googleglass

Street photographer and Assistant Professor at UC Berkeley Richard Koci Hernandez (known best as just Koci) lucked out when he won Google's #ifihadglass contest and earned the right to purchase (that's right, they didn't give them to him for free) a Google Glass pair and become a "Glass Explorer."

We also lucked out, because Koci has been able to do what many Glass Explorers can't: give us a street photographer's perspective on the revolutionary product that may one day do to smartphones what smartphones did to point-and-shoot cameras.

It remains unknown just how popular Google Glass will be when it's available to the masses, but for the select group of individuals who are lucky enough to sport a pair today, the on board camera just got a bit better.

Google Glass is set to arrive in the hands of the general public later this year. There are already apps that can trigger the shutter by detecting winks, and some people are already thinking of how the wearable camera can be useful for various photographic applications.

Having always-ready glasses strapped to your face may be convenient, but how will photography look? The video above by Grovo offers a humorous look at what photographers would look like if Google Glass becomes widely used as a camera and camcorder.

For now, if you want to get your child's point of view on anything, the best approach is to mount a helmet cam to their noggin and hope they don't mind -- so far we've seen a few cute videos filmed this way. But in the near future, the best way to get your 2-year-old's point of view may be by handing them a pair of Google Glass glasses.

That's what developer Chris Angelini did when his 2-year-old came calling for juice. The results are pretty darn cute.

The Google+ Photos team along with photographers Thomas Hawk, Trey Ratcliff and Robert Scoble are organizing what they think may turn out to be the biggest photowalk in the history of, well, photowalking. Set for next Tuesday May 14th, the event already has almost 700 confirmed guests via Google+.

As Google Glass ramps up to the point where it's eventually available to the general public, app developers are looking to get in on the ground floor and start developing for the platform early on. Naturally, several of those apps will seek to provide an Instagram-like service for Glass users, and the first to jump on this bandwagon is an app called Glassagram.

I've been watching with great interest over the past few weeks as the naysayers seem to have gone crazy overboard trying to bash Google Glass every chance they can. I've seen articles in Wired and on CNN and on blogs, etc., all stating how terrible Google Glass is. Oh no! Geeky white dudes are wearing Google Glass! This will never work! Oh no, someone wore a pair into the shower! Oh no, I will punch someone in the face if they try talk to me with them on -- all sorts of gibberish.

There's nothing like change to bring out the absolute haters.

While we're on the subject of Google Glass, check out this interesting use case by hockey player Joseph Lallouz. He decided to wear his Glass during a hockey match in order to capture what the sport looks and feels like from a participant's point of view.

A couple of weeks ago, it was discovered that Google Glass has wink detection features baked into the device that could allow users to stealthily snap photographs of anything just by winking at it. Today, the first wink-to-shoot app was launched.

One of the big gripes people have with the idea of taking pictures with Google Glass camera glasses is that the device requires you to say "ok, glass, take a picture" in order to snap a shot. While this is great for situations when you need hands-free photography and don't mind saying a voice command, it would be highly inconvenient in situations in which you would rather not (or can't) talk.

It looks like Google has been one step ahead of us the whole time: it appears that the company has built "wink to snap" functionality into Google Glass' camera.

Google has officially announced the specs for its Glass wearable computer/camera. Of interest to readers of this blog is the fact that the camera will be able to capture decent photographs -- at least resolution-wise. It'll be a 5-megapixel camera that has WiFi capabilities. The camera will also be able to capture 720p video and audio.

Google Glass has received a lot of criticism, particularly when it comes to privacy. Given the fact you can record video and take photos without people noticing, some could call it an opportunity for taking photos without permission. Now, in my spare time, I take photos with a particular interest in is Street Photography. Candid street photography is taking photos of any stranger without permission. Why is there this controversy over Glass when candid photography without permission is a growing genre of photography? That is my question.

Google has put up a slick new website for the Glass augmented reality glasses it's developing, and today the company released a neat new video that offers a first look at what it feels like to use the glasses during "everyday life" (or perhaps, "while living the life").

A new challenger has emerged to face Google Glass in the head-mounted glasses-style camera market. Interactive eyewear company Vuzix unveiled a new product today called the Smart Glasses M100, a camera-equipped Android computer that looks like a cross between a Bluetooth headset that's too long and a microphone that's worn too high.

Have you heard of the term sousveillance? It's the inverse of surveillance: instead of a camera pointed at individuals, individuals wear their own cameras on themselves to document their activities. Wearable-camera pioneer Steve Mann has written a fascinating piece for Time, titled "Eye Am a Camera: Surveillance and Sousveillance in the Glassage", in which he offers his vision of what the future will look like once wearable cameras such as Google Glass (seen above) become ubiquitous.

Developers who pre-ordered Google's Project Glass glasses for $1,500 won't be receiving them until early 2013, but a number of lucky journalists were recently given the opportunity to take the camera-equipped, augmented reality eye-piece for a test drive. The New York Times' gadget kingmaker David Pogue writes that the device has the potential to be one of the rare devices that introduces a whole new gadget category to the world,

[...] a few things are clear. The speed and power, the tiny size and weight, the clarity and effectiveness of the audio and video, are beyond anything I could have imagined. The company is expending a lot of effort on design — hardware and software — which is absolutely the right approach for something as personal as a wearable gadget

[...] it’s much too soon to predict Google Glass’s success or failure. But it’s easy to see that it has potential no other machine has ever had before — and that Google is shepherding its development in exactly the right way.

Earlier this week, we wrote about a unique fashion show put on in NYC by DVF that extensively featured Google's Project Glass camera glasses. Google released a video today that provides an interesting look at the show, as recorded by various people wearing the devices.

Experience the DVF Spring 2013 show at New York Fashion Week through the eyes of the people who made it happen—the stylists, the models and Diane von Furstenberg herself. All the footage you see here was filmed using only Glass, Google's latest technology that lets you capture moments from a unique, new perspective. See what happens when fashion and technology come together like you've never seen before.

It's interesting seeing what goes on behind the scenes at a fashion show, especially from the diverse perspectives see in this video (glasses were given to everyone from the designer herself to the cameramen at the back of the runway room).

If Google's vision of the future of photography comes to pass, we'll soon find ourselves in a world in which camera glasses are worn around as an everyday fashion accessory. Perhaps in an effort to make this idea easier to stomach, Google partnered up with luxury fashion company Diane von Fürstenberg (DVF) today for the label's Spring 2013 fashion show, equipping people on and around the runway with its high-tech glasses. Glass wearers included runway models, Google founder Sergey Brin, and designer Diane von Furstenberg herself.

It looks like at least one group of people will be in-the-know regarding Google's Project Glass, a group that has been dubbed "Glass Explorers" by the company's co-founder Sergey Brin. The group is made up of all the pre-orderers from Google's I/O event earlier this year who shelled out $1,500 to make sure they get their hands on the first of the wearable camera/computers.

Fortunately for them, that $1,500 also bought them acces to exclusive product updates, invites to events, and access to Google+ hangouts -- a veritable secret club missing only the secret password for access to the secret treehouse clubhouse.

Professor and self-proclaimed cyborg Steve Mann created an eye and memory-aid device he calls the EyeTap Digital Glass. The EyeTap, worn by Mann above on the left, is a wearable device that is similar to Google Eye, pictured right, but he's been making them at home since the 1980s. The goal of his project is to use images to aid memory, or even to augment the memories of people with Alzheimer's Disease or who simply want to preserve their memories more permanently. However, a recent misunderstanding over Mann's technology allegedly caused a confrontation between Mann and several employees at a Paris McDonald's restaurant.