Google Glass: What Will Filmmakers Do With the Audio/Visual Power of Wearable Computing?


At their annual developers conference (in San Francisco on June 27th, 2012), Google introduced a device known as Google Glass, the result of Google's research into creating a convenient (and fashionable?) augmented reality head-mounted display.


Lighter and easier to live with than previous head-worn displays for augmented reality, the Google Glass hardware is receiving a lot of attention from developers and futurists - perhaps driven by the marketing clout of Google (the device was introduced as part of a group parachute jump onto the roof of a building containing 6000 developers from around the world, see below) and the promise of integration with Google's database and software.


While the ability to view images and data on a "heads-up" display is already a reality in the military (e.g., helmets for some helicopter and aircraft pilots can already display tactical information, like maps or thermal imaging, while the user simultaneously sees the actual scene), the potential for New World filmmakers in this area are largely untested.

What are the creative possibilities for storytellers willing to experiment with Google Glass? Will early-adopters start telling stories that superimpose data or other audio and video information over real scenes? Or will multiple users contribute their content - providing numerous views of one big event (e.g., many cameras covering one experience like a political convention or a protest march in real time - as in the parachute demonstration above)? Will users simply stream traditional video from the internet onto their glasses (if texting and driving is a problem now, just imagine the dangers of driving and watching a video at the same time)?

What do you think?

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