Google Glass - Another Step Towards Intelligent Services

I again viewed “Why Google Glass” presented by Sergey Brin (2013) at a TED conference.  Brin who is a cofounder of Google, introduced the Google Glass and the motivation behind its creation which took about two years.  Essentially, Glass is a wearable, WiFi-connected computer with an optical head-mounted display to capture photos and record 720p HD video.  In addition to third-party developed apps, Glass incorporates Google applications such as Google Now, Google Maps, Google+, and Gmail.  The intent was to have information come to the individual as needed, mirroring the original vision for the Google search engine.  Glass, shown in Figure 1, brings low-cost, hands-free Internet access useful for any number of safety and productivity functions such as law enforcement (recording arrests), email, directions, and video chat.

 

Google Glass represents a seed endorsed by the public; the YouTube video “One Day…” that announced Glass on April 4, 2012 has logged more than 21.6 million viewers.  Pedersen and Trueman (2013) summarized the technological and social forces impacting this innovation, “Glass’s birth is not only a marketing phenomenon heralding a technical prototype, we also argue and speculate that Glass’s popularization is an instigator for the adoption of a new paradigm in human-computer interaction” (p. 2089).  The fundamentals of a connected society are in place to support the graduated deployment of more sophisticated social networking devices and contextual intelligent support.  In particular, two forces stood out to me as impacting the innovation illustrated in the video:  technological and social.

Technological Force:

As noted by Baldwin (2012), currently there are several glasses with integrated displays, though the technology will continue to advance significantly to offer more sophisticated and comprehensive capabilities such as 3D hologram display and contextual information.  The innovation continues due a deeper integration among the individual, the physical device, and the social environment.  These factors are indicative of the forces that are shaping how people want to embrace their personal computing experience (addressed separately as a Social Force), as well as the wider infrastructure implications.  Greenfield (2010) provided the concept of Everyware to describe ubiquitous computing.  A more encompassing, progressive approach embeds degrees of reasoning support into the environment.  As stated by Augusto (2007), “The basic idea behind AmI [ambient intelligence] is that by enriching an environment with technology (mainly sensors and devices interconnected through a network), a system can be built to make decisions to benefit the users of that environment based on real-time information gathered and historical data accumulated” (p. 214).  The backend support for the transmission, storage, and security for ever-growing amounts of data is a concern.  Hyman (2013) observed that, “If cloud security is an issue to be reckoned with today, the problem will only worsen as more and more data is saved and backed up to the cloud” (p. 18).  Koning (2013) further noted the contradiction between the autonomic behavior of ambient computing systems hidden from the user and a central objective of data protection to precisely and fully identify purpose limitations, stating that, “As a rule, the purposes need to be specified prior to, and in any event, not later than, the time when the collection of personal data occurs” (p. 10).

Social Force:

Unlike some innovations that may be subtle or require time to discern, the Glass is clearly distinguishable not unlike the introduction of the Sony Walkman or the Apple iPod though more so for the later due to the online support represented by the iTunes application and store.  Similar to other portable personal electronic devices, wearable heads-up displays are beginning to realize a form, capabilities, and price that consumers may find attractive, perhaps leading to either supplementing or as an alternative to other types of mobile handhelds.  A survey by BiTE interactive (2013) found that 10 percent of American smart phone users would buy and regularly use Google Glass if they could afford it.  Fung (2013) also noted that compared with the iPhone’s deployment history, “In the first quarter of its existence [beginning June 2007], the iPhone made just 270,000 sales.  It took another two years for it to break the 31-million mark.”  Cumulative iPhone sales since 2007 will reach over 318 units in 2013.  But unlike smart phones which are refined versions of cell phones, Glass is a different type of product not previously seen in the marketplace, making it challenging to gauge the consumers’ acceptance.  However, given the success of other social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, people readily seek social connectivity.  Glass therefore represents the union of ubiquitous computing and an information-driven society immersed in an augmented reality environment.

What I found most interesting about the video was the fact that we can identify a demarcation point, one of those rare moments when in the future we will be able to look back and singularize an Internet-era milestone not unlike the first Web browser (1990), Wi-Fi (1991), the one billionth Facebook user (2012), and greater than one petabits per second transmission over optical fiber (2013).  As a wearable personal computer, in Google Glass we can observe a synergy of cloud and communication systems in support of an individual’s immediate information demands within a dynamic environment.  With future enhancements that take into consideration a user’s stored preferences and data history, Glass would provide the precursor to a basic personal expert system by offering the user timely, customized recommendations.  The Glass template might not make people smarter would be enable them to make more informed choices. 

References

Augusto, J. C. (2007). Ambient intelligence: the confluence of ubiquitous/pervasive computing and artificial intelligence. In Intelligent Computing Everywhere (pp. 213-234). Springer London. 

Baldwin, R. (2012, November 4). 6 glasses with integrated displays that you can buy today. Retrieved on 12 July 2013 from http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/04/6-glasses-with-integrated-displays-that-you-can-buy-today/ 

BiTE interactive. (2013, May 15). Only one in 10 American smartphone owners would wear google glass regularly. Retrieved on 12 July 2013 from http://www.bite-interactive.com/blog/only-one-10-american-smartphone-owners-would-wear-google-glass-regularly 

Brin, S. (2013, May). Why Google Glass? In presentation at TED conference (filmed February 2013), www. ted.com/index. php/talks/sergey_brin_why_google_glass. html 

Fung, B. (2013, May 30). A staggering share of americans would use google glass if they could. Retrieved on 12 July 2013 from http://www.nationaljournal.com/tech/a-staggering-share-of-americans-would-use-google-glass-if-they-could-20130515 

Google. (2012, April 4). Project Glass: One day... Retrieved on 12 July 2013 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c6W4CCU9M4 

Greenfield, A. (2010). Everyware: The dawning age of ubiquitous computing. New Riders .

Hyman, P. (2013). Augmented-reality glasses bring cloud security into sharp focus. Communications of the ACM, 56(6), 18-20. 

Koning, M. E. (2013) Purpose limitation and ambient computing. Retrieved on 12 July 2013 from http://www.pilab.nl/ifip-summerschool-2013/submissions/Koning.pdf 

Pedersen, I., & Trueman, D. (2013, April). Sergey Brin is Batman: Google’s project glass and the instigation of computer adoption in popular culture. In CHI’13 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 2089-2098). ACM.