Goggling or Googling

Goggling or Googling

PC Clean Blogger, writer, technician, social media instructor

Brought to you by Niall Mulrine, Pc Clean

Much talk on the tech front over the last week about Google’s new product simply labelled Google Glass Goggles. No, it’s nothing to do with swimming on the net!! When an amazing moment happens, you pull out your mobile phone to take a picture and by the time you are ready to shoot, the moment has passed. Simply annoying and frustrating, I know this from personal experience also. With both our very young children, they pull the funniest of faces, or dare to amaze you by their capabilities exceeding your expectation. These are what Kodak meant by “Kodak moments”. Small snippets of time that you will always remember fondly as time goes by.
Google are still in the prototype of a device called Google Glass, which appear as normal glasses on a person’s face to the unsuspecting. Only these glasses are connected to the internet and have a small film of a screen to give the wearer real time information without distraction. The goal of this device is to remove the need of taking out your Smartphone to make calls, send texts, read emails, check reminders and surf the internet.

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(Image source: dailymail.co.uk)
The team behind this project is Google X, the team of R & D that always vision the unimaginable. Not cheap, these glasses are currently going on market to developers for $1500 and ready for delivery next year to these customers. They have named this project, Project Glass. The team hope to have it available for release in 2014 and no price has been guessed at yet. But the glasses will cost more than the average Smartphone. The cost of producing the glasses is in the region of $3,000 at current stage of beta.
Android software developed by Google will be the driving chassis on the glasses for all applications and responses to work on. A built in camera with microphone will have the ability to record live feed and upload to YouTube or feed it live to a website for your friends to watch a live scenario you are part of at that time, so everyone can share the experience. Similar to Google smartphones and Apps, applications and commands can be sent to the glasses by voice, therefore giving the user a total hands free experience. Integration of other Google Apps including Google Maps will play a creative role in how we live our everyday lives. Imagine having the possibility of a GPS Sat Nav built into a small pair of glasses, so when we are on foot we can have arrows on our lenses to give us signposts to what direction to go. Google Weather alerts popping up to say whether it will be a great day or not, helping us ponder on the indecision of taking a raincoat to work.
Google launched a demo video on YouTube to give us a taste of how it can benefit our lives. From watching this, its amazing how all our computer powered applications, mobile phone apps and online platforms can come together to enable us to be a “Computer Wearer”, having our computers in our vision at all times!! With the upcoming and developing application Google Goggles, the scope of what can be done will be second to none. Already Goggles can be found in Android Play marketplace, the software that brings up online information about the item being held in your hand, the painting you stare at on a wall, author biography of a book you look at in the book store and many more facts surrounding all visuals in our lives.
With the positives, there are surely to be negatives. Some say that it will infringe on other peoples privacy when they don’t know if they are being recorded or it will be a distraction to our normal lives, with too much gadgetry. Like all new concepts, it will take the rough with the smooth. All I can say is, bring it on and let me be as Speccy as possible.


To catch up on any missed articles written by Niall Mulrine of Pc Clean, go to www.PcClean.ie

Ireland Streets are on Google at Last

Google Street View hits the road

Ireland becomes 25th country to get eyes on the ground

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Internet | 01 Oct 2010 :  Three years after its initial launch, Google has finally brought its Street View service to Ireland, allowing users to virtually explore the country's cities, towns and countryside through panoramic street-level imagery.

Some 51,000 miles of road have been driven by Google to collect images for Street View Ireland. Street View only contains imagery that is already visible from public roads and photographs are taken at a point in time and are not live images.

Ireland is the 25th country to launch Street View and tourism, culture and business organisations - including Fáilte Ireland, Daft Media, Chambers Ireland and the Arts Council - have been quick to adopt Street View on their websites having partnered.

Launching Street View in Ireland, Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport Mary Hanafin said: "Street View is an example of a practical innovation which makes life easier for people using the Internet to locate and research Ireland's cities, towns and streets. Its applications are many but one of the real benefits for Ireland is from a tourism perspective. Street View will showcase the real beauty of Ireland's towns and countryside to millions of internet users around the world and has the potential to deliver a welcome boost to visitor numbers to Ireland. With many benefits for businesses, property sellers and the general public the introduction of Street View for Ireland is welcome news."

Mr. John Herlihy, VP global ad operations and head of Google in Ireland, added: "Street View has been hugely popular with our users in Europe and worldwide and we're thrilled it's now available in Ireland, enabling users to see street-level panoramas of major city roads and to look up and print out useful driving directions. Google Maps & Google Earth have long been popular with Irish people and are used by governments, businesses and individuals as essential and informative tools every day of the week - Street View now adds a new dimension."

Countering allegations that Google Street View compromised individual privacy, Herlihy said: "Our technology is very effective though it may occasionally miss a face or number plate here and there. If users spot something our technology has missed just press ‘report a problem' and we'll get it fixed quickly."

Also commenting on the launch, and the associated concerns Gary Davis, Deputy Data Protection Commissioner, said: "We worked closely with Google to ensure that any privacy concerns that people might have were addressed in advance of the launch date. Inevitably some images of people were captured as the camera-cars were driven on Irish streets. Google has undertaken to blur the faces of such people, as well as car number-plates. This should eliminate most privacy concerns. Where blurring is insufficient or where people wish to remove other information associated with them - including images of their houses - Google has provided an easy-to-use removal tool."

published by techcentral

uploaded by Niall Mulrine PC CLEAN Navenny, Ballybofey, Co. Donegal, Ireland

www.pcclean.ie

mob: 086-2377033