It's been another mad week for technology, with Microsoft and Google releasing tablets and Google wowing us with its Project Glass, the initiative publicised its supercool staff filming themselves leaping from a helicopter, all in the name of the company they clearly love (contrast this with your place where – well, you can think of a few people you'd like to push out of a helicopter without a parachute - but let's not go there in this week of handshakes and forgiveness).
It isn't quite clear how bad your vision has to be before you need Google glasses. One can imagine the eye test though. Forget that near-sighted/far-sighted business – that's so MS-DOS. Google glasses are way beyond that.
"Now, I'm going to show you some pages of HTML5 coding. Can you interpret the top line for me please? Here's some Onyx data. We'd like this reworked into E-pub format. We'll do your left eye first -"
But an earlier video – this time an earthbound one – demonstrates how the company anticipates such wearable technology being used. We see a young New Yorker using voice-activated icons that appear just above his line of vision to check the weather, speak to a friend, receive travel updates and even find the music section in the city's famous Strand Bookstore (why couldn't he just ask someone?).
It's a cool video with a catchy soundtrack, similar in feel to the Kindle ads – only this one leads you to a bookstore rather than closes one down.
Yet the technology works a little too smoothly to be realistic.
Real life isn't like that. What happens when the message 'Internet Explorer has encountered a problem and needs to close' appears across your vision and you're plunged into darkness? Or an irritating paperclip appears and asks you a question. Or that dog Fenton bursts across your vision?
But, of all the concerns so far, battery life is apparently the one most troubling the Google techies. Funny to think that the need to power up your specs will surely give a new spin to that old exhortation still heard at some formal dos: "charge your glasses".
But if Google glasses are a possibility, does that mean Google lenses will soon follow? That opens up a whole world of calamity. "Damn! I've just washed the Internet down the sink." No worries. Slip on a pair of these Google goggles – perfect for underwater browsing.
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