The internet is ablaze today with talk of the so-called “Google Goggles” that are expected to hit shelves by the end of this year. The basic idea behind this product is that they will essentially be a pair of glasses, the inside of which will display images for the viewer right on the lense.
Sounds simple enough and besides, there have been glasses designed to be little portable media players for a while now. So what’s the big deal? Well, word on the grapevine is that the Google Goggles will go slightly further than displaying media or new-media content.
The Googles will reportedly feature a camera on the outside capable of recognising buildings and landmarks. They will then inform the wearer via a heads-up display (HUD) of places and things of interest in the vicinity.
We will in no way suggest that this idea is lame or stupid. On the contrary, a real life HUD is the kind of things geeks lay awake dreaming about at night. The sheer number of times this sort of technology has featured in Sci Fi movies, books and games is beyond counting.
However, augmented reality technology like this has so far been less than stellar when it comes to performance. It’s very hard to believe that even Google will suddenly make the technological leap required to really provide something that measures up to our hopeful expectations. Yes, Google is a powerful, rich and innovating company. But it’s important to remember that even Google can’t quite get facial or voice recognition to work properly yet, so how would something as gargantuan as a real-life HUD that displays information about your surroundings be any easier? It wouldn’t, obviously.
It’s important to remember that all of this is currently based on rumor and conjecture. When you feed a bunch of excited geeks (i.e. the tech news industry) information about some really cool stuff we’ve been dreaming of since we were kids then the chances are more than likely that reports will become somewhat exaggerated.
All we really know for certain right now is that Google is making some glasses that have little projectors inside. We can also make a good bet that these things will look pretty silly, but if anyone asks you didn’t hear that from us.
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