Took Google Glass out to Patrick Swenson’s birthday/holiday party. Â Here is a brief summary:
It didn’t feel as weird to be wearing Glass as I thought it would. Â A number of people were interested in seeing Glass, which makes sense since it was a room full of science fiction writers and tech geeks. Â I did not leave it on all of the time. It is comfortable to wear for an hour at a time (I didn’t try longer).
I was the only one with Glass there – not surprising since I haven’t seen it in the wild in Seattle much.
Almost everyone wanted/expected Glass to do more than I could make it do without better connectivity. I MUST tether – buy an Android or give up my unlimited data plan.  It might actually be cheaper to add an Android phone (to tether I apparently need to buy the most expensive data plan AND add tethering, which adds $35 a month to the phone bill).  Two phones would solve another problem — I like to walk with my wireless headphones and listen to podcasts or books or music.  I also want to walk with Glass.  But I can’t synch two handsfree devices to one phone (duh!).  It turns out this is why I couldn’t pair Glass to the iPhone for two days – my wireless headphone set is always paired.  No way I can switch from the wireless headphones  to Glass with Glass’s battery life.  Glass made it through three hours of party.  I am already “girl with two pairs of glasses” and I’m not certain I want to be “girl with two phones.”  But if I take my headphones and Glass for a walk, Glass will be a brick unless I have ubiquitous wireless. Or unless when I tether it I don’t also need bluetooth.  Need to explore that.  I suspect ubiquitous wireless is a pre-requisite for wide-spread and easy wearable computing.  I knew that, but this Explorer experience is an underline.
All I know how to do so far to take a picture is to go through the verbal commands, which in a crowded room means loudly saying “OK Glass. Â Take a Picture.” Â Kind of distracting, and not very social. Â I will have to learn the other ways to do it. Â Currently practicing my right-eye wink and still failing. Â I also can’t get Glass to stop insisting I try to make wink work, which is a distraction.
I did manage to get a couple of pictures (poor ones) and a decent video of Ken Scholes and Nancy Kress doing music, but the video turns out to be an animated GIF and appears not to play in WordPress or on FB. Â So I haven’t posted it anywhere. Â Note to self: Â taking a really good video of a subject that’s sitting down requires not moving one’s head! Â This is an inside bad-light Glass photo of Ken and Nancy (and Christy – which I might have spelled wrong). Â The video-as-x-seconds of animated Gif is too distracting to post.
Funniest comment? Â Nancy Kress thought I should name it something different than “OK Glass.” Â Not a bad idea to have a configurable trigger phrase that would allow us to personalize Glass.