Technology is spreading its wings to cover the entire space of human existence. It has broken many barriers right from regular conversations that surpass geographic boundaries, seeing a person live on screen to remotely handling your computer from a distant location. However, did anyone ever imagine that Google would come up with a pair of Glasses only to obey the wearer’s commands through voice and gestures! Technology has certainly got the better of us humans through innovative ideas and we are still unsure what the future hold for all of us. “Glass” is one of the finest examples of this wonder!

The Technology

Based on the technology of sound and gestures “Glass” takes instructions from the wearer and act! Simple and crisp! You instruct Glass to take a picture, ask it to upload it on networking websites of your choice and also add a caption to it! All through voice commands!

What does Glass do?

Glass can be very efficiently put to use by one and all no matter what profession you belong to. So if you are a researcher, scientist, athlete, a chef or a fitness freak, each will find its exploit at every stage and in their many moods. Here are a few things to highlight:

Navigation: Shows directions while you are driving besides keeping your hands free for other activities

Search: a quick Google search at anytime

Capture every moment: Capturing precious moments through voice gestures is one of the best features. You may take pictures of record a video.

Share: Instant sharing of videos and pictures anywhere on the network Watch videos and listen to music on the go

Compass: for better directions while on an adventure trip

Playing games or outdoor workouts: The app is best for fitness freaks or outdoor game lovers. Distance covered by runners along with directions and locations is a big add-on. With the right app in place one may also incorporate and play the games of your interest with ease.

Designing app for Google Glass

Glass supports three design patterns which help build the timeline of the app. Live cards, static cards and immersions are the three UI patterns to build a Glass app.

Designing an app for Google Glass is the first challenge one encounters while building an app. Fitting the design in the set size along with the important information from the user’s perspective needs some serious thinking. The app for Glass shows cards from past, present and future. How to incorporate this for showing live data and other trending news is vital.

  • Live cards display live data. There is also a stopwatch for directions to the live destination from your current location.
  • Static cards display important text, images, videos and other information. The information here is specific without leading into any unexpected data on the screen.
  • In order to attain full control over UI timeline on Google Glass, immersions are used. They are nothing but android activities. Customization of the screen can be attained through this; however, once the user is out of it, it goes back to timeline.

Most inputs are taken through voice commands by Google Glass. Besides the side panel Glass frame works as touch pad. Gestures like swipe left, right, bottom and up as well as taps are taken as inputs by the Glass app.

A Case Study of Target Vision Glass App

Target Vision is a perfect companion for long range shooters, competitive shooters, and people who are looking for a more interactive and entertaining shooting experience. The app is a fixed lens, portable, battery powered, wireless target camera that can be viewed from a phone, tablet or a laptop, and has a range of one mile with a run time of 16+ hours.

Target Vision is available on iOS and Android platforms. It helps shooters during shooting sessions to keep logs, group the best shots captured and share it on facebook or send via e-mail. It is one of the most effective app developed for Google Glass which provides ease of shooting and see instant results of the target hit!

Challenges faced while creating the app for Glass

  • Fetching the continuous stream of images from wireless camera and displaying it to the shooter on Glass.
  • Glass being a small wearable device, memory issues needs to be handled at the best.
  • Designing simple and intuitive screens, menus and voice commands to keep the app simple yet powerful to enhance the shooting experience of the user.

The idea behind the creation of Glass and its execution has complimented this new entrant so well that it has made many heads turn in the technology world. Glass being still in its beta phase, the right kind of apps and exposure can work wonders for this gadget and its popularity. In the meanwhile let’s gasp in its glory and hope to witness something astonishing in the days to come.