Google Glass - my research

I am in the process of completing an article and am now thinking about to which journal I will submit it, so I thought I'd put out a teaser of its structure and seek opinions/interest. It is broadly about the future of wearable/implantable technology and takes the period of working with Google Glass as an insight into this world, drawing on a range of datasets. It is based on 2 years of work with Glass from 2013-2015 and the article is likely to be about 10,000 words. I'm expecting to finish it over the summer and am interested in editors who might like to receive a submission. If that's you, please get in touch. And here's a link to some of the more informal experiments, along with a talk I gave at Google HQ about the subject.

Ok Glass?  
The Aspirations and Anxieties of the
Google Glass Generation. 

Abstract

This article explores the two-year period in which Google Glass was promoted publicly and released commercially on an Open Beta ‘explorer’ basis (2013-2015). It examines the aspirations of the developers and advocates and the anxieties of of (potential) user groups and eventual reactions of new users, to understand how people imagine the impact of and experience wearable technologies. The research draws on six datasets, which consist of YouTube videos, tweets from Twitter, and video recordings of user, to create an impression of what took place around the emergence of Glass. Together, the datasets create a complex device ethnography of Glass, which speak to its imagined transformative potential and a future where wearable technologies generally, which foreground a new research agenda for digital culture scholars.

Introduction

The Limits of Digital Design

Methodology

Background on the Google Glass Experiments

How Glass Worked

What Could Glass Do?

Findings

What Google Wanted from Glass

How ‘Explorers’ Used Glass

How Customers Imagined Glass

How Parody Explained User Anxieties

What People Saw Through Glass

The First 10 Seconds of Glass Experience

Discussion

Google Glass: The Story so Far

Conclusion: Was Google Glass a Failure?

IOC #athletesforum

My slides from the 7th International Olympic Committee Athletes' Forum, which focused on the use of media to empower and enable people. Also, here is the programme from the event.

Screen Shot 2015-10-10 at 10.50.32

Should you get a smart watch? #MobTechEdu

Talk today for Salford University CPD conference.

The Sporting Future Today

Wearable Technology, Augmented Reality, & Drone Cameras

Today's talk at #SportAccord went really well. It was the first time I'd used flight within a lecture and fortunately nobody got hurt. In actual fact, it was all very safe and I think it made much more real the way in which drone technology is becoming a part of the fabric of our lives.

Here are the slides from the talk

and finally, the lecture itself

OK Glass? The Aspirations and Anxieties of the Google Glass Generation

My first talk for the School of Arts and Media at the University of Salford, Manchester ;)

mHealth and the Wearable Technology Revolution

Today @SalfordUni, the Business School hosts a symposium on Digital Innovation, focusing on health applications. Here's my @prezi  

RIP Google Glass?

GoogleGlassGoodbye

Today, I received an email from Google Glass, telling me that it's over! Here's what they had to say:

and I am also posting the 'memories' file they sent us - 'Volume 001 as they put it (how many volumes are expected?!). I will write a piece about this over the next few days, but what I find most fascinating is the sense in which this may be seen as a failure by critics. Certainly, we expect anything new to stick around for a while - even though we change our iPhones every couple of years hmm. Ok, well, maybe Google Glass for 2 years isn't so bad - but it's only been 6 months or so in the UK. That's a bit too brief.

It will still work of course, just no further development. But, so what? Does that matter? IT does enough as it is is and I can't imagine needing much support. Although, my first Glass did break due to overheating and the reflective foil of the projector bubbling up and rendering it unusable. The did send another one though, quickly. hmm, I don't know how to feel. Abandoned? Let down? Disappointed. Or, the owner of what will become a cult object - the first wearable camera, kind of.

Truth be told, I have had nothing but fun with this device, and the people who have tried it out have loved it. Here's the video I made from the IAAF World Junior Championships last year. This was typical.

So, I think I will stick with Glass for a while, but then RideOn just contacted me about these. Next..