According to a curiosity-based report in New York Magazine, it appears that Google Glass “Glassholes” are still hanging onto their devices, like the guy who still prefers to transfer everything to VHS before showing off his collection of Betamax devices and lamenting the lack of ability to transfer VHS to Betamax. Yet, some Google Glass users have been unable to move on, cradling the corpse of their failing devices as they grip to the cliff of technology with weakening fingers.
Back in 2013 I wrote the following, and while it was based on a reasonable awareness of how people would behave with the technology, it did lend to the overwhelmingly negative response to Google Glass. I’m now going to quote myself.
Google Glass terrifies me. Not the technology itself – that is amazing. No, what scares me about Google Glass is that it is going to be on the faces of people.
People that utilize public transportation. People that go to the same playground as my kids. People that attend the same conferences, drive the same roads, stand in line at Starbucks and so on. People that exist alongside me, adding another piece of technology to their jigsaw puzzle of daily ignorance and sub-human behavior. Google Glass scares me because I don’t think humanity is ready for it.
I’m not going to run through the history of Google Glass, we all know how quickly the world turned against the innovative product from Google. It is certainly a future device, even if tied to the now defunct Google+, but one that was released decades earlier than society would accept. While we might be living in the future, there is much more future yet to come and that’s where Google Glass belongs — in the future of shows like Altered Carbon or Minority Report, where we accept and function in an AR heavy world.
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Moving to Enterprise solutions found a second life for Google Glass, but that is outside the purview of the regular consumer. For us, we saw Google Glass for what it was, something that went on our faces — other people’s faces — and invaded what little privacy we were clinging onto at the time. That was five years ago, and with Facebook continuously challenging our sense of privacy, Google Glass no longer has any place among the living and consuming public.
It has been mentioned that Google Glass could make a comeback in regards to augmented reality. This could be true, but it likely won’t be at the hands of Google, rather I would surmise that Apple would create a similar device to compliment its ARKit projects. While Google does have ARCore, it would be a risky gamble to try to resurrect a product that died with most of us dancing on its grave.
Yet, with Apple apparently rumored to be bringing back the iPod Touch, a device no one needs, it’s possible to think that maybe at some point, Google will circle back to Google Glass, re-engineer it for an AR/VR world and try again. Regardless of the social impact, its functionality and design would be perfect for an AR world. Could you imagine if Google Glass was widely adapted when Pokémon GO became a thing? If Google had launched Glass paired with a game like that, we might all be wearing them.
But saying that Google Glass is …….
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/curtissilver/2019/01/29/google-glass-dead-glassholes-lives-on/