What is the point of smart glasses? At best they’ll have the computing capabilities of a smartphone, so a pair of smart glasses...
What is the point of smart glasses? At best they’ll have the computing capabilities of a smartphone, so a pair of smart glasses sounds functionally similar to, say, a headband with a pocket for a smartphone.
The glasses can do one thing the headband can’t: it can produce visual hallucinations. But this sounds incompatible with most of daily life. and not of enough benefit to justify the radical lifestyle change.
This is from Facebook – does it sound like an inspirational futuristic dream to you? To me it sounds like “Clippy, for your visual field”:
Imagine a pair of glasses that add a 3D layer of useful, contextually-relevant and meaningful information on top of the physical world. Such a device could help us perform everyday tasks better — like finding your keys, navigating a new city, or capturing a moment; but it could also open up an entirely new way of moving through the world. Smartphones are amazing devices, and they’re getting better all the time. But at Facebook Reality Labs, we’re envisioning a time when we have all the benefits of connectivity (and more), without the need to keep our heads and our eyes down, looking at a device. Imagine calling a friend and chatting with their lifelike avatar across the table. Imagine a digital assistant smart enough to detect road hazards, offer up stats during a business meeting, or even help you hear better in a noisy environment. This is a world where the device itself disappears entirely into the ebb and flow of everyday life.
Seriously, “offer up stats during a business meeting”? This sounds like an ill-conceived product from a Tim and Eric “Cinco" sketch!
It would be cool to have a HUD for things like the time, your text messages or emails (or at least the subject line), navigation, maybe your heart rate if you’re exercising, even the title of a song that’s playing on your headphones.
In theory, I think it could be pretty unobtrusive. I mean the HUD idea worked great for pilots! It’s not glasses, but it’s the same idea of having an overlay on the visual field.
The stats during a business meeting idea is pretty stupid, I agree.
Speaking as a person who runs weekly D&D sessions, “additional info immediately to hand” sounds incredible. I would absolutely love that.
Right now I have a laptop for that, but it has kind of limited screen real estate - if I could just look left and see a stat block, while having my actual field of view in front of me, towards the players, free from distractions, that would be pretty great.
But I don’t trust these people to punch a nail into wood, much less device actually-useful smart glasses.
Like, think about how every first-person video game has minimaps, destinations, compasses, tags, meters, goal reminders, notifications, highlights of important objects, etc. overlaid in the visual plane
Because humans find it useful!
Like I very specifically remember when we got smartphones with Google Maps and even MapQuest was instantly obsoleted because everyone got a world map on the Pause screen