We just learned about a patent awarded to Bill Gates a few months ago that appears to be designed to keep you safe from cameras around you. Patent 8,600,110 describes A system for detecting and responding to an intruding camera, comprising: an electronic media display device having a screen configured to display content; a sensor; and a processing circuit configured to: … [Read more...]
Update: Want Glass? One-Day Only on April 15
Update: Google says it will sell Glass to the general U.S. public for one day and one day only on April 15. The gates open at 9am Eastern Time and they'll sell until they run out. Pricing remains insane: $1500, but at least it comes with a shade or a frame that can accommodate prescription lenses. The Verge says it's got a slide from Google indicating that for just … [Read more...]
Google Glass Goes to Work, as NYTimes Ignores Other Products
Google's PR team appears to have woken up to all the bad press about Glass's lack of usefulness. There's a roundup in the NYTimes today with a long list of pilot programs that are using Glass in medicine and industry. This is a significant pivot in Google's public face on Glass, which has long been focused on selling to the geek-forward developer and gadget community. A key … [Read more...]
Google Overreaches on Glass Trademark?
Zipper was once a trademark. So was aspirin. Band-Aid, Kleenex, Xerox, and Google still are, and want to be. But Google also wants to own the word Glass, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office isn't wild about the idea. Google already owns the trademark for Google Glass, the Wall Street Journal reports, but it wants exclusive use of the word "Glass," rendered in the same … [Read more...]
Quote of the Day: Marc Newson on Wearables
Marc Newson is a big deal in industrial design, with museum collections, a CBE, and membership on Time Magazine's list of 100 most influential people. He has a new line of eyeglasses out, and in the process of talking about the differences between fashion and industrial designers (and what they need to learn from each other), he says this about Google Glass: It's a little bit … [Read more...]
What Banks Think About Wearable Tech
Interesting story in American Banker about what and how banks are thinking about wearable technologies. Most of them are at least dabbling with wrist-based apps -- certainly with the announcement of Android Wear, but several were looking well before that. The story centers around notifications and information -- checking balances and the like -- although a couple of banks … [Read more...]
Oakley, Ray-Ban to Sell Google Glass-based Eyewear
Finally, there's a sign that Google really and truly wants to turn Glass into an actual business. The search giant has signed a deal with Luxottica, one of the world's biggest eyewear companies, to develop and sell Glass-based eyewear. It's possible that you've never heard of Luxottica, but you know its brands. Luxottica, an Italian company, numbers among its many luxury and … [Read more...]
What a Pro Basketball Shootaround Looks Like Through Glass
We wrote back in January that the NBA's Sacramento Kings were playing around with Google Glass. CNET was invited to a shootaround recently: here's what a pro basketball player sees (minus peripheral vision, which is one of their most important assets) when he plays. … [Read more...]
Profile of Thad Starner, Father of Wearable Computing
If anyone could lay a claim to having invented the idea of wearable technology, it's probably Thad Starner. Now a professor at Georgia Tech, Starner's been strapping computers to his face for about 20 years. (Scientist Gordon Bell and writer/researcher/tinkererSteve Roberts are in that pantheon, too.) Besides his work in Georgia, Starner is a technical lead on Google … [Read more...]
Why People Hate Google Glass
Our friend and colleague Ron Miller has an insightful piece on TechCrunch about why people have a visceral negative reaction to Google Glass. It's not about Glass, Miller writes -- it's about any new technology. (He nabs an interview on the subject with Dean Kamen, who knows a thing or two about the adoption of new tech.) For what it's worth, we think Miller is on to … [Read more...]