It all started with this tweet:
Bob (@ClevlandBob) ended up being selected as a Glass Explorer and procured the device with help from the iSchool. The device is now housed in Hinds Hall, to be explored and tested by students. Last fall semester Bob started the #iSchoolGlass project to bring together students who are excited about the Glass platform to build applications.
As a “warm-up” exercise, we started out with a few simple ideas and developed the following apps:
- Teleprompter – More efficient (and less conspicuous) than a standalone teleprompter.
- Tweet Viewer – Pulls tweets with a particular hashtag onto the glass screen. Useful for monitoring live tweets during events.
- Subtitles Viewer – Displays movie subtitles on Google Glass to make your movie experience more immersive.
- Card Counter – Count cards using simple gestures, so that you can focus on your mental energy on winning that game of Blackjack.
Later on, we partnered with CoEverywhere to create a location-based app using their API. Here’s what it looks like from Glass:
Picture by Carl Poole (@cpoole98)
The application reads your location, and displays Instagram pictures taken nearby. Its goal is to enrich your experience, rather than distracting you with too much information. For instance, you can use it to discover additional perspectives during a big game in the Dome, or find what people have been up to on the quad on a sunny day.
These apps, while functionally simple, took a considerable amount of effort and time to implement. More than the pleasure derived from creating something, we learned an incredible deal from the experience. Primarily, we learned the significance of perseverance.
Glass was particularly hard to work with because the device is still under active development. Google releases updates (which mean that old bugs are fixed and new bugs are introduced) quite often. We had to work around that, as well as our individual schedules to coordinate efforts and meet up regularly. It was one big team effort, demanding contributions in multiple areas – research of the device, understanding of programming techniques and tools, planning our work, testing the apps, managing the expectations & relationships with external partners, advertising our work to the world… and the list goes on. There turned out to be something for everyone, and that is something we are proud of.
Looking for more Glass Explorers
Our next step is to make the group a little more structured, while channeling the same level of creativity and exploratory mindset. We’d love to see more people get involved – be it developers, marketers, project managers, etc. Furthermore, we’d like to invite Glass explorers/users to join us and discuss their ideas for applications they’d love to use on a daily basis.
In other words, we want to connect people with ideas and needs, to those with the skills and tools to implement them. We not only want to play around with Glass and learn, but also use it to create products that are ready to be shipped out. This project has always been a creative outlet for students, but now also aims to help hone their professional skills – so that they can leverage their experience in their career.
More exciting changes are in the works, and we invite you to be a part of this endeavor that has the potential to create life-altering products. We are open to the entire SU community – Just click on the link below to sign up, and we will send you an email near the beginning of next semester with more information. See you on the other side!
Are you a Glass Explorer or developer? How has your experience been with Google Glass? Let us know in the comments section below!