This morning Google
released the new trailer
from its Glass project.
Is augmented reality the next
big step in our everyday lives?
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Hey, I'm Anthony, and if you
have not seen this new Glass
video, it's pretty awesome.
It's showing people
getting live directions,
taking and sending
photos and texts,
video-chatting, translating
foreign languages
as they go through
their daily routine.
Well, the Google employee
version of a daily routine,
anyway-- which is, I guess,
piloting vintage airplanes,
taking trapeze lessons,
and snowboarding.
Thanks, stock options.
Google's Glass is really
the first huge push
to get useful augmented reality
into the hands of everyone,
starting with developers who
can pre-order their unit now
for $1,500 and get it in 2014.
Now a lot of stuff
in the trailer
might make it seem pretty silly.
For instance, I'm very rarely
going to need to share the ice
sculpture I'm
carving on Google+.
But I do love the
bit where the guy
is walking through the airport
and his gate and flight
information pop
up automatically.
That sort of thing, that sort
of instantaneous, effortless
access to important information,
has been the main function
of augmented reality so far.
Soldiers have had head-mounted
displays in the field
since 2005.
And jet fighter cockpits
use heads-up displays.
Both of them overlay
important target
and navigational information,
allowing a pilot or a soldier
to make these split-second
instinctive decisions
without hesitation.
Automobile manufacturers
have already
showed off how that
would work in a car,
highlighting important
signs and lanes,
overlaying traffic information.
It's going to be hard to miss
your exit if it's glowing
and there's a big arrow
pointing to it, right?
Spatial environmental
rooms, like the University
of Illinois at Chicago's
Cave 2, use giant rooms
with 3-D glasses
and control wands
to let people collaborate
on medical research
or other complex projects.
They let people do things like
walk through the human brain.
And now the general public
is getting Google Glass.
But what happens when Google
Glass, or something like it,
gets as powerful as Cave 2?
And hopefully much
less noticeable.
Because let's be honest, Google
Glass looks really silly.
I feel like my dad would wear it
with a fanny pack or something.
Well, DARPA is currently
working on augmented reality
contact lenses called
Scenic-- tiny, full-color,
high-resolution displays
right over your eye,
completely unnoticeable.
Now it'll be a long time
before they trickle down to us.
But something from last
week popped into my head
as I was thinking
about all this.
The FDA just approved
the Argus 2 bionic eye.
Now that's an
artificial retina that
restores partial
sight to the blind.
The Argus uses a visor that
looks a lot like Google's Glass
to record the wearer's
field of vision,
send the image to a
belt-pack processor,
and then that processor
turns the videos
into electrical signals
that are wirelessly
transmitted to an implant
in the person's eye tissue.
And right now, Argus sends
black-and-white, low-resolution
images, but that's going
to get better and better.
And as processing
power improves,
that belt-pack might be
replaced with, say, your phone.
And right now, the
implant costs $100,000.
But as technology gets better,
it's going to get cheaper.
So what happens when augmented
reality just lives in our eyes?
I think it's going
to be amazing,
but this stuff can be
a little frightening.
For instance, I cannot even
remember my friends' phone
numbers anymore
because of smartphones.
So what happens when I offboard
my whole life to the internet?
How conscientious are
people really going
to be when everything they need
to know is spoon-fed to them
at every moment?
And what happens when someone
hacks into what you see,
or the implant just fails?
It'll be interesting to see
how much this catches on
over the next few years and
how dependent we actually
become on it.
Are you guys into it?
Are you thinking about
that $1,500 pre-order?
Let me know down below, and
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