Glass Under the Microscope: Part 1

People ask me all the time, "What do you do with Glass?" It's a very hard question to answer. Glass can be used for so many things and when I try to describe it, all I can really say is, "It's an extension of my phone." I recieve all my notifications through Glass and whatnot. But for some reason, I believe, people think it is something crazy from the future that is monitoring everything I do. People ask if I like Glass, and I do, but it's hard to explain what I like about it within a few sociable moments with a stranger. People don't want a nerdy earful of how the software is finely tuned to suit your needs. They want a few sentences to describe Glass. So I've come up with this to answer every question in only a few sentences. " Google Glass is great, I really enjoy using it. It's not a final product and isn't available to everyone, I have it because I am testing it. It works great and I can use it for hands-free socialization and communication but there are some bugs." And that's it. Simple. Easy.

Now lets put Glass under the microscope. What can you use Glass for?
   As you are reading this, you're clearly more interested in what Glass really does, or you would have stopped reading this a while ago. Glass has a slue of functionality So lets start with the most basic use of Glass; Google.

This is what you'll see over 100 times a day. Very simple and easy to understand. Every time you wake Glass, by tapping the touch pad on the side, you'll be presented with this screen. From here you'll talk to Glass with the command words "okay glass." 

After you say those words you'll be presented some options.

These will be your options to choose from. From here you'll speak one of the lines

of options and then you'll present what you're looking for.

For example;

"Okay Glass... Google

How tall is the Empire State Building

Having Google Glass do most of the work for you, you'll start to use Glass in ways you never thought. Doing measurement conversions like feet to inches or cups to tablespoons becomes simple and easy. 

There are some bugs with the software, but that's another story.

This was just a quick start to what you can basically do with Glass.

Check back soon for more updates and information.

Google in the Glassroom

   I'm a college student and after buying Glass, I'm now a very broke college student. But I wondered how my friends would react to Glass. I took Glass to class (heh) for the first time and I was excited to show my friends. At school, I'm already known for having a lot of cool tech toys. I used to own 3 phones, one I sold to pay for Glass. I walked up the steps to my building and I opened the doors and the first thing I said was, "Man, it's cold outside." I went and hugged my friend and then, almost instantly and without hesitation, I heard, "Oh my god is that Google Glass?! I have to try it on! Can I see?!" After that, about 10 of my friends came and huddled around, wanting to try on Glass. I let them all play and I showed them the cool things you could do. The reactions varied though, as some were absolutely amazed at Glass' capabilities, meanwhile some were not impressed and thought it was odd. There were also people that had never even heard of Google Glass before.

   Then the one question came up that I hate answering, "How much was that?" Now, every time I hear that I dread giving an answer. I'll either say, "very, very expensive" or be direct and say it was "fifteen hundred dollars." For some reason I would rather say fifteen hundred than one thousand, five hundred. I believe it sounds less. Once I say what the price is, people are either impressed or appalled, and I have to explain why.


But back to first reactions, friends found it fun. They liked taking pictures and telling Glass to do things. My professors were curious. I showed them all and each was impressed and interested. I took pictures and videos of important conversations and subjects. Glass in the classroom has minimal use. I would receive text messages from my friend sitting behind me and I would view them on Glass and see if I needed to respond on my phone or not. For the most part, Google Glass was a hit at school.
   Some strangers would come up and ask to see Glass as well. College students are more educated about technology so I figured more would come up and ask, unlike the people at the mall. I would walk though the halls and between buildings and people would stare as usual. I've gotten use to that. As I entered the cafeteria, kids would stare and then tell the people next to them that I'm wearing Glass and then the entire table would end up staring. One instance, I was entering a building and I could see from the outside that there were kids in the hallway talking and socializing. As soon as I entered, the entire hallway grew silent. I walked down the hall with about 50 kids staring at me at once. As I passed, I would hear, "... Google Glass," whispered behind me.

For the most part, that has been my experience with Glass at school . If anything new arises, I'll be sure to update. Stay tuned for more!

Glass and the Outside World

Well, what else can you expect from wearing Glass on your head? People stare at you as you walk by. After a week I got used to it, but the first social experiment was when I wore Glass at the mall. I entered with the thought of people will stare and some will ask about it. That's exactly what I got, but I discovered something else as well. When you enter a store (as a normal human and not a cyborg) you are usually met with an employee to say, " Welcome to (insert obligatory clothing store here), if you need any help, let me know!" But as I entered a clothing store, the employees went out of their way to ignore me. I was met with no "hello" but instead silence and awkward stares. The only time an employee would interact with me was when I actually bought something and they had to do the usual check out conversation. The man at J.Crew seemed interested in Glass and asked about it, but the conversation quickly died. Side note, I got 3 shirts on sale for $26, which was kinda cool. Glass made it an interesting trip to the mall.
A lot of people did double takes, with one instance where a man walked in front of me to get a better look and then report back to his friend. So after walking around, I decided it would be a good idea to go into the Apple Store to be around people who may know about Glass or be interested. I've had a history of going into Apple stores and convincing customers to go buy an Android phone, but today I had the goal of going to look at the miraculous design of the new Mac Pro. The same thing happened as before, the employees completely ignored me. Even as I was playing with the computer and looking around the store, not a single employee asked if I needed help.

So I left the mall with 3 observations...
1) People go out of their way to ignore you
2) People will stare and whisper if they know what Glass is
3) Old people give you death stares (I think they were just really confused)

As I find more places to take Glass, I will report my findings.