Google is making the Explorer Edition of its Google Glass device available for sale for one day only, on April 15. This is the first offering to the general public.
Glass has a lot of potential, with many uses for farmers and business executives.
The device is a wireless, hands-free headset that has a prism screen in the upper right-hand corner of the user's field of vision. It responds to swipe and tap commands, and can be wirelessly tethered to work with a smartphone. There is also a camera as well as a microphone.
"In the blink of an eye or a tap [of the Google Glass], I’ve made a screen capture of an item that could be of critical importance later in the crop season," said John Fulton, an Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station researcher.
Greg Pate, another researcher at the Station, said that wearable computers could be particularly useful for crop consulting. "We have lots of farmers who receive data compiled by a scout [crop consultant] and question it or dismiss it as someone’s opinion," he said. "Now, with Google Glass, all a consultant has to do is to pull up the data that was compiled automatically and say, ‘Here it is.’"
Even more is possible. With Google Glass, people can shoot videos, get driving directions, and search the internet. A new app has been released called Livestream, which allows Glass users to stream live video from a first-person perspective. This could allow farmers to connect to experts remotely for everything from crop diseases to mechanical fixes.
In a broader sense, this sort of remote viewing could be especially useful for monitoring employees at work. This might sound creepy, but consider that workers might act differently if they thought they were being recorded. Once these kinds of personal cameras become ubiquitous in society, will we find everyone being more polite to each other as well?
Another new headset, called MetaPro augmented reality glasses, could give Google Glass a run for its money. Dubbed the first holographic interface, not only does it have a larger display, which overlays the entire field of vision, but it also interacts with the user's hand movements for a very engaging experience. The company is taking pre-orders and the first glasses will be available in September 2014.
These interfaces present the possibility of redefining personal computing for farmers and business executives alike. The ways in which business is conducted and people are managed could be greatly affected in nearly every field.
Google Glass
MetaPro
