Mumbai: Google Glass, the wearable computer that displays information in the corner of a pair of spectacles, has gone on sale in the US a month ago and the asking price of $1500 ( Rs 80,000) may put off a lot of buyers -- for now. But the technology is so compelling that a lot of clever people worldwide are working feverishly to come up with innovative use cases.... and inevitably the price will fall with demand.
At the Philips Innovation Centre in Bangalore, engineers showed me one such application recently - a clever harnessing of Google Glass in the operation theatre. The surgeon or the anesthesiologist sees all the vital signs of the patient on his glass so that he does not have to take his eyes off from the surgery, to look at the monitor.
Tourists may soon form the single largest group of Google Glass users worldwide. The first travel application to be available for Glass is a variant of TripIt, the world's highest-rated travel organizing app. It uses Glass to lets tourists access all their travel plans and get timely trip information at eye level, when faced with gate changes, flight delays and cancellations at the airport. It is a free download from www.tripit.com
The first ever hotel finding and booking app has also been created for Google Glass by a global travel agency, Destinia. It's called HotelNearMe and it is quickly finds the closest hotel to users, based on their GPS location, allows instant booking and suggests the quickest way to get there.
Experts suggest that getting directions as one walks will be the single biggest Glass app that the aam janatha will embrace. Next comes instructional video -- watch that cookery video on how to prepare gobi manchurian with one eye, while you do it with the other! Senior citizens can expect to find apps where the Glass will monitor their heart rate and pulse and alert them to take their medicine -- or rush to a hospital. And yes, when facial recognition mates with Google Glass you have an app that gives you the name of a friend whose name embarrassingly escapes you when you bump into him or her after some years.
These apps will soon pile up -- but Indians are not going to buy the Glass until the asking price is more sensible. I'm guessing that will be sooner rather than later because Google's fancy pricing may soon be challenged. I recently got to try out Epson's Smart Glass -- the Moverio BT-200 -- which at $ 699 costs less than half the price of Google Glass.
Granted, it's not yet tailored for mass use: it offers Augmented Reality or AR in both glasses -- that means it will scour the Internet to bring you additional information about whatever it is you are watching. Problem is, you might meanwhile, bump into someone or something. But I believe they are working on it!
And when will Indians consider a Google Glass or a Moverio or any of the upcoming alternatives, paisa vasool? I think, when the asking price is not much more than that of a highend smart phone - that is around Rs 30,000.
Source: India Tech Online
