Google Glass

In two sessions, one with Archaeology students and with one with Disability Services staff I ran hands-on a brainstorming session looking at the current uses of, and potential use of Google Glass, either for archaeological fieldwork, or as something that could assist a student at the University.

In the Disabilities session, we used the crowd-sourcing tool, Ideascale, to pool everyone's ideas and vote on the best, to see if we had a "killer app" idea for Google Glass. We didn't. Or did we?

But what did emerge from the sessions was a better understanding of where the technology is, in terms of sophistication and an awareness of the ethical hurdles surrounding the use of such devices.

After the sessions, we created a diary application for Google Glass, using example Google App Engine code, that could take notes, save pictures and videos, or respond to certain commands but found that to do anything funky, we would require massive investment of effort in the back-end, to make the front-end interface, or what you see in the Google Glass itself, to be compelling and genuinely useful.