Gadgetory

welcome to top shelf my name is David Pierce and on this show we bring you the best in consumer electronics past present and future this week it's all three really we're talking about google glass it's one of the most anticipated products we've seen in a long long time and we just got one last week we plunked down $1,500 for and we've been playing with it to see if this really is the future but really it's kind of part of the past two on some level Google glass is a long time coming in science fiction books and movies for decades we've been imagining a world where we're not looking at our phones or tapping incessantly on keyboards in the future we've learned we do everything with our voice or maybe even our thoughts our computers whatever they might look like will project data into the world around us will wave our arms like crazy to move information around like Tom Cruise data Minority Report or maybe we'd be like Tony Stark with a heads-up display permanently in front of our face while we order around our own personal Jarvis every author and director has a slightly different vision but they've all been on the same thing technology is not going to be on a screen anymore it's going to be out in the world on top of the world inside the world and we're going to be spending a lot of time poking it prodding it and especially talking to it so far Google glass is a small cautious sort of imperfect step in that direction it's designed to be used with your voice you say ok glass and then issue a command take a picture email my girlfriend show me who won the yankee game it's less like talking to a friend than it is issuing a series of dictates but glass obediently carries them out well most of the time sometimes glass goes to sleep and you have to wake it by either tapping the side of your head like your Cyclops or by tipping your head upward at the exact degree you'd use for a slightly exaggerated eye roll and while glass understands and executes its basic commands navigation is a bit of a chore you swipe along the temple of the glasses to move forward and backward through the endless glass interface from the home screen you can swipe through every interaction you've ever had with the device or swipe to settings or Google now or to other apps swiping upward takes you back and tapping on the temples is like pressing enter and that's all once you're connected to your phone which you need before you can do much of anything glass can't connect to the internet on its own so without your smartphone it's really nothing more than an unimpressive camera glued to your face once you've signed in to your Google account and linked it to your glass it uses a QR code in the camera in the glass to connect and it's probably the first time a QR code has ever been the simplest way to do anything but the process is still far from over every contact you an email or message you'll have to manually add from your phone or computer every app you want to install every place you want to share images you just can't manage anything from glass your smartphone is the engine it's the power source glass is just an accessory attach to your face glass isn't anywhere near finished and we know that even if Google hadn't said it over and over some of the gestures don't work reliably and glass doesn't understand me quite like I want it to it's like being in a foreign country where no one fully understands English and like The Ugly American i am i still find myself yelling where is mcdonald's into the upper right corner of my eye line more often than i should glass may come straight out of science fiction but ok glass doesn't begin quite the technological revelation that star trek's communicators or how 9000 taught us to hope for actually now that I think about it maybe Google followed Hal a little too closely oh so one of my favorite things about glass is actually people's first reaction to it everybody wants to have their picture taken with it and they want to take a picture with it and then everybody has these weird sort of different reactions so I brought chris ziegler who has never tried this on before and it basically just shoved it on your face and was like here you go yeah and you like haven't spoken to me since this started it's basically it's happening right it's a little yes and it is a little weird and I'm a little discombobulated so what's that what do you think so far so you put it on your face what next my first reaction is that it doesn't I think that I expected for whatever reason the menu available options to be significantly richer like you say ok glass you only get one two three four five six seven menu item and there's like sort of a way to scroll through them but it's not really obvious right wait can you scroll through it with your head is that possible so I've wondered this the whole time I've been using this and I can't tell sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't work which is kind of like the whole thing with google glass but yet so there's not that much you can do but you took a selfie already didn't you oh no this is gonna be huge mistake what are we going here we're googling whatever is coming out of your mouth yes as much you owe the breath of fresh this is what I love about google it is like it doesn't it doesn't actually like search for anything of anything are you it seems to just pull up Wikipedia you can't ask it a question no like asking a question Oh like playa what year did Abraham Lincoln died try that ok glass Google what year did Abraham Lincoln died see that's not bad and it's actually telling you in the weird speaker over your ear so like if you ask it a very specific question it works that would make you a killer at trivia that's true that night at a bar just imagine you're like thinking pensive later like what year did Abraham Lincoln nor yeah ignore like oh I got it is it ignored the google glass on my face is not there I'm just thinking aloud towards the right corner of my eye this is so weird so one thing I noticed is that if you move your eyeball very quickly the RG and be separate out from one another mmm and that's a signature of dlp displays I don't know what kind of display Google is using in glass yeah they're super they're weird about talking about the specs of it they like a parrot to what it's like on a high-def TV from eight feet away isn't helped doesn't mean anything yeah and so yeah that's a little uh that's something that I would like to see them change on the final version so what does that mean it's a dlp display like what is that actually it's like you know like a dlp TV which has i think they call it the rain there's an official name for its the rainbow effect it's like if you if you scan the display very quickly you see the r g and b individually right and so that's that's a little distracting because you you know it's just showing you white basically white fonts white text right but if you look left and right really fast you see RGB yeah it can also it also made it really hard to film we had first of all it's like this tiny little screen rah and we ended up having to sort of shoot it and it looks a lot better than it looked in that video we were showing it's actually like at least in my opinion as long as you're looking at it fairly normal yeah it's it's not that right yeah I'm just looking straight straight no the other problem is that you have to go like this to turn it on without touching it which in the bestest you kind of have to do it like four or five times sometimes you're standing you're like right yeah I'm just nodding I'm nodding my approval except everybody walking past me any June I maybe this is a setting you can change in vector probably is but if you turn it on by holding your head up and then you put your head back down the display turns off almost instantly so you just have to sit here like this while you're asking your question or not googling for instruction or you navigations directions or whatever so yeah they have some things to work there yeah so what have you discover so far you were just like messing around through the interface and you were finding I tried I tried on you right didn't work because it couldn't find a phone number for you right that's what so that I should mention is like the worst part about glass right now is like what I would love is if it hooked into all of my google stuff automatically and you would think it would because it's it's google right so like you would it doesn't seem that hard but then they have you know you have to go in and manually add every single like in safari here i have to go in and add every single contact i want yeah it's just it's just a giant pain it kind of reminds me of the cr-48 right because like it looks like no I mean it's like it's this really early hard whether they just want to get out there and the software sucks the hardware sucks but you know the hardcore you know the the bleeding edge people are going to love it and I think that glasses is the same yeah if you can seriously walk around with it which I don't know if I would have the guts to but but but some people yeah I will say I got I we went out to shoot the video we were just watching and they we got stopped by a lady and man they were sort I think together I don't know not important it was conciliate didn't want to ask but so they stopped us and we were talking and we had like a conversation and the guy goes so have you ever picked up any girls at that and i was i was like no just none like- women with this and and he was like i was talking to this girl that and he was like well you got one in her and she just immediately was like no no never I would never date a guy with Google glass and then like turn to walked away you know this might not be the chick magnet I was over yeah I mean and it doesn't help that the the camera doesn't seem to be very good because you could say oh let me take a nice picture of you but the camera just isn't that great one thing I wanted to try while I'm here is I want see if I can create a screen ception by taking a picture nice uh ok glass take a picture oh no that's not going to yeah so it doesn't end the world it turns out if you take up for the screen okay well that's always pretty sure that's good no I mean the camera the one thing I do like about the camera is how just like seamless it is we sent like Sam sheffer our social guy to the Justin Timberlake on so of course because as you do as you do right people and and and he loved just being able to stand there and like look at a thing and take a picture yeah take a picture of relatively that thing right which is cool but yeah the camera it's kind of a long way to go before it's actually a good camera yeah it's not great i will say that i'm impressed with audio quality i know how it would perform at a concert yeah i thinks it I remember Sam saying that you couldn't hear anything but um well so it's bone conduction right and you can feel it right so his bone conduction like is it going to be a thing they've been talking about it in smartphones is it is it actually useful tech here or anywhere it is for low fidelity stuff you can have some company makes bone conduction stereo headsets that is not designed for like swimmers so they can listen to music while they're swimming but I don't think that it's very high quality right and this is the same thing right like the idea that the reason why they're doing it is so that you can hear in more situations like you can be out on a new york city street and here you know these alerts and tones and voice navigation instructions but I you know am I going to want to listen to music on this thing well no for one thing there is no left side but read even if there was I don't think about doing another thing where you're listening to music in two headphones then you take one out and it like throws your whole balance off that kept happening to me with this right was like I was completely my whole brain is just like veering right as I yes it does his are you know it doesn't it doesn't help that you can feel you like you can seriously like feel it what like when it makes a sound there's like a pressure on the right side of your head for where the bone conduction is yeah and edgy I can see why that would be just feels great it's exactly what you it's nice a massaging sensation really so what I mean so what do you like we've been talking about glass forever right it's been out there they've been talking about it's like what's yeah it's the first time you've tried it what did you expect ha I just a pretty of white or orange first of all disappointed in your color selection I'm black you personally yeah I did I'm so sorry but I mean you can obviously see how and why this has potential but it's just so early both in terms of software in terms of hardware in terms of just like basic like social acceptance of having this weird thing on your head yeah all of that I think is kind of like collaborating against Google pushing this to the mainstream soon but you can imagine how like five ten years down the road these things are 99 bucks and they just look like regular eyeglasses it's gonna be a different ballgame what was so for like four you know you Chris tiegler a day in the life of Nazi power yeah where does where does glass come in for me it was it was directions like I actually loved having a thing that i could just be like oh i wonder if there's a starbucks nearby and it would just like no and sort of find me starbucks like what is that is it for you i will tell you exactly how it fits in front in fact i'll show you i'll demonstrate go ok glass hang out with david pierce oh haha no google+ contact but i would definitely come for this we're using one of our test accounts and it's actually suspended because i think google doesn't know what to do with the fact that we have google glass connected to this account yes it's complete it does normally work right and i would hang out with you so you think you want to do that you just want to walk around and be like hey what'swhat's dieter up to and just hang out and yeah just do a little little call you know a little voice caller look I guess there isn't I mean I could probably see him is that the idea I could see him in the Hangout will he'd be able to see you too I guess no no see this is the weird thing about what he'd just be at his computer or something right i mean if i held the phone up then he might see me right there needs to be that's true there needs to be another camera that just just your why I it's just like no no it is he would have to be it like on this little stem that you could like rotate out and then it faces back at you then all anybody would do is just selfies just like Google glass tiles on your go ever since vine added front-facing camera capability it's all selfies all the times you Jack Dorsey on the like half of his face with device yep brilliant it's perfect it is perfect yeah so so what else you you want to be able to hang out but there's like they've talked about all these other apps that sort of to me seemed not super useful there's like Skitch and it's like I don't know that I want to take a picture and like annotated on my I don't even know how that works necessary well so what else so the first thing I'll say is that until they get to the point where glass at the very least they need to get it to the point where I can wear it all day it's just like a phone like these be able to last a day if it's lessening through what is it three nights yeah it's somewhere between like three or four types I'm not gonna be home and be like oh I'm going to dinner let me go grab my glass and put it on like that's not how you're gonna use it you're gonna set you're gonna either have it on or gonna have it off yeah and and so they need to get past that hump in order to enable an entire like Set of apps that aren't really useful right now like a simple example like the new york times app like I I I really like the idea of his just having breaking news fed to me all day in my eyeball that's really that sounds like misery I'm wait it's just like I guess what just happened I'm way into it like that's you know I want to feel connected and I don't want to be the jerk that's pulling his phone out and looking at actually I will say it was did you get uh the emergency alert on your phone this morning for there was a flood in New York apparently maybe it's just a memo bourhood in Brooklyn but there was a there was a flood alert and it occurred to me this morning I was sitting that's like that would be a hater thing like my phone's going crazy nice if it was just like hey it's flooding go inside yeah that's actually happy that would actually be super useful um yeah you can I mean it's it's so obvious the potential of having a displaying your eyeball the time but so okay here's here's my last question for you and this is what I totally don't understand what's different about google glass versus like if I just held my phone here all the time but like wait hold your phone wow that's true that's the point no you're it is that it's here also there are two things right one is it IM guy made like a homemade glass this week and the critical thing the reason why it is not a homemade glass is that it doesn't have a transparent display being able to have this thing that's sort of like basically out of your way even though it's right on your face is critical that's true and then also there's the simple fact that you're not can hold your phone up all day so I think don't see why not you just have like you need one of those things that they give dogs with like the carrot in front of them that makes them real just just hang my phone I think well no that's where your front facing camera goes oh got to leave space for that I think the more interesting battle in the next few years is going to be between this form factor and this form factor smart interesting because there's going to be so much overlap in what they're trying to accomplish right you're gonna get text messages delivered to your eyeball you're going to text messages on your wrist you're going to get weather alerts here and here so I can see a lot of conflict there and I can definitely see why people kind of like fold into one of those two camps and just not have both except for me with who of course what I was gonna say you're you're a big you know take you know chris ziegler guy who owns did you buy a palm folio recently did I make that up not really I have you own a folio it has been in my collection for many years oh okay fair enough but so you're a guy who buys lots of tech just start you can say David garbage useless things that no one has ever needed Reverend lives right and sold for eight dollars uneven right yeah uh but so you're you're also big watch guy right so where do you think you'll and between glasses and watch I feel like for me I land on watch but yes as much as they want to say it's out of my way it's still in my way like it's still gonna be there and the watch is genuinely like I'm once i watch now and I don't notice it and that's also a social Norman to wear a watch it is not nobody looks at me funny when I go like right exactly and and one thing that's for me the killer app for smartwatches is vibration because you frequently can't feel your phone ringing your pocket especially if you're like walking you can't feel it if you get like a text message you always feel the vibration on your wrist mad phantom vibrations on your face are going to be the worst you're just gonna walk around your ankle it's just happen oh yeah I'm fine yeah yeah yeahs thought I got a text me with no no dice yeah we're world we're all going no you're gonna die really really soon yes we are all right we have to go so get out of here and you use that to get you actually will get you anywhere because you'll go down into the New York subway and it'll be like I can't tell you anything I can just take a picture and probably get you arrested I'm actually going to sell this on ebay right and then and then buy more palm folio yes with the proceeds right all right awesome thanks Chris thank you so the future is much more exciting than the present in the past for google glass they're both cool and there's some nifty stuff going on but what's really exciting about glass both from Google's perspective and consumers perspective is what's coming next so we sent evan rodgers to figure out what is coming next the funny thing about google glasses the expectations clearly exceed the reality the first thing people want to do is take a picture and have their picture taken but after a few awkward voice commands 30 to take it off and admit that it's pretty cool but there's just not that much you can do with it right now but we're starting to see developers stretch their legs in terms of what you can do in addition to what's available right out of the box you can now get hourly updates from the new york times app send and receive tweets and upload videos directly to youtube with a new full screen be map there's also plenty of apps coming soon like evernote and others but some developers aren't waiting around if you have successfully rooted glass allowing them to run apps that google otherwise wouldn't approve one app Winky enables you to take a picture too just by winking another less you run the full android desktop right from the eyepiece the explorer edition of Google glass was designs the developers could try new things but the speed at which it was rooted has caused some to speculate about the downsides of an ever-present microphone and camera someone could in theory tap into your glass without you ever knowing but for right now hacking glass requires physical access and hopefully it'll stay that way right now glass is a concept physically manifested it's an expensive accessory that has far more potential than it has functionality but that's okay as units arrive on the Stoops of developers will undoubtedly see the number of apps expand pretty quickly glass will be a playground for the imaginative and though will experience some growing pains people are excited and ultimately that's what matters for now Google glass is really more interesting than it is good it's good just for the fact that it works but the future is really where it's going to start to get interesting and part of that future is coming next week at Google i/o where Google's bound to talk a lot more about glass and try to get developers and buyers on board for this to actually be a real product speaking of which will be at Google i/o next week bringing you all the news on glass plus all the news on everything that google announces and it's usually a lot so we'll see you then you