Google Glass and the Future of Technology
New gadgets — I mean whole new gadget categories — don't come along very often. The iPhone was one recent example. You could argue that the iPad was another. But if there's anything at all as different and bold on the horizon, surely it's Google Glass.
Context & Ripple Effects
By September 2012, Google's wearable project had already traveled from rumor to reality check: 9to5Google reported in December 2011 that Google X's device was not an iPod Nano-style gadget but a heads-up display built into glasses, and Wired's April 2012 conversations with augmented-reality experts catalogued the technical hurdles standing between prototype and product.
David Pogue's column adds the third beat to that arc: framing. Rather than debating feasibility, he places Glass alongside the iPhone and iPad as a candidate for a whole new gadget category — the same rhetorical move that preceded each of Apple's platform launches, and one that sets expectations for Google before a consumer version even ships.
First-order effects
- Public expectations for Glass are now anchored to the iPhone/iPad standard of category creation, meaning Google's eventual launch will be judged against platform-scale success rather than incremental accessory appeal.
Second-order effects
- If Glass reads as a credible new category, rival hardware makers face pressure to field their own heads-up wearables rather than cede the space, and app developers gain a reason to prototype for a screen mounted inches from the eye.
Third-order effects
- The pattern this points toward is computing migrating off the phone and onto the body — displays, sensors, and interfaces worn rather than carried — with 'fashionized computing' becoming the design constraint that decides whether such devices reach mainstream buyers.
The trend: Personal computing is testing its next form factor beyond the smartphone, with Google Glass positioned as the first serious attempt at a mass-market wearable display.