Sony has announced that they are developing their own version of smartglasses, wearable technology that syncs with smartphones, apps and GPS to create eyeglasses with higher tech related capabilities.
This was kind of a surprise; Google Glass has been around for awhile, but kind of faded into the background. Wearable technology has officially fallen to the feet of smartwatches, which every brand around seems to be on the warpath for dominance in the market.
Not Sony. The company has decided to go back a few steps and try their hand on smartglasses, leading to their development of SmartEyeglass.
Basically, it does what you expect. You wear the glasses, and it brings up text, notifications, and alerts across the lenses.
It works by connecting through Bluetooth, and is compatible with Android 4.1 and above. It has a cumbersome cable attached to them, and look alarmingly like those 3D glasses you get in movie theaters, combined with the visor Cyclops wore in the original X-Men cartoon. Stylish.
The glasses operate a few different types of sensor: Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Electronic compass, Brightness sensor, Microphones. These can all be taken advantage of when creating apps that are compatible with the software.
Right now, they are in developer package mode. So you can think of these more as a prototype than a consumer ready product. They even have suggestions for open app development opportunities they want people to take on, such as facial recognition software that would tell the wearer more about the person they are looking at (creepy), a running app that gives you all the information for regular fitness apps in front of your eyes (pointless), and GPS that lights up the chosen destination with a Sim-like beam of light (hilarious).
I’m sorry, do I sound cynical? It is because I am.
Smartglasses? We are really going back to that? If Google Glass proved anything, it is that it is possible to look like even more of a douche while ignoring people around you in a restaurant. Did Sony really need to come along and try to jump on that sad little train?
Smartwatches I kind of get (kind of), especially since Apple released their Watch. But smartglasses are absolutely beyond me, and I can’t even begin to understand why anyone would so much as want to try out such a ridiculous bit of technology.
How disorienting would it be to suddenly get a bunch of notifications about that person you don’t like who keeps Facebook-stalking you right in front of your eyes when you’re trying to walk? I would smash right into a parked car.
Source: Sony
