IEEE Spectrum ran a very interesting interview with Google Glass head Babak Parviz, who talked a little about some of the features Google has been working on for the highly anticipated device.
We knew Google was essentially working on a way to see the world through your eyes. Sergey Brin posted a Google+ update last year talking about how Glass was automatically taking a picture every 10 seconds “without any distraction or disruption”. One could imagine how this combined with an Instant Upload-like feature would pretty much equate to letting Google see through your eyes.
Parviz confirmed this mentality in the interview, saying, “Right now, we don’t have any devices that are specifically engineered to connect to others using images or video. So we wanted to have a device that would see the world through your eyes and allow you to share that view with other people.”
He also said that the current version of Glass has a touchpad that lets you change things on the device (not sure how that would work with contacts), that Google has been experimenting with voice commands and head gestures for it, and that they’re working on getting it to accept phone calls. This is all stuff you would probably expect it to be capable of, but it’s nice to hear it actually being discussed.
Parviz also indicated that Google will rely in part on developers to help figure out what the platform is really able to do (much as developers have done with smartphones and tablets).
Despite the amusing parody videos to the contrary, Parviz says Google has no plans for advertising on the device “at the moment”. This shouldn’t really come as much of a surprise. Google doen’t really even have ads on Google+ yet. It’s probably wise to get people using it first. Still, one can only imagine that the ads would come in the potential apps – again, much as they do on smartphones and tablets.
The plan is still for Google to ship Glass to developers early this year. It remains to be seen how long it will be before consumers can get their hands on it. Hopefully by then, Google will have the battery problem solved. According to Parviz, the hope is that they’ll be able to have one powerful enough to last a whole day, even with the use of powerful apps.
Be sure to read the full interview. He had plenty more to say.
