Google Project Glass Will Fail And You Already Know Why
Google Project Glass will fail and the reason is you. That’s it. One simple reason, you!
At least in its current form, Project Glass is nothing more than an art experiment loaded with high tech and support from Google’s co-founder Sergey Brin.
UPDATE: It just happened. Google is killing Google Glass as we know it. Next step? My guess is that Google will take pieces of the technology and the Glass platform and apply it to other areas. Nest possibly. In enterprise and its own datacenters. Think Google Glass as Google Wave.
Don’t get me wrong. Project Glass is an amazing idea but the execution sucks. As an art projects Project Glass can do wonders. It’s great for video capturing and futuristic view of the days ahead, big data and everyone’s digital eg0 living on the web. Sure, that’s a great idea.
Google understands humans better than anyone
The problem with Project Glass is that it requires human beings in order to work. You know, people like you and me, moms and pops and sisters and cousins.
To the best of my knowledge there is only one type of person dealing efficiently with augmented reality apps, data projected on a screen and real life happening: fighter pilots.
If you are not a fighter pilot chances are you will have big time trouble when Project Glass requires your attention while driving, cooking, walking or interacting with another human being in a meaningful way.
Even a simple task, like checking the weather on your smartphone requires a huge amount of effort and concentration for a few seconds. You check the temperature, think what to wear, where to meet, whether you’re taking the car, calculate traffic and possible routes to avoid it etc. Keep in mind that this action and data processing is triggered by the person, who’s ready (or thinks he is) to devote his attention on the little screen and check the weather.
You all know what happens when you split your attention between driving and writing a message or watching a video and cooking or checking Twitter and walking or kissing and trying to take a picture for Facebook. Mediocre performance, low quality, horrible kiss.
Having Project Glass in the hands of artists, technologists and hackers is a great idea. Don’t be fooled though. Project Glass as a product of this form is doomed to fail. Google already knows that because Sergey Brin and team understand human beings better than anyone.