For those hoping to get their hands on Google Glass, fear not. The search giant is working towards a larger rollout of the futuristic specs.
"The goal is to make it more available so those who want Glass can get Glass," Timothy Jordan, Google's senior development advocate, said during a Saturday appearance at the Engadget Expand conference in New York.
Google is slowly working towards that goal. While Glass was initially available to only a handful of developers who attended Google I/O, the company recently expanded its pool of Glass Explorers, as they are known, allowing users to invite three friends to purchase the $1,500 device. Those buyers can also have an orientation over Google Hangouts now rather than in-person meetings in San Francisco, New York, or Los Angeles.
Original Explorers, meanwhile, can now swap their spectacles for a newer model with a mono earbud – a move that will allow Glass to work with future lines of shades and prescription lenses.
The need to integrate personal frames into Glass was one of the most important lessons learned during the initial rollout, Jordan said. Some innovators even built their own Glass-attached hardware with 3D printers.
Not everyone is sold yet on the idea of wearable technology – from smartwatches to wrist-based fitness trackers to Google's space-age specs. A new Harris Interactive poll found that nearly half of Americans are "at least a little interested" in owning a watch-like device, while 27 percent are "very or somewhat interested." Fewer expressed an attraction to headsets or glasses.
But Jordan believes in the greater good of Google Glass, which he said actually keeps technology out of users' way, but is instantly accessible when needed.
"It seems ironic that by bringing technology closer you can get more out of the way," he said.
In that vein, Jordan explained that he no longer has to dig for his smartphone, unlock it, find the appropriate app, and take a photo or send a message. Now, decked out in his blue Glass headset, it takes only moments and a simple voice command to start recording a video or call up an email.
"I find it intuitive," he said. "It's natural; it works with what we're already doing," like writing texts and Googling everything in sight.
The company isn't looking to replace your smartphone, but to simply act as a companion device. Jordan doesn't believe that people will ever carry just one computer to rule them all, especially while there is such diversity of technology, he said.
Jordan spent two years as a social engineer on the Google+ team before joining the Glass venture, which at the time was only a moonshot, as co-founder Larry Page affectionately calls the company's grandest ideas. Jordan said he was inspired when he first tried on the spectacles, and expects future Glass users to feel the same.
"I had that 'wow' moment. It is like nothing else that's out there," he said.
For more, see Google Glass: Everything You Need to Know.
via Technology - Google News http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNE_zuORZgXwa2mL0mNHX3iwQE-Gyw&url=http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2426940,00.asp
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