So far, Google Glass has been invite-only, meaning even if you had $1500, there was no way to buy directly from the company, but on Tuesday, a limited number of units will go on sale to the public. Here’s the official announcement posted on Google Plus: “Next Tuesday, April 15th at 6am PDT, we’re opening up some spots in the Glass Explorer Program. Any adult in the US can become an Explorer by visiting our site and purchasing Glass for $1500 + tax.” Continue reading for 5 reasons why you should buy one.
5. Voice Actions
Version XE8 made a debut for Google Glass on August 12, 2013. It brings an integrated video player with playback controls, the ability to post an update to Path, and lets users save notes to Evernote. Several other minute improvements include volume controls, improved voice recognition, and several new Google Now cards.
4. Marriage Proposals
Other than the touchpad, Google Glass can be controlled using “voice actions”. To activate Glass, wearers tilt their heads 30° upward or tap the touchpad, and say “O.K., Glass.” Once Glass is activated, wearers can say an action, such as “Take a picture”, “Record a video”, “Hangout with [person/Google+ circle]”, “Google ‘What year was Wikipedia founded?'”, “Give me directions to the Eiffel Tower”, and “Send a message to John”. For search results that are read back to the user, the voice response is relayed using bone conduction through a transducer that sits beside the ear, thereby rendering the sound almost inaudible to other people.
3. Google Sky Map
Sky Map is an Android implementation of Google Sky. On January 20, 2012, Google announced a student development partnership with Carnegie Mellon University and released Sky Map under the Apache 2.0 open source license. The project is presently available in the form of a Google Code repository.
2. Navigation
he Explorer version of Google Glass uses a Liquid Crystal on Silicon (LCoS), field-sequential color, LED illuminated display. The display’s LED illumination is first P-polarized and then shines through the in-coupling polarizing beam splitter (PBS) to the LCoS panel. The panel reflects the light and alters it to S-polarization at active pixel sites. The in-coupling PBS then reflects the S-polarized areas of light at 45° through the out-coupling beam splitter to a collimating reflector at the other end.
1. Fitness
Though some Google Glass users out there want a fully immersive augmented reality experience, some just want a simple yet fun app that encourages activity. This video shows an early prototype design for what may appear on the screen for such an app. It may not be road ready, but it’s still an amazing experience nonetheless.
