[nirvana]

Because Steve Mann is into wearable computers and google glass is not a wearable computer project. Your wondering this is understandable because google has mislead you. But glass has no CPU, there's not enough power or space for one. The intelligence lives on google servers where the speach recognition is done, and everything else, and glass is useless without a net connection (So you have to be in an area with wifi or have a smartphone handy to tether to.)

Steve Mann has been working on head mounted displays, true, but he's been focusing on local horsepower wearable computers.

Ultimately, I don't think google glass is anything more than a PR project to remove the stigma of google as ripoff artists and to make it look like they're innovative.

Given current technology, glass on wifi should have about 20 minutes of battery life, maybe an hour. Which makes them pretty useless.

There's really quite a difference between a wearable computer (what Mann works on) and a bluetooth headset with integrated display (what glass is.)

[monochromatic]

> But glass has no CPU, there's not enough power or space for one. The intelligence lives on google servers where the speach recognition is done, and everything else, and glass is useless without a net connection (So you have to be in an area with wifi or have a smartphone handy to tether to.)

I guess this CPU-less device talks to a Wifi connection via... magic.

[hazov]

What's a CPU for you?

For me it's something that execute instructions and have their own instruction sets. It can be even built in a breadboard and you could eventually invent your own instruction set.

Even low powered microcontrollers have a CPU (microcontrollers are small, low powered computers), and microcontrollers can come in many sizes[1]

Your point could be that it's just a head mounted display on top of an ASIC, which I doubt it would be.

Right now I think Glass is just a display for smartphones and a way to use Google services, which I think is quite limited (you said it's useless without the net, I agree). Right now we don't even have the tech to run sophisticated speech recognition in a smartphone without a couple of servers crunching statistical formulas why would you think it would be different with a low powered device?

EDIT: Basically my last paragraph is saying that I agree with you but without being too harsh in the comments. This could be the beginning of the wearable computers revolution along with a iWatch.

[1]: http://www.wired.com/design/2013/02/freescales-tiny-arm-chip...

[Simucal]

Android has offline speech recognition (introduced in Jelly Bean). From my limited testing it works really well. So, I don't think an external server is as required as some people say.

It works insanely fast, transcribing what I say in near real time which feels like black magic compared to Siri on my iPhone that has to record an audio clip in its entirety, send it up to their servers, process it, then send a response back.

[jonknee]

Glass could use the Android handset as a remote server--it shouldn't matter if the Android crunches voice on its own or with a data connection, all that matters is Glass getting a reply from the API call.

[THE_PUN_STOPS]

>Ultimately, I don't think google glass is anything more than a PR project to remove the stigma of google as ripoff artists and to make it look like they're innovative.

I disagree with everything about your comment, but especially this part. What on earth are you talking about? Labeling Google as non-innovative and Glass a mere "PR project" is shortsighted (oops, forgot about self-driving cars) and quite frankly, something I'd expect from an Engadget comment thread, not someone who managed to snag "nirvana" on HN.

[buro9]

I agree with your post in it's entirety, except for the bit on battery life as I spoke to an engineer using Glass a few weeks ago and 5-6 hours with real world use was the toted number (for a mix of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth use).

I still feel that is very poor though, for Glass to really be useful it should last a long working day, and ideally all of your average waking hours.

It remains a bluetooth headset with integrated display and camera. The phone and some remote servers do the real work.

[steeve]

I got to try Glass last week, and the engineer told me it was close to 15 hours, not 5.

[enraged_camel]

If 5-6 hours is the toted number, the real number is most likely close to 4 hours.

[buro9]

7 hours was the toted number, 5-6 hours was what he said he got in real-world usage.

[gfodor]

I don't see how the details of the hardware platform have anything to do with the advice he could give on the effects on the viewers eyesight, optics, etc.

[throwawaay]

Pure bullshit. If you seriously believe that Glass doesn't have a CPU or has under 20 minutes of battery life, your raging Apple partisanship is showing through even more than normal.

I'm willing to bet that you haven't used Glass, but don't let that stop you from desperately trying to portray it as vaporware, a PR stunt, or some kind of scheme masterminded by Satan himself on EVERY HN thread you can plausibly cram that nonsense into.

Between your recent posts about Glass and taligent's constant downplaying of Google's maps and autonomous cars, I have to wonder what makes you two work so hard at spewing blind hate for them here.

[archangel_one]

> glass has no CPU

Incorrect.

[jessriedel]

I like your comment, but would it really be so difficult to for the next generation of Glass to tether to a smart phone in your pocket that did all the computing and only used Google's cloud services for supplemental input when available? I.e. the voice recognition gets better when you've got a good data connection. The phone could be larger than average because you'd rarely need to pull it out of your pocket.

I don't see why you think there's such a large difference between local horsepower and cloud computing. They compliment each other, and the ultimate technology will be a mixture of both. User interaction is the much more interesting and difficult problem.

(And your battery life comment is misplaced.)

[staz]

Google glass already connect to your phone AFAIK

[siamore]

Does google glass not use the wearer's smartphone?

Regardless of whether the computation is done locally or not, he has been working on "augmented reality" using glasses, a great asset for google he may even prove to be.

[codeulike]

Glass connects to users smartphone via bluetooth