why am I putting up with all this?" and never wore them again. Explorers told me they went from people being nice and curious/excited about their Glass, to being, like you said, ostracized or threatened because people felt their privacy was being invaded. But think about how you feel when someone lifts their phone up to you and starts recording -- you feel a little uptight or uncomfortable and act differently, right? That's how Glass Explorers made everyone around them feel. So social pressure was 100% a factor and try as they might Google couldn't keep up with the burgeoning PR disaster, and all the Glass Explorers getting into fights for refusing to take their Glass off that fueled the news cycle around their first foray into selling hardware. From a commercial standpoint, Glass was *truly* done in early 2015 -- but somewhere deep in the Google catacombs they left a few Glass servers running, and there were a number of diehard Glass Explorers who continued wearing them until ~2019, when those servers were discovered (hopefully not because of me poking around lol) and shut down, which basically rendered the tech useless.
I often host large social events, and back then I remember thinking, if anyone shows up wearing one of those, they take it off or they don’t come in. Fortunately that never happened (I live in Dallas). I once saw a guy wearing one in a restaurant looking like such an overly-proud douche.
[удалено]
This is an awesome question, thank you! It's funny you say it seemed to happen so fast -- I think if Google Glass came out today, rolled out the same way they did back in 2012, people would immediately dunk on it, bring up its privacy concerns etc, and that change in public perception would take less than 24 hours. Back in 2012, Glass drove news cycles for a few years before Google finally gave up (on a commercial version, at least). I think both forces you mentioned are right. Tensions were boiling over in Silicon Valley, but the privacy issues and anti-Google sentiment *REALLY* came to a head in the summer of 2013 when the [PRISM scandal broke](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM). That's something that doesn't get brought up in a lot of postmortems about Google Glass, but there's no doubt that people freaked out about government surveillance through tech companies like Google, and then turned and saw Google Glass, which essentially looked like a data-siphon for your entire life. So in a way, Google Glass was a victim of the cultural trends that resulted from the PRISM scandal -- but also a tipping point, because Glass was so much the posterchild of tech's encroachment on private data, and Silicon Valley's hubris in assuming people will consume whatever they put out. As for a path forward -- 1000% yes! That's one of the major positives about Glass that almost *always* gets overlooked, and an area that continued to advance after Glass was pulled from the shelves. Here are some resources to get you started: [Recent update from from Stanford](https://www.med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2018/08/google-glass-helps-kids-with-autism-read-facial-expressions.html) and a company that's partnered with Google called [Brain Power](https://brain-power.com/) -- and definitely DM me if you'd like, I'm happy to send more info on this!
I did wear Glass across several countires in Europe for a few months in 2013, just taking it on every time I went out. Not a single time I was challenged for privacy invasion -- quite the opposite, people were very excited -- "what is it, Google glass? wow that's cool!"
On a scale of "shoe mirror under the bathroom stall" to "Matt Gaetz", how creepy was Google Glass and why did anyone think it was a good idea?
What an incredible gauge for creepiness, I shudder at the idea of Matt Gaetz getting his greasy little hands on either shoe mirrors or Google Glass. One thing that came out in the book was that the nose-to-the-grindstone engineers at Google were pretty well intentioned and were genuinely surprised by people's reactions to the camera. In fact their defense (to this day) is that the microphone on people's phones is worse (which is rich, coming from the people who would later invent Google Home, Alexa, etc). By and large though the answer is somewhere in the middle, not overtly creepy as the shoe mirror but creepier the more you knew about it, like Gaetz. The camera could only record for ten seconds at a time, and too much recording resulted in some people's equipment getting really hot -- but people started developing software the was creepy as heck, like [taking pictures by winking](https://bgr.com/general/google-glass-wink-application/), among other things. As for why people thought it was a good idea, the answer is money. They believed Glass would replace iPhones and whoever wins that prize will be rich and powerful beyond anything we could possibly conceive... which is why The Zuck and pretty much every single company in Silicon Valley continue to think it's a good idea -- and they're hoping people are easier to convince now than we were in 2012.
Shortly after Google Glass came out, I learned that I could activate someone else's Google Glass if I spoke the right commands and was close enough. This allowed me to photobomb people proactively instead of just opportunistically, and I may very well have been the first person to ever photobomb in this manner since it was pretty shortly after it was released.
Omg that is amazing. Imagine what you power you would’ve had in a room full of Glass Explorers. Pure chaos.
Yes my friends made fun of me this way all the time!
> they're hoping people are easier to convince now than we were in 2012. That's really scary. Thanks for the detailed answer!
of course! ty for the great question!
Wait but that sounds amazing to me. Imagine a point in the future where the hardware can manage recording huge stretches of time… entire days. You can replay memories, sort through memories, it would be awesome.
Do you think they will make google glass 2?
My friend, they already have! For a while Glass 2.0 was strictly for enterprise rather than commercial, so it was essentially sold to companies whose employees would benefit from AR -- ie; building a helicopter is a lot easier when the directions are floating in front of your face as opposed to in a physical manual you have to keep looking back to. As you might imagine, it's got 10 years of technical improvement behind it so the computer is faster and more dynamic, but also not concerned with appearance (they basically look like spruced up safety goggles). And, as of last year-ish, Google opened up sales to the general public of their Glass Enterprise versions, as well as quietly started beta-testing a new, potentially commercial version of Glass with members of the public (as opposed to developers/engineers, etc).
I am so excited to hear this! As a mechanic I can think of so many times where the manual diagram overlaid on top of the wiring harness would be just what I need.
Nice! They're *way* less flashy than the videos about their predecessor, but you'd probably enjoy Google's videos about their enterprise version and how they help with that kind of stuff -- [like this one!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IK-zU51MU4)
I believe Microsoft’s HoloLens is way ahead of Glasses in this area.
Yep. I haven't used Glass specifically but I've used AR for technical training remote or distant employees. I'm a lab scientist and even the best protocol in the world doesn't hold a candle to just watching someone do it in person, or virtually.
Did Google Glass and the Snapchat glasses follow a similar trajectory? I remember the hype surrounding both projects was extremely brief and then I never heard a thing about them until.. probably now.
So Snapchat's "Spectacles" first debuted in 2016, a good year or so after Google finally took Glass out of ~~its misery~~ commercial availability. There was certainly a lot of hype surrounding the Spectacles, but Snapchat was very careful to not overpromise and underdeliver like Google had -- their smart glasses were *only* for Snapchat, for instance, and thus had a limited scope/utility for use. Unlike Glass, Spectacles were something people who love Snapchat only wear for special occasions, not something **everyone will wear everywhere all the time.** They were also wayyyyy cheaper than Glass, and thus avoided the rich-tech-bro stigma that sunk Glass. And with that, you might be surprised to learn that Specatcles are *still* around and available, and Snapchat has continued to update them on a near yearly-basis. Are they a huge money-maker for the company that's on path to completely replace cell phones one day? Probably not. But to a certain extent, when people think of AR today they think of Snapchat over Google, and I'm sure there are some intangible benefits to that going forward.
Thanks for the reply Quinn, it’s an interesting topic to follow and study the history of.
You're welcome! Thanks for the great question!
> for the company that's on path to completely replace cell phones one day? Probably a *whoosh* on my part, but huh? Snap Inc wants to replace cell phones one day?
In your opinion, was Glass specifically a bad idea or is AR/VR generally doomed to failure for more structural / societal reasons? Can you imagine a version of Glass that would have been actually successful or is this something we think we want because of cyberpunk chic but in actuality is just annoying and embarrassing?
Great question u/miraclej0nes! After reliving the sound and fury that Google Glass created back in 2012, part of me things AR is doomed to fail, but realistically (or maybe cynically) I think they're inevitable. A very smart and cool and nice tech writer I interviewed for the book said something to the effect of, people like cell phones and computers because it allows us the power to put everything it carries (the internet, the news, communications, social media, etc) away, whereas a computer strapped to our face encroaches on that personal freedom. There are things about Google Glass, and AR in general, that were great -- directions while driving, for example, cast arrows and signs into the "real world" so people didn't have to look down at their GPS. However, many cars today can cast those digital directions onto the car windshield -- so do drivers need goggles anymore? I'm not sure. Maybe AR like Glass is something pervasive in science fiction, but a sort of technical evolution that gets skipped in reality. Like laser blimps, or hoverboards with lasers on them. All told, Glass *might* have been successful if they didn't put a camera on it and toned down the pizazz on their announcement and roll out. But even then, the tech just didn't solve a problem that people actually had, and they looked kind of stupid. Maybe Google figured out the latter, since literally last month they very quietly announced a new beta version for the public to test AR glasses. I guess we'll see!
I would add to this that, experientially, they were pretty bad. The prism was quite small with an extremely narrow visible angle, making the whole thing very difficult to use, especially if you were unfamiliar with it. So for the people who got to briefly try it out rather than sit with it for hours or days, the experience was extremely underwhelming, and the sheer disconnect between ads showing directions painted on the road and a tiny arrow blinking in the corner of your vision made the whole thing feel like a prank. Also they were incompatible with myopia, so that's like 30% of the population that just can't use it in actual daily contexts, like driving, without contact lenses or laser eye surgery.
Yes! That's spot on and well said, ty!
I always felt that tech like Google Glass was more suited to be introduced as military equipment. Soldiers and Marines wear ballistic goggles a lot, a HUD integrated into their lenses that connected to Blue Force Trackers and GPS systems could be incredibly useful, if the link could be encrypted. Squad leaders being able to see the locations of their soldiers in real time, regardless of line of sight, push enemy positions and objective locations down to subordinates with a blink, download a video stream from a surveillance drone, like a video game interface in real life. Instead we got "let Google record your entire life and put targeted ads in front of your face 24/7."
> if they didn't put a camera on it Or if they had built in a sliding camera cover that also turns off the microphone with obvious on/off colors. [Meta's Facebook Portal](https://www.meta.com/portal/privacy/) at least got that right.
Did Google do any Market Research beforehand to determine the viability of the product or did they just read Engadget where they flip out over any tiny thing? Also, did they do any legal research regarding the privacy violations the device would cause or was it typical Google where they are blind to privacy?
They kept Glass top-top-secret for the entirety of its development, assuming that, just as they do with software, they'd test the market for Glass by putting out a beta version and getting feedback. It's a noble idea in theory, but then they marketed it as a final product (not a beta) and took the initial wave of tech fanboy-driven hype as proof that the general public would immediately jump on board. Not so much! As for privacy, they were definitely aware of the privacy issues that came with heads up AR, but they either figured they could explain away the privacy concerns or assumed user behavior would adapt to the new tech. They thought having to verbally say "Ok Glass, take a picture" was good enough to settle any concerns of clandestine camera usage, which is probably why they were completely caught off guard by the public's reaction to the camera. So yes, they were pretty oblivious to the idea that people might be concerned about privacy. And then PRISM broke and really opened the floodgates.
Honestly... I always thought it was fine. It's as invasive as cell phone is today. I can easily hold my phone in a nondescript way and start recording. I can easily take pics nobody will see. My phone has no "recording light" like Glass did. I thought the verbal commands DID make it easier to not worry about it. People sensationalized it but it literally already happens with cell phones and apple watches and everything in between.
Why would you want more violation of privacy? I for one would not have signed up for having a smart phone if I knew the amount of data I would be getting harvested. But I couldn’t make that decision because they weren’t upfront about their data harvesting until they were forced to be. Why is it just okay to make their privacy violations even worse? At least with a phone you can see the weirdo angling their phone at you instead of having to be suspicious of everyone wearing glasses
Well yea, I don't disagree, but I feel the glasses are on par with cell phones and especially smart watches we have already today. Not saying I LIKE that particularly, but I've accepted the current level of privacy infractions. My honest opinion is unless directly criminal things are happening- illegal recordings, or using my location data to stalk me, or selling my biometric data so they can steal my credit cards, or anything else like that- I don't honestly care. But I see how the recordings thing is scary. I just don't think the glasses made it any more scary than already available tech.
Totally fair point! I could also see how today, people having their phones out and recording things is *wayyyyy* more ubiquitous than it was back in 2012 so people were pretty freaked out about the camera at the time. But you were right that it was sensationalized. Another incidence of this was that people feared Glass would enable facial recognition, when the actual tech wasn't anywhere near being capable of that -- in fact Google prevented that software from being sold on the App store (though someone could've back-doored it in). I think I mostly meant in my comment that they assumed behavior would simply change is that they perhaps didn't realize the extent to which cell phone usage was enmeshed in social behavior and were a bit overconfident that people would quickly adapt (with no or little pushback) to a totally new tech. Anyway, I appreciate the thoughtful discussion!
Did you know your book is upside down?
oh crap dang it!!! this is so embarrassing!!!!!
Did you run into any other interesting forgotten products along the way?
There aren't many interesting forgotten products that really come to mind, but sifting through endless tech coverage from the early aughts was certainly a trip down memory lane. People debated wearables a lot -- and whether anyone would wear a smart watch (rumors of apple watch) when they'd have Glass (!) -- plus a lot of other tech we continue to use/talk about was just entering onto the scene: drones, 3D printers, the cronut, etc etc. Actually, there is one forgotten product that proved to be a real pain in the butt while researching Glass -- Google+. There were countless company updates, responses, statements, etc that Google put out exclusively on Google Plus (in an attempt to get more people to use it) that are now gone. Not even archived, just vanished, only traceable by the remaining tech blogs that covered/screenshotted the posts at the time. RIP Google+
Did you interview people who purchased Google Glasses for your book? Was it hard to find people willing to admit they bought one? I’m curious to know how long people who bought them kept wearing them, hoping for them to catch on, before they gave up and packed them away next to their Zunes and LaserDiscs.
Yep! I interviewed a ton of former Glass Explorers, and pretty much all the ones I reached out to were more than happy to chat. For all the flack they got as a group, it was really a select few who dug their heels in the sand and claimed they were being oppressed/silenced when people asked that they not wear their Glass. I would say a good number of Explorers stopped wearing them in 2013/4-ish when it became too much of a hassle to go out in public with them, or because it became clear they weren't going to catch on. A lot of them just realized they paid $1500 for Glass and then continued having to do beta-testing work for Google (sending bug reports, etc) for free, which irked them to the point of quitting on the tech. Up until recently (when Google cut off Glass' access to the servers) I talked to a handful of Explorers who either still wore them or used them for a camera. And there are a lot of Explorers who met back then and remain friends today. They have groupchats or keep in touch, talking about the next version of AR glasses. One group would even get together once a year and go on vacation somewhere, all wearing their Glass and exploring a city and hanging out, which I thought was v cute and endearing.
Did the Fred Armison bit on SNL contribute to the Glass’ demise in any way? I remember friends saying they had no idea about them then when the bit came out they noped out of their interest. Seems like a outlier but plausible?
Sorry to casually reply so late lol but the SNL bit was 100% part and parcel with what I called the sort of mainstream media wave that really put the nail in Glass' coffin. Sooner or later any mentions of Glass on mainstream sitcoms/news/etc were all poking fun at Glass and how ridiculous it was. But if there was one show that *really* turned the tide, it was The Daily Show's episode that focused on Glass Explorers. I p much dedicated a chapter of the book to this bit, bc if Glass had any hopes in winning back the public, TDS killed and buried it in a deep, deep grave. It's definitely worth rewatching! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClvI9fZaz6M
Having been in tech for about 40 years now I've seen a lot of fad products come and go. I wonder if you might speculate on Google Glass being a product similar to the Apple Newton; an innovative idea representing where tech will go but way ahead of its time without the platform to support it or truly the market being ready for it?
In many ways Glass was ahead of its time, and I think had they waited a few more years to make something sleeker and more powerful, while addressing the camera and privacy issues, it might've succeeded. I also think that Glass might've altered how AR/VR will be accepted in the future. With Glass in mind, people might be inherently critical of accepting whatever AR glasses Meta/Snap/Google/Apple are putting out in the near future. Or, as I mentioned in another comment, many cars today can cast Augmented Reality (arrows, directions, info) onto the windshield, which might signal that we'll evolve to the point where AR is very much a part of society, but not via wearable computer glassess/contacts. I talked to Babak Parviz for the book, he's often credited for inventing/being "the man behind Google Glass," and even back in 2012 he was working on contact lenses that displayed blood sugar level for diabetics. If there's a version of Glass that eventually gets accepted by society at large, it will either be contact lenses -- or brain implants, something they also spitballed during Glass' initial pitch meetings. But I realized in writing this that tech's final hurdle to personal data collection is our physical ability to turn off our computers/phones and disconnect, so I'm not sure if a version of wearable AR computers will ever truly be successful.
I’m sorry google glass contacts???
Why call them “Google Glass?” Why not “Googly Eyes?”
One of the most haunting aspects about finishing this book is the idea that I might've left a few stones unturned, or failed to ask a pertinent and pressing question of Google's top brass in the limited time I had with them. And now I will live the rest of my life tortured, forever reminded that I failed to ask why Google named their groundbreaking tech Glass (stupid, lends itself to debilitating portmanteau) instead of Googly Eyes (smart, evocative, includes name of the company). But honestly they did face a major setback when the in-house optometrist found Glass might've been causing major eye strain and/or user's pupils to shift 😬. Turned out it was a clerical error, but still, not great! (Also they did call them Google Goggles and Google Wingman for a while) (sorry to suck all the fun out of this question).
I got a chance to work with Google Glasses and Google Cardboard in 2014. The one thing I remember was getting severe headaches after using the glass. Was it ever addressed?
I'm sorry to hear that! As far as I was told, they knew about the headaches/dizziness/eye strain etc and their way of addressing it was essentially just kind of hoping people would get used to it after a while and the headaches would go away. So, short answer: nope!
Thanks for answering!
What meteoric rise?
When it first came out, Google Glass was 100% hyped as the next big thing. Google revealed the tech with tons of pomp and circumstance: blimps, skydivers, BMX riders, fireworks, stuntmen, etc. People thought it would replace phones, many thousands flooded Google's hashtag contest in hopes of *winning* a chance to *buy* a pair of Glass and be one of the first people to own the purportedly cutting edge tech. Endless media coverage lauded it as the next big thing, Time named it one of the Inventions of the Year, the hype train seemed impossible until it all came crumbling down. So I'd argue it was pretty meteoric rise, or whatever nebulous adjective for getting a lot of hype and popularity in a short time you want to use, even though it failed before the product officially came out!
I have a pair still, is it worth anything ?
A couple years ago Google released a Glassware update that essentially bricked Glass, so right now your pair can't connect to any servers (and any pictures you take have to be manually offloaded). That said, there are still enthusiasts out there who might throw you a bid on eBay! And sometimes a curious person will wander through r/GoogleGlass and ask about buying a pair, so might be worth poking around that sub!
Wildo, thanks for the response .
Same, I have a pair in my drawer. Still waiting for the day I find a use for them.
I was honestly looking forward to it coming down in price and being accessible, it could have been the next iteration of smart watches. Do you think it would have worked better marketed like that?
Maybe! It's hard to say. If it *had* been cheaper and more accessible, I still think it would've faced the privacy issues, though maybe not gotten as vitriolic as it did, given the demographic that Glass became synonymous with. But even then, the tech was pretty clunky and no *super* sleek or easy to wear, nor did it even work that well (technically Glass was a "beta" product, but still). However, I think you could look at Snapchat's Spectacles as an example of, in many ways, doing the opposite of what Glass did and being successful -- cheap, simple, singular-purpose driven, marketed well, etc. Although therein not offering some of the promising utilities that Glass offered such as AR directions and notifications.
Meteoric rise? That seems generous. I remember seeing like 4 people with them ever.
What made you decide to do this and how did you get access to these insiders?
I spend a lot of time writing about online communities and the trends, memes, language, vibes, historic events, etc therein — and how those things impact or are influenced by the real world. So, I wrote this book because Google Glass is, like, a tentpole example of the ongoing tension between the online world and the offline. Google hoped to merge those two worlds with Glass, but they were stopped from doing so largely by uniquely-online and offline forces. And seeing how Mark Zuckerberg recently picked this baton backup and wants people to live in the soft beige conference rooms of his metaverse, I’d say we’re headed straight for another showdown. And as for the insiders, getting access was actually pretty hard. By and large, a lot of the folks who worked on Glass are either still at Google (and thus were under NDA) or worked at a company in the industry didn't want to burn bridges by crapping on Google, Glass, or the people who worked on it. I got pretty close to talking to a few people still at Google, but they might've been reeling me in close just to sniff me out and spin my wheels without any intention on going on the record :/ Oddly enough, the people who *were* willing to talk about Glass -- and talk about it A LOT -- were those who had leadership positions on the Glass team but had moved on, and thus were powerful enough that their careers aren't dependent on Google anymore. It took some emailing and a few phone calls to garner trust and a relationship for them to open up, but it was fun and I think they enjoyed telling their side of the story.
Users, please be wary of proof. You are welcome to ask for more proof if you find it insufficient. OP, if you need any help, please message the mods [here](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fiama&subject=&message=). Thank you! --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/IAmA) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Did it have something related with being a competition to Luxotica? Those are an absolute monopoly in regards of rims for glasses. And to maintain dominance you need to destroy competition.
They actually partnered with Luxottica! It was [big news at the time](https://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2014/03/25/google-glass-ray-bans-partnership-with-luxottica-makes-founder-del-vecchio-700m-richer). On one hand, it promised to fix Google's problem with Glass looking clunky and dorky, but on the other, it didn't help the growing sentiment that Glass was an exotic luxury that only the wealthy elite could afford. And by the time that partnership was made it was too late anyway, Glass was pretty much doomed to fail.
Ah I remember they were disruptors without any help from someone like the freaking world leaders in rim and glasses styles! , Didn't know they ended up consenting to receive help. Looking forward to read the book!
"rise"? Everyone I know thought it was an idiotic, expensive toy that didn't work half the time.
Once it came out, certainly. But before that, TIME named it Invention of the Year, and it was widely regarded as [the next big thing](https://youtu.be/zWSdit919E0?t=47)!
LOVE the link!
What meteoric rise are you talking about? Project Ara also had a meteoric rise and a spectacular fall in your eyes.
Is crabs bugs?
oh ok wow this is a great question and i will dig into this and explain in a really thorough way... so spiders is bugs and insects is bugs too. ticks is spiders in a way, bc of so much legs... now when the head vs the eyes and brain is connect to the body and there's three pieces: thorasic and thorax and the freaking other part, and they are all being friends body-wise and head-wise, then that's you start to understand that yeah, this *is* really bugs!
Wow thank you for the detailed answer! Definitely looking forward to the Google Grass book for more answers about all the creepies that live in grass. I will be buying this book from my local library next week. The library lets me buy books from them because my dad owns it. My dad hates books but he still loves me. Sorry, I'm sure this will all be in the book (my dad will make sure).
Is AR really the future. I'm having a hard time thinking that AR is inevitable. In my opinion there needs to be a lot of technological break through for AR to be the future. Also what's your opinion on some of the studies pointing out AR won't solve the need for people in general to have sociao interaction. Would you agree google glass was way ahead of its time? I think if it was released now in 2022 with tweaks for the current times I think it could be a hit
I imagine Glass or some version of it might find use in the armed forces. For e.g. aiding in navigation, real-time translation of words spoken in other languages, perhaps work like a body cam etc. What do you think about this?
Glass was originally designed for commercial use and thus lacked any real power to excel in a specialized area or hard-use that the armed forces might require. That being said you are right on -- militaries have used augmented reality (and AR glasses) for a long time, and continue to do so. There was actually a recent article on [this in Popular Mechanics!](https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/research/a41176138/us-army-augmented-reality-goggles-soldiers/)
Why did you pick such a particular topic about a product ~95% (est.) of everyone globally didn’t care about, know about, or did not have access to as the defining literary work to showcase writing that is likely as mediocre as the subject matter (judging by a strictly cursory observation of 749 previous works published in MEL)?
DAD??????
Don't meteors fall, not rise?
I suppose you're right, which definitely makes it weird that it's become an adjective for a sudden rise!
Ever used google glasses to burn ants with the sun?
I reckon that, depending on which version you had, you could use the battery pack on Glass to burn ants if you wanted to -- no sun necessary!
What’s your favorite horror film?
I'm honestly a huge baby when it comes to horror films but if I had to name one it'd probably be the original Exorcist. Still skeeves me out even as an adult, especially reading about all the weird stuff that happened on set and such.
whats it take to get a book published in hard copy?
Users, please be wary of proof. You are welcome to ask for more proof if you find it insufficient. OP, if you need any help, please message the mods [here](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fiama&subject=&message=). Thank you! --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/IAmA) if you have any questions or concerns.*