Original Google Glass Chief Gives Us A Clue About Google’s Prime Motivator In Wearable Design

(GNN) - Google X director and former head of Google Glass Babak Parviz was on stage at the Wearables Technology Conference in San Francisco this week, and he shared some interesting details about the project (via CNET), its original and its progress so far. The Glass maker notably wasn’t wearing Glass at the show, and admitted that it wasn’t “necessarily the definitive answer” to the question of what’s next for computing platforms, but that it was “one answer.”

Parviz said that he believes Google has made good progress, and called the current version “a nice first step to where we want to go,” but he also conceded that there’s a long road ahead and that the current form factor needs to evolve to become more comfortable and more power efficient (so it requires less charging time).

Perhaps the most interesting thing that Parviz said was about the origin of Glass – there’s a myth built up and endorsed by Google’s Sergey Brin that Glass was intended to help people disconnect from their smartphone screens and become more engaged in whatever they’re doing at the moment. Brin even once famously said that smartphones “emasculate” their users, a negative outcome Glass was designed to counter.

What the former Glass head said about the impetus behind Glass was that it was about reducing the time it takes to make and receive results from a search query, from about 10 seconds as it stands on a smartphone to far, far less. Putting the input device and means of retrieving and reading the results directly on the head and in front of the eye seemed like the best way to do that.

This motivation makes a lot more sense than some idea about the ‘emasculating’ nature of smartphones, and it likely helps explain design decisions behind Android Wear, and possibly other upcoming Android hardware, too. Think about the always listening Moto X, too, and the introduction in Android KitKat of similar system-wide voice queries for Google search when the display is active.

Google’s end goal is not just to anticipate the next big computing platform, but also to make sure that is search product can thrive and grow on said platform. Through this rubric, it’s easy to see why Glass exists, and why Android Wear was designed the way it was, with voice taking a pretty primary place in the overall interaction experience.

Via 9to5Google

Google Adds “Okay Google” Voice Search For All Chrome Users

Maybe you already talk to your computer but now there’s even more reason to – Google has just released the latest version of Chrome, which includes “Okay Google” triggered voice searches that work automatically, without requiring any clicks or other input prompting first. Users will need to enable it once and provide Chrome permission to user their computer’s mic if they haven’t already, but after that, it’s as simple as opening a new tab, navigating to Google.com and speaking the magic words followed by your search request.

The feature works as advertised, and doesn’t fumble even with my mumble. I’m still somewhat old-school in terms of my comfort level with talking at and to electronics and computerized devices, so I’ll probably mostly be sticking to the Old Ways of kludging about on rows of squares printed with alphabetic symbols, but I can still see this being quite useful on occasion.

As an aside, the “Okay Google” verbiage already somehow seems natural, despite the fact that I literally never use that same sentence construction to address real humans or in general conversation, at least as a way to kick-off a conversation. “Okay shopkeep, ring up these groceries.” “Okay girlfriend, meet me tonight at 7.” It doesn’t work, and yet for some reason with Google’s voice-powered features it still does seem to count as ‘natural speech.’ Go figure.