Google announces AR product – Project Glass

On the 4th of April, the search engine giant, Google, publicly announced its plans to offer augmented reality glasses, titled “Project Glass”. Together with the announcement came a short video of how it would work, showing the benefits of augmented reality in our daily routine. From the looks of it, this seems like a bid to join the computer world with the physical, meanwhile making it fun.

From the video above, this is what we currently know about the project:

• Possibly have a welcome screen and apps once you wear/switch on the glasses
• Set reminders for appointments and meetings
• See the weather forecast for the day
• Use voice commands to run tasks
• Get message alerts from your inbox, and reply using your voice (looks like it sends your message as an email rather than a voice clip)
• Updates from public transport
• Get directions with GPS and Google Maps (3D view)
• Find directions within a building
• Colleagues can send their location and their distance is automatically calculated
• Check into places
• The +1 button is also integrated
• Take pictures and share with your circles on Google+
• Play and pause music (maybe Google music comes into play here)
• Chat with connections with voice and video chat
• Share what you’re seeing live with “View Share”

So far so good with the concept. It’s looking like Google has come out with something if done right, will make them go toe to toe with Apple. Part of me wishes that Apple themselves would have thought of it first (or maybe they have but are waiting for the right timing) because you will know for sure that it will be a stylish and well designed product, but on the other hand it will be a huge investment to make.

There are questions that I’d like to see answered in the near future. Will web designers now have to consider augmented reality interface design (assuming you can view websites with the AR frame)? And what about social media? From what it looks like, Google is only considering Google+ as a supported platform, and if they don’t consider including Facebook and Twitter they could potentially be missing out on a lot of potential consumers. Even Instagram will be great with this product, because you can take pictures on the fly and share without having to lift a finger!

Project Glass is something that could benefit the market in many ways.It will be interesting to see what kind of apps come out for such a product, this could potentially open up a new market for developers. What about games? I can’t help but try to imagine how Angry Birds will come into play with this. Maybe we’re one step closer to the parody in the video below becoming a reality.