Just A Regular Saturday Evening… With Google Glass

For two weeks I am wearing my own Google Glass and until now it has been an amazing journey. I try to wear it as much as possible just to really understand and experience the potential of it. Because it is something completely new in my opinion I have to because otherwise you keep yourself limited to the regular use cases you know from tablet and smartphone. The nice thing with Glass is that at unexpected moments it surprises you and therefore you need to wear it all time. In The Netherlands there are about 15 Glass owners and it is pretty easy to get in contact with them. All sharing experiences and we even have our first meet up by the end of this month.

Saturday evening

Yesterday evening my wife and I had a dinner scheduled with my sister and brother in law to thank them for their help with creating and building new bedrooms for our kids. Once we were ready to leave our house for a second I was thinking about not to put on my Glass but as explained earlier, just did it. As a pre-requisite I have to say I connected my Google Calendar with my Outlook. So all my Outlook items are automatically synchronized with my Google Calendar. Since the Google Now functionality with smart suggestions uses this calendar it makes the experience of Glass even better. Since the Google Now functionality with smart suggestions uses this calendar it makes the experience of Glass even better.So when putting on my Glass I see a picture of a map appearing in my Glass telling me that there is light traffic to the restaurant in Amsterdam. Google sees in my agenda that a dinner is scheduled and thus assumes we want to get there by car. By tapping on the picture I can choose for ‘get directions’ and it will find directions and start navigation straight in front of my right eye. If Google was wrong and I wanted to travel by public transport, no problem just change the navigation option to ‘transit’ and it shows, also in The Netherlands, exactly which bus and metro lines I have to catch at what time.

Glass attention

It still feels bigger than it is in reality, enter a public area with my Google Glass. It feels like all people are looking at me which isn’t true. But, many people are looking that’s for sure. Only positive reactions and in yesterday’s case, all restaurant crew members knew this is Google Glass. Start asking questions and getting really excited about it. We are in an old building and the restaurant was called ‘Het Pompstation’. This morning I installed an app called Glasquare which enables you to do a FourSquare check in through Google Glass. This morning I installed an app called Glasquare which enables you to do a FourSquare check in through Google Glass.We were taking place at our table and were wondering what the origin was of the building. I looked into my Glass and a nice card appeared in my Glass timeline powered by Spotted by Locals. So Glass detected that I am in or nearby the building and shows me some additional information. I can either read it myself or give the instruction to Glass to read aloud this information to me. On our way to Amsterdam if we pass modern architecture the MIMOA portal shows automatically information about these buildings. The Field Trip Glass app does the same with old buildings passing by. So multiple resources that tell me about my surrounding when relevant.

Just like the first smartphones and apps on the market trying to understand the added value.

Going back home

After giving several demo’s to the crew and finishing our dinner we went home. Off course as expected Glass was telling me the traffic situation on the road to our house and navigation was starting. Just a nice example of small moments where Glass was adding a contextual experience right in front of my eye. And having this true experience the huge potential of this wearable technology is again confirmed to me. Just a nice example and plenty of them will follow. Just like the first smartphones and apps on the market trying to understand the added value. Today we have come sofar that with every question we have our first thought is: ‘Is there an app for that?’. Maybe in 5 years from now we will have the same for Glass where this wearable is just a given supported by hundreds of thousands of apps making life easier and more fun. Great to be in this journey, more to follow soon!