What is the future of Glass?
There are so many amazing possibilities with Glass, and many of them are not as far off as you might think. If Glass links with and utilizes other programs in a javascript environment, it can greatly simplify the development process.
There are just a few projects and researchers that I would like to highlight in the following pages. Their work goes beyond the gimmicks of technology and gets at the heart of innovation—improving the human experience. For the blind and visually impaired, their work offers greater opportunities for independent problem solving and a richer array of experience.
Open Glass Project
Brandyn White and Andrew Miller are computer scientists who have launched the OpenGlass Project, considering the ways that Glass can be utilized as a powerful tool for the blind and visually impaired. Their research and subsequent findings are quite extensive and truly inspiring. They have developed a few different applications for the purpose of identifying objects and informing the Glass user about their environment. Through Glass’ built in capabilities and cloud crowd-sourcing technology, they are able to create valuable applications for the blind.
The first application, which they named Question-Answer, allows a blind individual to look at an item, take a picture with Glass, and attach a question via the microphone, i.e., “What is this box?” The question and image are then sent to the cloud to receive an answer via crowdsourcing. They programmed the application to use respondents from Twitter and Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Glass is able to read the answer aloud to the individual upon return.
Watch this video to see how OpenGlass is utilizing Question-Answer.
There are so many amazing possibilities with Glass, and many of them are not as far off as you might think. If Glass links with and utilizes other programs in a javascript environment, it can greatly simplify the development process.
There are just a few projects and researchers that I would like to highlight in the following pages. Their work goes beyond the gimmicks of technology and gets at the heart of innovation—improving the human experience. For the blind and visually impaired, their work offers greater opportunities for independent problem solving and a richer array of experience.
Open Glass Project
Brandyn White and Andrew Miller are computer scientists who have launched the OpenGlass Project, considering the ways that Glass can be utilized as a powerful tool for the blind and visually impaired. Their research and subsequent findings are quite extensive and truly inspiring. They have developed a few different applications for the purpose of identifying objects and informing the Glass user about their environment. Through Glass’ built in capabilities and cloud crowd-sourcing technology, they are able to create valuable applications for the blind.
The first application, which they named Question-Answer, allows a blind individual to look at an item, take a picture with Glass, and attach a question via the microphone, i.e., “What is this box?” The question and image are then sent to the cloud to receive an answer via crowdsourcing. They programmed the application to use respondents from Twitter and Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Glass is able to read the answer aloud to the individual upon return.
Watch this video to see how OpenGlass is utilizing Question-Answer.
The next application they have developed is called Memento, which is also shown in the video above. Memento is intended to give the blind user a commentary about a space they are going to work in or utilize. This must be done by voice recordings previously made by a sighted person. Once the commentary is recorded and uploaded for that particular space, Glass can then recognize that space in the future and inform the wearer of any alerts or “mementos” about the environment that were recorded.
These two applications are just a small sampling of the incredible work being done by Brandyn White and Andrew Miller. They had compelling ideas regarding the subtlety that eye tracking, developed into eye gesturing, would afford Glass as a form of input. To see more of their exciting designs for the OpenGlass project, visit this page.
http://www.openshades.com
http://www.openshades.com
Navatar Project
The Navatar Project is an indoor navigation application for the blind, created by Eelke Folmer of the University of Nevada. It was originally created for smartphones, but with the arrival of Google Glass, an application of Navatar for Glass is being developed, as the wearable device makes the application more accurate and less cumbersome than utilizing the same program through a smartphone medium. This particular project was funded by a Google Research Award Folmer won for his projected project. Navatar uses the low-cost sensors already contained inside smartphones to navigate interior environments, making Navatar a cost-effective option for users. It has also been suggested that sighted Glass users could also benefit and utilize this indoor navigational tool. Imagine new students in cavernous university halls and how a tool like Navatar might make the transition a bit less daunting.
Watch this video to see how Navatar is helping the blind to navigate with greater ease.
Google Glass: Full of Possibilties
There is certainly a wish list of hardware, software, and applications just waiting to be developed to increase the utility of Glass to the benefit of the the blind, visually impaired, and consequently society as a whole. Through my study on this project, through the words and perspectives I’ve encountered, an indomitable spirit surfaces from this community, showing an attitude that pushes past obstacles and finds solutions. Because of this attitude, technology is not generally shied away from by this sector of the population; rather, it is viewed as a means to achieving greater possibilities. Considering the number of people who are affected by vision loss, from a humanities perspective or a business perspective, investing in Google Glass applications, softwares, and hardware additions just makes sense. The possibilities are numerous and exciting.
This site was created by Victoria Robertson.