From amazing to declining: Two years of Google Glass

Apart from Google Glass, there may be no other cutting-edge technology product in the world that is so amazing when it was born and so bleak when it declined.

Early

You will definitely remember that Google has a lab called Google[x] that reports directly to the founder, has the highest level of resources at Google, and can spend hundreds of millions of dollars to develop projects that seem to have nothing to do with Google's core business. In fact, Google Glass is one of the earliest projects that eventually survived: Project Glass.

As early as 2011, Project Glass was testing early versions of Google Glass prototypes. At that time, the team used regular glasses frames and replaced the lenses with a special HUD (Head-Up Display) module.

Fortunately, the final result is not the one on the left.

Fortunately, the final result is not the one on the left. / Picture from the Internet (the picture on the left is not related to the text)

At that time, the Google Glass prototype weighed 8 pounds, about 3.6 kilograms, while the finished Google Glass weighs less than a pair of ordinary sunglasses, only 50 grams. In April 2012, Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google and leader of the Google Glass project, wore Google Glass for the first time at an event in San Francisco, attracting global attention. Although Google Glass was still a prototype at the time, its shape was exactly the same as the Google Glass Explorer Edition that is now on sale. 10 years ago, a computing device with the same computing power might weigh several kilograms, and the embodiment of Moore's Law on Google Glass amazed people.

Google Glass's controversial two years began with its stunning debut in 2012.

come out

Google Glass is not the world's first "wearable smart display device". As early as the 1980s, the US military had already used HUDs embedded in helmets in some branches of the Air Force to connect to aircraft fire control systems, etc. Two different eras, two different HUDs, but the appearance of Google Glass after its official launch still left most people with the impression of "high-tech", "military", and "spy tool".

Google Glass low battery indicator

Under a U-shaped metal frame, the wearer is covered from the right ear to the right eye by the long body of Google Glass. The body contains the device's processor, touch control panel, camera, projection display module and other components. It was developed by Google[x] and manufactured by Foxconn. It is driven by a dual-core 1.2 GHz Texas Instruments OMAP 4430 SoC, with 2GB of RAM (upgraded from 1GB in the first generation) and 16GB of flash memory, a Himax HX7309 LCoS prism projection display with a resolution of 640 x 360, and a 5-megapixel camera. The lithium polymer battery of the glasses has a capacity of only 570 mAh, and can last for about 3-5 hours under light use (taking photos or searching on Google). The battery life level can only be described as poor (pictured above).

At the 2012 Google I/O conference, Google Glass parachuted onto the roof of the conference site, and through Hangouts video sharing, the audience at the conference site and the audience watching the I/O live broadcast around the world could experience the feeling of high-altitude landing from a first-person perspective. The amazing product was unveiled in a cool way, and for a moment people were shocked by the sense of future technology and forgot to think about its daily usability and defects:

Despite its limited functionality, Google Glass still ranks alongside the Curiosity rover that took selfies on Mars as one of Time magazine's best inventions of 2012:

But after calming down, Google Glass did not receive any honors to be praised in its subsequent career. On the contrary, it received more criticism and doubts than praise.

question

For quite a long time, the purchase threshold, the high price of $1,500, and the potential invasion of privacy have become the main reasons why Google Glass has been unpopular in the market.

After the official announcement, Google Glass was only available to developers who had a partnership with Google for a year, and was called the Developer Edition. In April 2013, Google officially named the glasses available to the public Google Glass Explorer Edition, and sold them to Google-certified "Glass Explorers" for $1,500. A year later, in May 2014, Google began to sell this Explorer version to the public.

Let’s not consider the price: consumers who want to buy this device to try something new are not necessarily developers, not to mention how few developers have a partnership with Google and are “certified” by Google. In fact, using the basic functions of Google Glass, such as reading notifications, viewing map directions and searching for content, does not require users to have much development knowledge - Google Glass is the augmented reality human-computer interaction product that people have ever seen, and is closest to the public’s expectations, but it has not been available to the public for quite a long time. The purchase threshold has become the first sin of Google Glass.

What can you buy for $1,500? Two mid-range and high-end iPhones of the year, or several Nexus 4 or 5. The Explorer Edition was sold to the public at the same price as the Developer Edition, disappointing many people who were looking forward to a chance to own it.

Recently, there have been rumors that Google will launch a second version sometime next year, which may be a version of Google Glass officially for the general public, and the price may be as low as a few hundred dollars. However, the price of $1,500 has already worn out the willingness of potential consumers to buy it in the past two years. The high price has become the second sin of Google Glass.

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In November 2014, Sergey Brin looked a little haggard without Google Glass.

Sergey Brin's original intention of personally leading the team to create Google Glass may be good, but he himself admitted that the actual result was different from what he imagined, or even completely the opposite: because of the two sins mentioned above, there are not many Google Glass users. Therefore, these users seem to be more isolated from the public around them.

The public has always been very resistant to the fact that people wearing Google Glass can take photos of themselves without others knowing. Many casinos in Las Vegas, the gambling capital of the United States, have banned people wearing Google Glass from entering; in October this year, the Motion Picture Association of America and the National Association of Theater Owners also banned the use of wearable devices including Google Glass in theaters. Because of the fear of being secretly photographed, Google Glass users have even been called "Glasshole" (Glass+Asshole). This is no wonder. Applications like Winky allow users to take photos by blinking. Under such conditions, who would feel at ease? The potential invasion of privacy has become the third sin of Google Glass.

decline

A few days ago, a Reuters report revealed that Google Glass, which had been on a pedestal for the past two years, began to feel the hostility of the world. Consumers did not buy it, developers had no enthusiasm, and even engineers in the project team left one after another. As for the so-called next-generation product, the public version? There is not even a shadow of it.

Rumored Google Glass second generation patent map

Google Glass once carried people's hopes for augmented reality, but it eventually fell due to various problems, leaving those who paid attention to it sad. Google Glass brought a new human-computer interaction mode and completely changed people's understanding of PDA (Personal Digital Assistant). But unfortunately, it ultimately failed to become a "ubiquitous" computing device serving the public as Sergey Brin had envisioned.

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