Google Glass – The Death of the Smartphone? [Commentary]

I only started to really look at Glass yesterday. The hype is definitely starting to pick up. and I think rightly so. Up until yesterday I had this gut instinctual reaction that said “I like this – a lot” but I never actually took a closer look. Then last night during my late night hang out with YouTube I came across some really interesting Zeitgeist videos which led me to Googling Google, which led me to Glass.

I have to say something at this point in order to give full disclosure. I must admit that since last night i have become a little bit obsessed with Google. OK that’s enough disclosure.

So what really got me going wasn’t all the safety and real life documentation concepts but rather as Sergey so eloquently showed in his Ted speech (see below) we as a humanity have basically become glued to our phone screens – looking down – constantly. Its the natural position – check phone screen – check updates – look at Facebook – check emails – check whats app – play snake – oh that was Nokia days – the point is we as a species are glued to the screens of our phones, and it does not necessarily HAVE to be that way,

And that’s what has really piqued my enthusiasm here. Google Glass precludes the reality that a few years down the line basically phones are going to be completely obsolete.

Rather than positing, as my colleague has here, that things are going to go the route of flashing the screen on contact lenses and imprinting circuit board’s (powered by natural heat from skin) ‘tattooed’ onto the skin – I believe it will be more subtle with the “computer” existing in the pocket much like the smartphone is now, but relegated to the warm darkness of the pocket/pocketbook and Glass/future iterations of Glass doing the rest. My gut feeling is that it wont take long before they develop the technology that just splays the screen in front of the person when so desired without any real need for more than a standard glasses lens.

Here is the Recently Leaked Ted talk from Sergey which was delivered pretty much off the cuff and not as a planned talk.

I really like how he so easily proves the point throughout his talk by just staring at his phone. So the real question is how quickly once fully released the technology will catch up to allow you to do all the other things you rely on your smartphone for asides from shooting a quick easy image or text message, like analyzing data on a website, or sending an email that has more than two paragraphs.

And the answer is – MUCH quicker than you think. With 3 of the top Venture Capital firms now entrenching big money into the deal in order to capitalize on the early movers, its clear that an entire Eco-structure is going to develop around it.

Knowing Google, anyone lucky enough to get their hands on the developer version in the next few weeks is going to be smart enough to either start building applications or invent them for others to build.

And so the race begins to banish the smartphone from in front of our faces. My prediction – our children’s children will be laughing at our “smartphones”

Here are a few choice videos that will open your mind more to the possibilities of Google Glass.

Are you excited about Glass after a little bit of looking deeper? Or do you think everyone looking up at their Glass ‘screen’ instead of looking down at their Smartphone screen is just going to take us down a step on the evolutionary ladder – one step closer to zombie…