It's actually the opposite: the rule is that the owner of the article also owns the title. Quite a lovely rule that you wouldn't want to change in 9 cases of 10.
I have had the privilege of working on augmented reality with accurate head-tracking and geo-registered spatial entities in a 3D world, and am looking forward to seeing how the next step of Glass goes. It is really cool to "walk around" AR entities and have a glowing digital form exist before me & my friends (on the network) out in the real world. The idea of just having a phone dashboard in my face seems far more limited.
(Edit: Especially given it's something you strap to your face. I'm excited about AR and VR but not really sure whether my vision/migraines will make me a candidate :|)
> The initial version of Glass . . . sold for $1,500. . . Google stopped selling it in January and executives have admitted that the device was released before it was ready for consumers.
No shit. It was $1500 _because_ it was not ready for consumers, and they wanted to price it high enough so people who had no business buying one didn't.
> they wanted to price it high enough so people who had no business buying one didn't.
All they did with the high pricing was make it a prestige item, like Singapore's car licensing costs - they've made driving a car far more of a prestige thing.
Maybe they should have just done what game console manufacturers have done lately (in the name of "opening up their hardware" beyond AAA publishers), and required sending them a set of CV-like details proving you're the kind of person who tinkers with graphics tech for a living, not affiliated with any news organizations or with their competitors.
To be fair yes $1500 plus an invite-only is a crazy idea to me. When was the last product ever gained fame in short-period of time with a beta invite? Gmail is probably the first and the last.
Apple products are expensive. Many high-end Android smartphones are expensive if you are not on a new contract or renewing contract, yet there are still plenty of customers. What makes Glass a failure is that there weren't a lot of engagement but full of negatives coming from different corners of the world. To me there was not enough commercial. Even Apple Watch is an expensive wasteful to me but still a lot of sales (definitely much less compare to iPhones).
Battery life, apps, convenience were all mediocre. I will almost compare Glass to FireFox OS phones where there was noise, but the product couldn't compete with mainstream product (yes that was the initial market, but still). You can't just force to create a market by creating something cheap because when it breaks, people will rather pay 10x more for something more durable, reliable, and more fun to use. Glass was the first in this market and yet GG manages to pull a wall in between users and the product. By the way, it was very easy to get an invite, but each invite takes 3-6 months to go through. With the amount of money GG has, GG can easily roll out in the entire US market quickly. I am sure me being me, I don't have years of marketing experience, I am sure GG folks know what they were doing, but from a common man perspective, at least me, I would do it differently.
They were somewhat unclear in their messaging, but I (and others) interpreted the price as signalling that it was aimed at developers, in advance of a broader rollout. But it wasn't, and their stance towards outside developers turned out to be much less friendly than expected.
So umm, the engineers behind the Fire phone are now going to waltz in and fix Google Glass? That's like making a Rock supergroup out of the members of Krokus and Winger.
Ditto this. There were articles published explaining how Jeff Himself set Fire feature and development priorities. It just so happened that the Jeff Phone wasn't a success, which isn't the engineers' fault. At Amazon, despite all the cant, one can't tell Jeff he's wrong or keep one's job if one does.
I'd suggest there were multiple problems that extended down to engineering. In 4 years of development all they came up with for hardware and software differentiation (and compensation for losing Google first party apps and most of the android ecosystem) were a few half-baked features that never had a chance of moving the needle on device sales(face kinect, buy this thing, instant tech support). Sure you can try and blame all that on Bezos too but I'm skeptical he's that dumb that any great ideas Lab 126 had were just shot down.
The fire phone is actually pretty nice, if you got it on sale, and put a launcher that works more like stock android. It's really nice to have a smaller screen device with 2gb ram and a fast CPU; I wish it had a bad button though, swipe up for bad is just weird. Probably doesn't need 4 front cameras either, but the lock screens are pretty neat.
I got it only for $125. I like it so far. I also got amazon prime free with it. If I consider I paid for prime then that unlocked brand new phone is just FREE
Yet another missed opportunity to call it Google Goggles. Not serious enough of a name? Release a product and people will take the project more seriously.
Try it in an art gallery. It will substantially improve your experience. You find anything remotely interesting? Here is its Wikipedia article. And the artist's. And a poster shop were you can order it. And you have a picture of the object to get back to later. It'S something like an universal museum app - I love it.
I still think that Google Glass has amazing opportunities for specialized technical applications. Just imagine if they could do all the things that the computer guy in Quantum Leap made possible. Like the billiard scene, where it maps out the most likely angles of impact to successfully clear the table. And while I understand that's not a true technical application, it certainly could be for a professional pool player.
Is it going to be open source this time? That was the one problem with Google Glass that did, by far, the most damage; it turned Google's minor technical mistakes into political battles, trying to get Google to pay attention to the issues affecting developers and enthusiasts. Most of the problems are still unfixed today, and they weren't exactly diplomatic about it. The experience of being a Glass explorer left a bad taste in my mouth that a name-change isn't going to fix.
Glass was one of those projects that management seriously goofed up. Whenever we had an issue come up from an explorer, we'd do as much as we could to solve it, but there was in general too much political chaff in the way to fix the larger problems.
I pushed for opening at least the AOSP stuff that wasnt bound by agreements toward the end, but my arguments fell on deaf ears, it seems.
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[ 5.7 ms ] story [ 90.7 ms ] threadHope that saves you a click.
> Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait.
But why is this a clickbait title? The article is lightweight, but I don't see what's baity about the title.
Google renames Project 'Glass' to 'Aura' and Hires from Amazon
As for "Aura", I think we have a dialect difference there; many people pronounce "Aura" as "are-a", not "or-a".
(Edit: Especially given it's something you strap to your face. I'm excited about AR and VR but not really sure whether my vision/migraines will make me a candidate :|)
No shit. It was $1500 _because_ it was not ready for consumers, and they wanted to price it high enough so people who had no business buying one didn't.
All they did with the high pricing was make it a prestige item, like Singapore's car licensing costs - they've made driving a car far more of a prestige thing.
Like this: https://wiiu-developers.nintendo.com/signup/
Apple products are expensive. Many high-end Android smartphones are expensive if you are not on a new contract or renewing contract, yet there are still plenty of customers. What makes Glass a failure is that there weren't a lot of engagement but full of negatives coming from different corners of the world. To me there was not enough commercial. Even Apple Watch is an expensive wasteful to me but still a lot of sales (definitely much less compare to iPhones).
Battery life, apps, convenience were all mediocre. I will almost compare Glass to FireFox OS phones where there was noise, but the product couldn't compete with mainstream product (yes that was the initial market, but still). You can't just force to create a market by creating something cheap because when it breaks, people will rather pay 10x more for something more durable, reliable, and more fun to use. Glass was the first in this market and yet GG manages to pull a wall in between users and the product. By the way, it was very easy to get an invite, but each invite takes 3-6 months to go through. With the amount of money GG has, GG can easily roll out in the entire US market quickly. I am sure me being me, I don't have years of marketing experience, I am sure GG folks know what they were doing, but from a common man perspective, at least me, I would do it differently.
Google Glass, now Project Aura, brought to you by the developers of the Fire Phone
It's pretty obvious that it was designed to be another sales channel for Amazon first, and a usable smart phone for people second.
Glass was one of those projects that management seriously goofed up. Whenever we had an issue come up from an explorer, we'd do as much as we could to solve it, but there was in general too much political chaff in the way to fix the larger problems.
I pushed for opening at least the AOSP stuff that wasnt bound by agreements toward the end, but my arguments fell on deaf ears, it seems.