HOW GOOGLE GLASS COULD CHANGE THE WAY WE TRAVEL

“TWO YEARS AGO, Glass was a backpack and huge goggles, but we have got it down to this,” says Google employee Zoe, gesturing to the slender, lens-free titanium frames she’s wearing in sky blue (they also come in tangerine, cotton, shale and charcoal). She looks like a distinctly fashionable cyborg with her long blonde hair, yellow cashmere sweater and glinting prism perched above her right eye.

Zoe wears Glass daily, so it is not surprising that she seems at ease using it, turning her head slightly and looking upwards to give commands. “Okay Glass…” is the prefix she gives each time, whether it’s to “take a picture”, ask “how do I get to Victoria station?” or “send an email”.

Google released the first wave of its cutting-edge heads-up mounted displays at the beginning of 2013 to US-based engineers and “Glass Explorers” – 8,000 of these were chosen by Google via Twitter as part of a competition to reward the most creative responses to the hashtag #ifihadglass. Still in its beta phase, Google has not yet confirmed when the device will be released on the mainstream market, but it is likely to be at some point in 2014. While the price is yet to be confirmed, Google says it is keen to make them available for much less than US$1,500, the price of the Explorer version.

Glass can be operated either with voice recognition, which works surprisingly well, or manually, with a simple range of gestures on the right-hand arm, which acts as a touchpad. There is also a tiny button on top for taking pictures. It weighs 42g and packs 12GB of storage, but has no built-in modem so needs to be paired to an Android or Apple smartphone to connect to the internet (it works best with wifi). At its heart is Google Search, so it works in much the same way as your web browser at home, except the interface is simpler and what you see appears as a translucent screen a few inches away from your right eye.

Sound is provided through “bone conduction”, like a hearing aid, while the really clever functions are provided by third-party applications (or “Glassware”). At the moment there are about a dozen official apps including CNN, Facebook, Twitter, Field Trip and the with more coming soon.

Robert Scoble, tech blogger and start-up liaison officer for open cloud company Rackspace, is an enthusiastic Explorer – in fact, he has vowed never to take Glass off and even tweeted a photo of himself wearing them in the shower. Scoble is also a frequent flyer, and recently pinged Business

Traveller an email saying: “I’m flying back from Dublin right now with Google Glass on my head. I love travelling with it. Not only do I always have a camera ready, but it tells me where my flights are [and] lets me make calls while dragging two suitcases.”

Photographer Aaron Fuhrman, another Explorer, used the device to document a 10,000km road trip across the western United States in a 2014 Camaro SS. “I used it to record firstperson driving of the car through some of the most amazing landscapes. I could keep both hands on the steering wheel, tilt my head back slightly to activate Glass, say: ‘Okay Glass, take a picture’ and then say: ‘Share with…’ to post to Google Plus or another social account. A tap on the touchpad followed by a couple of quick swipes gives me weather, nearby places of interest and much more. It is amazing how it instinctively knows what I’m up to and where I want to go next, and delivers this information without me searching for it.”

He adds: “Glass for business

travellers tra is very viable. Want to know if your flight fli is on time and what gate it is at when you yo arrive at the airport? Glass already knows. Need Ne a reminder about your next meeting? Glass GGla already knows. Glass is a glimpse of where technology tecchn is heading.” Futurologist Peter Cochrane isn’t convinced. connvin “Most technologies take at least seven years to make makee it to t the marketplace so everything we are getting excited about is actually quite quiteq old,” he says. “BT Laboratories, MIT Media Lab, Georgia Tech and the thee University U of Ontario created their own versions of Google Glass as far back bacck as 18 years ago but there wasn’t one that didn’t hurt your eyes because becaaus there is a contest in your brain between nearfield and far-field vision. Google Goog Glass may end up like 3D televisions, with no one buying them.”