It feels like just a few months ago that Google Glass made its controversial splash as the first “everyday” augmented reality eyewear to hit the market, and now it has not only been given a (much-needed) high-fashion facelift by renowned designer Diane von Furstenberg, but it is also available for anyone to purchase on Net-a-Porter! Anyone willing to shell out $1800, that is.
The frames, which come with attachable sunglass shades, allow you to augment your life with the number of Glass apps available on the market. Social sharing, interaction with people and objects, and navigation are some of the everyday actions that have been simplified by Glass. Here are my top three Glass apps that are actually useful (not just cool, pretty or vision-cluttering):
1. AR Wikipedia for Google Glass
AR (Augmented Reality) Wikipedia implements the most basic and useful of Google Glass concepts: it provides you with information about your surroundings, populated from Wikipedia. Really useful for travelers and for those moving to new cities!
Watch Me Talk provides live captioning of conversations to help the hearing impaired converse with others in real time. Watch Me Talk is currently in beta, and promises some amazing upcoming features including live translation for travelers conversing in different languages! This app will make it a lot easier for people to travel, and so much easier for the hearing impaired to live in our sound-based world.
3. Glossaic
Photosharing for Glass – a social network complete with competitions that displays Glass photos from around the world in one beautiful collage. Basically like Instagram for your glasses.
So what do you think, will you buy them? I think I will…once they come down in price. I’m dying to get my hands on a pair so I can develop on them! They use the Android OS, as expected since they’re made by Google, so it shouldn’t be too hard with the SDK!
