When Google officially announced the lofty-sounding “Project Glass” last week it neglected to give us one crucial piece of information: When in the hell are we going to actually get cool augmented reality glasses? Maybe never! So why wait for a multibillion dollar corporation to make the glasses when you can make them yourself?
That’s why Will Powell decided to make his own version of the “Project Glass One Day…” video. Unlike the slews of great parodies out there, this is the real thing. In the video, Powell has a voice-controlled display that pops up in his vision much like what we see in the original Google video. He uses it to check his schedule, ask for the weather, and even to perform slightly higher-order tasks: When he says “Play upbeat music”, it switches to something that sounds, well, sort of upbeat.
As an augmented reality designer, Powell has spent lots of time researching and experimenting with much of this technology, and he knew that what Google was proposing was already at least partially possible. He posted on YouTube about how he hacked his system together:
Inspired by Google Project Glass, I combined a pair of Vuzix glasses, HD webcams and mic headset with an application written in Adobe Air. It harnesses the dragon naturally speaking engine so can perform full audio recognition.
The application uses Yahoo weather services to find local weather information. It can create appointments (only within app) using the full speech recognition. Also the app can take photos upload them and share them.
That’s pretty cool, but the biggest downer in the whole video is Powell’s profile while he’s using the glasses. You think Google’s prototype looks kinda funny — you’re in for a big surprise when you see Powell’s design. He looks something like an obsessed virtual reality gamer from an ’80s movie. Or Universal Soldier. [SlashGear via The Next Web]
