Last week Google announced it’s Project Glass concept, a head mounted display and AR software aimed toward making augmented reality a practicality for mainstream use. With a big announcement such as that, it didn’t take long for the parody videos to start rolling in. Here’s two great videos poking fun at Google Glass:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwModZmOzDs]
The first is a cheap shot at Microsoft, but if it made you chuckle, it’s because it’s true! Obviously Microsoft is trying to move away from these annoyances with the introduction of the Metro interface, but sadly such things have becoming ingrained in what it means to use Windows.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mRF0rBXIeg]
The second brings a valid point to the spotlight. Google’s personal services are almost entirely paid for by advertisements. The original Project Glass video showed the user making use of a number of services, but didn’t explicitly show how ads would work into the equation. This will be a challenge for Google; Project Glass’ interface is supposed to be highly unobtrusive, but ads only function if they can get by the user’s psychological and physiological filters. Some would say that ads are inherently obtrusive (though I wouldn’t always agree). If Google can’t get advertising functionality into Google Glass, it could stall the project because there wouldn’t be good revenue return from all of the necessary R&D. Of course if you look carefully, you will see that Google Glass could actually be a very powerful advertisement platform. Presumably your location would always be available, and this opens the door to hyper-local advertising which is currently at the bleeding edge of advertising technology (see ‘Groupon Now!‘). Hopefully Google will be able to resist the temptation to implement floating AR billboards!
