Last week, Google announced that it will be halting the production and sale of its somewhat controversial product Google Glass. This eyeglass-style, wearable computer, retailing for $1,500, never really caught on with consumers; and based on reports about Google’s own rationale and future plans, I have to wonder if the company is right about why Glass flopped. Industry journalists report that Google’s publicly stated reason for what it’s calling Glass Phase 1’s failure was their strategy to employ the kind of iterative product development typically used by software makers, but not often a recipe for successful hardware launches. Companies that produce apps and other software-based tools often benefit by releasing Beta versions of their products and then crowd-sourcing improvements from consumers willing and eager to kick the tires on the new offering; but this approach is not typical for makers of physical products.
Google has stated that it is not abandoning Glass but is instead moving development to new internal management that will pursue the kind of model employed by successful device-makers, who develop in secret and then reveal fully-formed products. Tech writers like Ben Johnson reporting for Marketplace on public radio, make the natural comparison to the way Steve Jobs first rolled out the iPod as a thoroughly developed unit ready to go to market. And, of course, what tech company would not want to emulate the kind of theater that Apple, and particularly Jobs, has performed so well with many of its product reveals? But comparing the iPod to Google Glass (at least so far) is a bit like comparing an electric car to the Segway*. Because we already know what a car is for, and we have a pretty solid idea about the pros and cons that come with driving. The Segway, though, while it is a cool piece of technology, did not instantly offer a value proposition for mass consumption; and it raised some tough-to-answer questions like, “Would it be safe to have thousands of these things on city streets?”
By the same token, Steve Jobs did not invent the personal music device — we had this thing called a Walkman in the early 1980s — and he certainly did not need to create a demand in the market to listen to music. The iPod, though iconic and revolutionary and all that, is really just a very elegant improvement on other products that were already meeting consumer demand. The moment it was revealed, we intuitively knew what it was for, but he iPod was cool. It was beautifully designed, consistent with Apple’s tradition of redefining what technology can look like. But without music, the iPod would be a paperweight.
By contrast, I’m not really surprised consumers did not see Google Glass as an improvement to wired life; and many of the assumptions about the product that clearly came to mind sounded rather unsavory. Notions of unauthorized, P2P surveillance or even more acute forms device distraction than we have now became the basis of criticism and satire. Plus, Glass was expensive and had a fashion-coolness rating somewhere in the vicinity of fanny pack and pocket protector. Seriously, even Sergey Brin, whose coolness rating is a net worth of about thirty billion dollars, looks like a complete tool wearing those things. The blogosphere popularized a term for early adopters and Beta testers — Glassholes. And in a few incidents, Glass wearers were beat up or harassed by people who felt threatened by the recording capabilities of the device.
Google has stated that the privacy concerns associated with Glass were based on misunderstanding and a failure on the company’s part to communicate; and this is somewhat consistent with a Beta-launch approach to development. But given Google’s poor track record so far for its stewardship of private data, I don’t think consumers are wrong to be concerned about the prospect of any device that helps us capture and “share” data even faster and potentially more intimately than we do right now with handhelds.
What intrigues me most about Google’s stated regrouping and re-strategizing for Glass is that I have to wonder what it is about the goals of this product that the company believes consumers will ultimately want. Innovative products help us do things we already know we want to do, but do them better; or they enable us to do things we didn’t know we wanted to do until we tried. Any technologist is asking us to accept a vision, but Glass makes an interesting statement, and the metaphor could not be more obvious. Google is saying, “See the future as we see it based on our assumption that what you want is to be an always-wired, walking, talking node of the interconnected, global network.” And given the level of apparent smart-phone addiction, maybe Google is right, though many average consumers and avid technophiles increasingly talk about the value of unplugging. Steve Jobs’s own kids weren’t even allowed to own iPads. A product like Glass could reemerge just as consumers are getting better at balancing real life with wired life, and Glass 2.0 could fail even if Google does redesign the dork factor out of the product.
And lest you think I’m overstating the larger implications of a wearable like Glass, I remind readers that, Google’s Director of Engineering, Ray Kurzweil will say without equivocation that the future of computing is what he calls “hybrid thinking,” made possible by nano-tech implanted directly in the brain. Why have a computer in your hand or across your face when it can be conveniently carried around inside your head to provide you with information at the speed of thought? This is an inevitability according to Kurzweil within just two or three decades. Maybe this sounds cool to some people, but I cannot imagine why anyone would think the communication would work in only one direction, and why, therefore, Kurzweil’s prediction is not literally the foundation for creating thought police?
Imagine by the time my youngest grandchild is born that Kurzweil’s hybrid thinking, nano-tech implants have become commonplace. Then, imagine society begins to reorganize itself because the people with implants have an advantage over those without implants. Perhaps certain economic sectors disappear altogether in favor of those that thrive based on the capabilities of the new cyber-human. Fast-forward another generation or so, and the implants are as common as vaccinations because nobody wants to disadvantage his child in the new society. Maybe they’re even mandatory.
Sounds a little creepy and maybe farfetched? I don’t know. Kurzweil is not wrong that the capability to merge with the network through nano tech is not far off. The desire to do so is another matter altogether, so we should be careful what we wish for. In this regard, I’m encouraged that consumers said no to Glass because I suspect the step before man becomes machine is man wears machine.
*Originally published as “Segue.” Thanks to a reader for pointing out the error.
