2015年1月16日 星期五

RIP Google Glass?


 
 
Google Glass測試反應不理想,又有侵犯隱私疑慮,現行版本1月19日停售,開發計劃將轉交人稱「iPod之父」的費戴爾(Tony Fadell)負責,加速催生2代版本,就為與費戴爾老東家蘋果(Apple)將上市的穿戴裝置Apple Watch比拼。

市調公司凱度消費者指數(KANTAR WORLDPANEL)分析師米拉內西(Carolina Milanesi)表示,現在就說Google Glass失敗仍言之過早,消費者未完全理解該產品,更重要的是,他們不想花太多錢在那上面。

Google Glass原本由創辦人布林(Sergey Brin)領導的X實驗室負責開發,但先前曾因侵犯隱私陷入麻煩官司,並逐漸遭許多搶先試用者揚棄。

消息人士指出,Google並未放棄開發計劃,準備推出全新版本。Google未來將把Google Glass項目從X實驗室中分拆出來,交由Google智慧家電部門負責人、nest共同創辦人費戴爾管理。

米拉內西表示,由費戴爾來負責Google Glass,代表著未來將在設計上花更多心思,透過與其他智慧家庭及汽車產品結合,使Google Glass變得更實用,也代表著費戴爾將與老東家蘋果正面競爭。(陳冠穎/綜合外電報導)



RIP Google Glass: 5 other failed inventions and what they can teach us

Glass is no more — but Google says it's going to return. Here's how other failed inventions might help them bring it back




Google Glass is dead, at least in its current form. And so it enters a grand, tragic graveyard of well-meaning but badly-received inventions and technology — a place containing flying cars and bad games consoles.
Many inventions promise to change the world, but some never get the chance. That might be because they’re bad — but it’s just as often that they come at the wrong time, or are a little confusing. Glass was probably the latter, and Google has said that it is likely to bring it back in some other form.
Here are five of our favourite other inventions that were initially expected to change the world, but now mostly languish in obscurity.

Smell-O-Vision

Lots of failed inventions sound like they should work — adding smell to films is probably one of them. After colour and sound, smell probably seemed like the inevitable next step, just as after smartphones and smart watches putting technology in your glasses seemed obvious.
But after making an appearance in the specially-made 1960 filmScent of Mystery, it never really caught on. The audience got distracted, it needed too much perfume and people found it difficult to stop the scents mixing and becoming too much. As with Glass, people weren’t ready and the implementation wasn’t good enough to convince them.
Smell-O-Vision has repeatedly attempted to mount a comeback, just as Google has suggested Glass might do. But they’ve mostly failed.

Sinclair C5

A driver demonstrates the Sinclair C5, a miniature electric car powered by a batteryLaunched in 1985, the little Sinclair C5 electric bike was revealed with much talking of it being a revolutionary device and a sign of the future. But it was immediately mocked as a toy, and the people driving it thought stupid and dangerous. (Glass wearers got their own version of that mockery, getting called “glassholes”.)
As such, it didn’t take off. But some have said that the car was ahead of its time, with one transport expert telling the BBC in July that: “The dangers of the C5 weren't so much to do with its design as the roads and the attitudes of the 1980s”.

Segway

Expatriates play polo on Segway Human Transporters before a charity polo match at Dubai Polo ClubExpatriates play polo on Segway Human Transporters before a charity polo match at Dubai Polo ClubThe Segway has always struggled to be taken seriously — while it sells itself as the “leader in personal, green transportation”, it’s really more of a fun thing that you can drive around.
Now it’s used mostly as a toy, and perhaps as a testament to keeping ambitions small. People are happy to try out gadgets for fun, less if they’re claiming to change your life.
But given even in its statement announcing the closure of the Glass explorer programme Google continued to trumpet the technology’s use in the workplace, it looks like the glasses aren’t ready to stop asking to be taken seriously just yet.

Nintendo Virtual Boy

A visitor to a Tokyo software exhibition samples Nintendo's 32-bit "Virtual Boy" three dimensional virtual reality videogame system in 1994The Virtual Boy looked a bit like Google Glass, or the bigger Oculus Rift. It was an eyepiece that users could look into and play games with 3D graphics.
Nintendo has admitted that the game was a “commercial failure” — but also said that it was an important one. Nintendo’s early experiments with 3D helped make the portable and much more popular 3DS.
The Virtual Boy stands to show that great things can come out of troubled ideas. That might be helpful consolation to Google Glass as it looks towards the future of the project.

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