I’ve talked about Google Glass already, Finnish them! (Google Glasses and WiFi Liabillity), Google Chronos?, Google develops ARGs for Pirates, many times..
In those articles we were mostly looking at patents and prototypes.
Now we have WIRED.COM and arstechnica.com both spewing out specs based on more patents and some developer info…
Hello? Can you ear me?
- 802.11 b/g 2.4 GHz WLAN
- Bluetooth ver 4.0 low-energy radio
- “Bone Conduction” audio playback
- a $1,500 (£962) price tag
- developer shipments in early 2013
- a projected 2014 launch date
Breaking this down, we learn a fair bit from each fact we can establish.
802.11 b/g support means that N mode WiFi won’t likely be supported, and the best guess would be the it’s getting dropped due to power consumption. Additionally, there’s a rumor that the primary data connection for the Google Glass will be a tethered cell phone acting as a ‘modem’ of sorts to expand the Google Glass’s communications range without bulking it up.
The 4.0 version of the Bluetooth radio stack is an exceptionally good match for a device running off of batteries, that sits on your head. This version of the Bluetooth stack supports BLE – Bluetooth Low Energy mode operations that allow a device like Google glass to sip on power and still remain connected to other devices.
If Google Glass had an option to support class 1 (100mW transmissions) networks it would supply you with a range of up to 328′ or 100 meters. If you were a household cleaner you could leave your phone in a central location, put on your Google glasses, and record your cleaning efforts directly to your phone or relay it to a remote server. By doing this you could safe guard yourself against damage claims and other issues presented by the homeowners.
In fact you could also be listening to some music, without blocking your ability to hear other sounds, like a knock at the door, or someone coming home. This is because the Google glass does not block incoming sounds/cover your ears.
The ‘bone conduction‘ audio drivers on the Google Glass send audio vibrations via your skull bones to your inner ear which then ‘hears’ the vibrations as sound.
This means that if you are driving, biking, walking, etc., you can expect the Google Glass audio feedback to be less of an obstruction/safety risk than typical in-ear or over-ear style systems.
Picture wearing these as a lawyer, and someone is attempting to hold you to words you’ve never even said. You could jump to the date/time the original discussion occurred and play it back verbatim, clearing up any mistakes/poor recollection that might otherwise cause endless headaches.
The trick in this case, since a lawyer/doctor, couldn’t ethically record video to an insecure/public location like a ‘Google Hangout’, would be for Google to either offer some sort of private video storage/search/retrieval service (I hear they have some experience with video?), that has the sufficient security clearances to avoid any concerns about storage.
The $1,500.00 price tag is for the Developer’s build of the device, currently being called the ‘Explorer Edition’, that will be shipping this year. In fact Google has said “early this year” as the date, so “sooner than later” is a fine guesstimate.
The signup for the Explorer Edition was actually quite the event, while the attendees were sitting in the conference center Google dropped some ‘Glass’ equipped sky-divers onto the site from an overhead balloon. The video from their Glass units was then streamed inside the event for a bit of a surreal effect.
At the end of the conference the developers willing to pay the $1,500.00 price tag were given a specially etched slate of glass with the serial # of the unit they will be shipping to you later.
Ooooh my precious.. So shiny..