Google Glass code hints at spatial gestures

http://thenextweb.com/google/2013/04/22/google-glass-code-hints-at-spatial-gestures-including-two-finger-browser-zoom-and-winking-to-take-a-photo/?fromcat=mobile

by vimarshk • 13 years ago

18 36 13 years ago

thenextweb.com

ryanac• 13 years ago

Great, as if people walking around talking to "no one" wasn't bad enough, now people will be randomly grabbing at air and twitching their eyes. How are we supposed to separate the crazy people from the sane?! And the real question here, who's going to be the first person to accidentally pinch their friends nose when trying to zoom? How will we recover from such embarrassment? Is it in the warranty?!

On the other hand this does look interesting, I wonder if you could use this to "select" things in the world like "click/point to" a restaurant sign to learn more.

psbp• 13 years ago

Great, whenever anyone uses this new technology they'll be warped into a bizarro Charlie Chaplin style universe where everyone is a buffoonish clutz.

laureny• 13 years ago

> Great, as if people walking around talking to "no one" wasn't bad enough, now people will be randomly grabbing at air and twitching their eyes. How are we supposed to separate the crazy people from the sane?!

Nothing really new, people giving the appearance of talking to themselves happen all the time because of cell phones and Bluetooth headsets, and as for winking or gesturing, it's been happening to the human race ever since we were able to walk on two legs.

I still remember when walking in the streets with a walkman on your ears made you look crazy.

zalew4• 13 years ago

> Glass will be made by a third party but feature support from Google

I hope in the future it will be made only by 3rd parties. Say, you buy nicely looking designer shades and they have google glass. Right now it's ugly, vulgar, creepy and has a high douchebaggery factor, I wonder how they want to convince people to walk around with this thing on their faces.

raldi• 13 years ago

It wasn't so long ago that you were a douche if you walked around in public talking into a cell phone.

Or if you drove around showing off your crazy automobile contraption instead of riding a horse like a normal person.

Or if you wore a timepiece strapped to your wrist, instead of on a chain in your pocket like a proper gentleman. (And later, if the watch on your wrist had some kind of ugly LCD thing, instead of a handsome analog face.)

Then again, there was a time when you were a douche if you rode around on a Segway... and that period never ended.

So I guess this could go either way.

zalew4• 13 years ago

Fair enough. What I meant is that a licensing model would be cool because it would offer the same tech in endless fashion applications, instead of forcing to wear a wire structure on your head. For the moment I'm afraid that in the beginning it will be what it is, and after some time there will possibly be some special designer editions for a bazillion dollars.

pifflesnort2• 13 years ago

> It wasn't so long ago that you were a douche if you walked around in public talking into a cell phone.

You still are. It's still considered rude to subject everyone to your cell phone call. These people walk up to the register while on a call, block the sidewalk while distracted, and otherwise are clearly not actually with us in this universe.

http://conversations.nokia.com/2011/07/12/breaking-the-rules...

http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2438977

http://formingthethread.wordpress.com/2012/06/13/cell-phone-...

> Or if you drove around showing off your crazy automobile contraption instead of riding a horse like a normal person.

Yep, the 'showing off' part is still douche.

> Or if you wore a timepiece strapped to your wrist, instead of on a chain in your pocket like a proper gentleman. (And later, if the watch on your wrist was some kind of ugly LCD thing, instead of a handsome analog face.)

This one too. Once watches stopped being a functional item (the advent of phones), they became douche status badges.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/07/fashion/watches-are-redisc...

http://www.npr.org/2012/04/30/150719282/in-cell-era-timepiec...

gfodor8• 13 years ago

Unlike these other things, owning Glass is an "all-in" proposition. You can put the cell phone away. You can park the car. Hell, you can get off the Segway even.

Glass? It is on your face. It is part of your identity. Having met a few people wearing it, it is hard to imagine a more in-your-face device to own. It's one step shy of a tattoo on your forehead. When you meet someone wearing these things while they are not commonplace, the first thing you will notice when you meet them is Glass. If the perception is that Glass = douche, guess what, your first impression everywhere you go is going to be "douche" before you even get to introduce yourself.

You can take it off, sure, but if people are wearing them around their neck all the time they will eventually start just leaving them at home.

It's a huge, huge problem. I wish Google luck but also at the same time worry they are going to set back wearables for some time by pushing a Segway-like device onto the public before it's ready.

dannyr6• 13 years ago

Man, so much hate for this device that the poster probably have never seen or used in person.

A douchebag will be a douchebag with or without Glass.

But in my book, douchebags are people who call other people douchebags for no good reason.

lclarkmichalek• 13 years ago

Oh but these people do have a good reason, the person is wearing something they don't approve of.

zalew4• 13 years ago

did I offend you, or am I not allowed to dislike how an electronic device looks like?

sneak• 13 years ago

Shut up. We're all going to buy one. We'll hate ourselves, sure, and we may only wear it to user group meetings, but you can bet your ass we're all going to blow $300 on one.

Wearing it in public is one thing. Wearing it constantly at home (baby's first steps, anyone?) is another matter.

illuminate2• 13 years ago

Who is this "we"? I'll probably buy wearables at some time in the future, but I have no interest in glasses or anything else that's primarily used for video capture.

zkirill• 13 years ago

I find "BROWSER_TWO_FINGER_ZOOM" the most interesting - was just thinking the other day of what a Google Glass + Leap Motion mashup would look like.

turing• 13 years ago

Do we have any indication that these are actually Leap Motion style gestures? When I read this I assumed it was merely a two-finger gesture on the trackpad on the side of the device. In a recent TED video, a Google UX designer said that they looked into such gestures for Glass and decided not to include them in the product [1].

1. http://ed.ted.com/lessons/rapid-prototyping-google-glass-tom...

dchichkov• 13 years ago

With the current tech there is no way Google can put in computer-vision based two-finger gesture into Glass. There isn't enough processing power in the cell phone linked to the Glass. And there isn't enough space in the Glass for a custom computer vision chip. So it is likely that you are right, and it is merely a two-finger touchpad gesture.

Google Glass code hints at spatial gestures

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