I have the future sitting on my face!

So I picked up Glass on July 12th at the downtown office in San Francisco.  For my first impression I was a little underwhelmed.  Don’t hang up!!  I think I felt underwhelmed because first off the doors were locked and I could barely get into the Google office (Don’t they know who I am!), I ended up banging on the glass door with a quarter to get the attention of a couple of Glass guides that were in a deep conversation and didn’t know that it was my time (For the record I was two hours early for my appointment), nonetheless I gained access and was shuttled to the elevator to Glass heaven.

I was checked in and told to decide on a color and let them know when I was ready.  I tried on every color, I believe I tried on red first, then blue, white, shale and finally charcoal.   I choose charcoal.  It was really the only choice.

 

So my Glass guide Josh brought out my unit and we found a seat.  I truly felt like it was Christmas morning, I had it…. it was in my hands. Finally.   The future was sitting in the box in front of me.  I unboxed it slow.  It deserved the respect.  Under the box lid, which was quite heavy, was this perfect was paper stretched tight.  Under the wax paper is where it sat.  I powered it on and placed it on my head.  A few adjustments were done and it was in place.

My Glass unit wasn’t configured when I picked it up so my Glass guide and I spent a few minutes setting up my contacts and and choosing the Glassware I wanted to enable (I did not enable Elle or facebook).  The really cool thing about this part is I was able to use a Chromebook Pixel!  Next I paired it with my phone and out we went for the obligatory pic of the bay.  Josh went over a few of the essentials with me and then answered a couple of questions (I’d pre-studied so there wasn’t much I didn’t know already) and I was released into the wild.

I took off and since I wasn’t 100% sure how to get back to the BART station and I had the future on my face, I looked up directions to the station.  Walking directions.  Why am I pointing out that they were walking directions, well the map moves with your head as you walk.  WOW!  I was amazed at this, the future is totally AWESOME!  Also, I suddenly felt terrified, I had a $1500 computer sitting on my face and suddenly felt like I was an easy target.  Looking back now I feel that was a ridiculous thought, no one has attempted to rob me yet and if they do I’ll record them and beat the shit out of them at the same time.

I played with Glass for a bit back at my hotel but due to total exhaustion from not sleeping because of the excitement of getting Glass and my soon to be one year old daughter who was up a lot the night before teething I was exhausted.  Sleep.

 

4 AM Wake.  Uggh.  Off to the airport and heading home.  At the airport in public I wonder, are people looking at the thing on my face?  Hmmm.  Not yet, it’s 5 AM and no one there seems to have had coffee, I know I hadn’t.  Coffee, flight to Denver.  I change planes and notice a girl that was on my previous flight is in this gate also, and she’s staring.  She got the courage to come ask me what this strange thing was on my face (yes I did have Glass on, wasn’t just my face.). I explained what I knew so far and that I didn’t work for Google.  Since then it’s become a common occurrence for strangers to talk to me about Glass.  Everyone wants to know what Glass is like (It’s awesome!) and they come right up and ask…. or point and I’ll hear them say “That guy is wearing Glass!”

My family picked me up at Love Field when I got back from San Francisco, my son wanted to wear Glass immediately.  I made him wait till we were home to try them out.  He loved Glass!  He got it right away and could easily use the voice commands and take pictures.  He’ll never know world without wearable technology.  He will grow up in the world of the Jetsons.

Glass is still a beta product, it’s not ready for prime time….. yet.  It will be.  Soon.  Everyone had better get ready.  Glass will be huge!  Huge!  Apps are being written for Glass everyday.   That’s the reason I have Glass.  I want to write some great apps for Glass and I’m extremely lucky to have the explorer edition (XE).

Glass has some shortcomings, current version is XE7 (a new version is currently released each month, so improvements happen fast.) and it has a web browser but it is not really something that is enjoyable.  Also, you get what I call an email notification, a snippet of your email message and no way to view attachments including pictures.  You cannot view pictures on an MMS either.

Glass also does some things very well and has potential to do so many more things, mainly hands free with just your voice.  Glass is awesome at taking pictures and video while keeping the user involved in the current activity, it’s great at delivering texts, email notifications and doing a fast Google search.  Glass is great at forcing the user to maintain eye contact with everyone they are speaking to add you are forced to keep the prism above your line of sight.  The hardest thing about learning to use Glass is learning to keep your head up when you’re having a conversation with someone.

I love my Glass, I look forward to using it everyday and I am looking forward to seeing what it becomes.  It will be huge.  HUGE.