This morning Google released the new trailer
from its Glass project.
Is augmented reality the next big step in our everyday lives?
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Hey, I'm Anthony, and if you have not seen this new Glass
video, it's pretty awesome.
It's showing people getting live directions,
taking and sending photos and texts,
video-chatting, translating foreign languages
as they go through their daily routine.
Well, the Google employee version of a daily routine,
anyway-- which is, I guess, piloting vintage airplanes,
taking trapeze lessons, and snowboarding.
Thanks, stock options.
Google's Glass is really the first huge push
to get useful augmented reality into the hands of everyone,
starting with developers who can pre-order their unit now
for $1,500 and get it in 2014.
Now a lot of stuff in the trailer
might make it seem pretty silly.
For instance, I'm very rarely going to need to share the ice
sculpture I'm carving on Google+.
But I do love the bit where the guy
is walking through the airport and his gate and flight
information pop up automatically.
That sort of thing, that sort of instantaneous, effortless
access to important information, has been the main function
of augmented reality so far.
Soldiers have had head-mounted displays in the field
since 2005.
And jet fighter cockpits use heads-up displays.
Both of them overlay important target
and navigational information, allowing a pilot or a soldier
to make these split-second instinctive decisions
without hesitation.
Automobile manufacturers have already
showed off how that would work in a car,
highlighting important signs and lanes,
overlaying traffic information.
It's going to be hard to miss your exit if it's glowing
and there's a big arrow pointing to it, right?
Spatial environmental rooms, like the University
of Illinois at Chicago's Cave 2, use giant rooms
with 3-D glasses and control wands
to let people collaborate on medical research
or other complex projects.
They let people do things like walk through the human brain.
And now the general public is getting Google Glass.
But what happens when Google Glass, or something like it,
gets as powerful as Cave 2?
And hopefully much less noticeable.
Because let's be honest, Google Glass looks really silly.
I feel like my dad would wear it with a fanny pack or something.
Well, DARPA is currently working on augmented reality
contact lenses called Scenic-- tiny, full-color,
high-resolution displays right over your eye,
completely unnoticeable.
Now it'll be a long time before they trickle down to us.
But something from last week popped into my head
as I was thinking about all this.
The FDA just approved the Argus 2 bionic eye.
Now that's an artificial retina that
restores partial sight to the blind.
The Argus uses a visor that looks a lot like Google's Glass
to record the wearer's field of vision,
send the image to a belt-pack processor,
and then that processor turns the videos
into electrical signals that are wirelessly
transmitted to an implant in the person's eye tissue.
And right now, Argus sends black-and-white, low-resolution
images, but that's going to get better and better.
And as processing power improves,
that belt-pack might be replaced with, say, your phone.
And right now, the implant costs $100,000.
But as technology gets better, it's going to get cheaper.
So what happens when augmented reality just lives in our eyes?
I think it's going to be amazing,
but this stuff can be a little frightening.
For instance, I cannot even remember my friends' phone
numbers anymore because of smartphones.
So what happens when I offboard my whole life to the internet?
How conscientious are people really going
to be when everything they need to know is spoon-fed to them
at every moment?
And what happens when someone hacks into what you see,
or the implant just fails?
It'll be interesting to see how much this catches on
over the next few years and how dependent we actually
become on it.
Are you guys into it?
Are you thinking about that $1,500 pre-order?
Let me know down below, and subscribe for more DNews.