Hasta La Gadget!

During the I/O event, Google detailed it’s new Events feature for Google+, but the company is also adding in a Party Mode. During events, lots of photos and pictures of various people are often taken, although they can fall by the wayside or even lost. Google’s Party Mode sends out photos the Events page as they’re taken, but it also automatically scans pictures for faces and tags them with your friend’s appropriately.

If that sounds familiar, it should. Samsung recently implemented a similar feature on the Galaxy S III called Buddy Photo Share, which detects your friends based on facial features. Facebook also recently purchased Face.com, a service with very similar facial scanning functionality. It shouldn’t come as a huge surprise, as the feature is quite helpful for those wary of manually tagging photos, but it’s interesting to see Google jumping on the bandwagon.

After the Event is over, photos are collected and displayed in chronological order, with highlights being displayed at the top. While the primary use is to invite other friends on Google+, you can also send out email invites to those without an account. Events should be hitting Google+ today.

Google+ Events features mimic Galaxy S III is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Google’s Project Glass has been one of the most anticipated and hyped projects to come out of Google in quite some time. After a rather epic demo the company finally gave us a slightly deeper look at the wearable computer of our (supposed) future. Inside is the usual set of components you’d expect inside any mobile phone. There’s a “powerful” CPU and “lots” of RAM (though, there was no mention of specifics) alongside an accelerometer, gyroscope and wireless radios for pulling in data. There’s a mic for voice commands, a speaker and a camera, which can also be controlled by the touchpad that lines the side of the wearable device. All of those components sit off to one side, though Google says they’re still well-balanced and actually lighter than some pairs of sunglasses. The tiny transparent display doesn’t actually sit directly in front of your eye. It’s slightly above your line of vision, so that it shouldn’t interfere with your normal life.

Sergey Brin had three different prototypes on stage — a light blue pair, a white pair and a black pair — indicating that personalization and style were concerns. And that’s a good thing since Glass is meant to be worn in public. Ultimately Google hopes that the project will be the next step in its quest to make information quickly and universally accessible. The ability to capture images from the first person perspective seems to be key to the device. In a new demo video, a new mother waxes about how hard it is to capture those perfect moments with her child. She “smiles at faces not devices” which makes sticking a D5 in the baby’s face a bad idea.

If you’re impatient and lucky enough to have been at IO (and live in the US), you can actually pre-order an Explorer Edition of the wearable computer for $1,500. The dev focused units will be shipping early next year. But, be warned, this is not a mass consumer item and will likely be more than a little rough around the edges.

Check out our full coverage of Google I/O 2012’s opening keynote at our event hub!

Google’s Project Glass gets some more details originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Jun 2012 14:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google has demonstrated a Google+ Hangout beamed from Project Glass, with company co-founder Sergey Brin interrupting Vic Gundotra’s keynote presentation to share live footage from skydivers overhead IO. “This is one of the things we’ve been experimenting with Glass, the ability to really share” Brin said, “we’ve shown photos but this is something we haven’t tried” as the two Glass-sporting skydivers leapt from a blimp flying above San Francisco.

“They’ve got to get to the right place so that they can hit the roof” Brin pointed out, as the amassed developers waited to see the skydivers jump from the blimp. The parachutes opened and the divers landed directly onto the roof of the Moscone Center.

“It’s a pretty big roof, actually” Brin said, “which is good for their landing.” The divers we met by a number of stunt bikers, who then proceeded to jump ramps between the roof levels – all wearing Project Glass – and then pass information to another person who promptly abseiled down the side of the Center.

The streamed video came directly through Google+’s Hangouts feature, which allows multiple parties to collaborate on a video call. Technical details – such as which mobile network was being used – wasn’t shared, but this is definitely one of the best stunts we’ve ever seen from a keynote.

Google Project Glass goes skydiving at IO in best demo stunt yet is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Well, that was unexpected. Google’s Sergey Brin just stepped on stage at Moscone West to deliver a demo of Google Glass, and it involves a Google+ hangout conducted via their connected eyewear. Oh, and some guys just jumped out of a zeppelin.

“Being able to share what you’re seeing is amazing,” Brin said. Four skydivers all equipped with Google Glass hardware just plummeted toward the ground in San Francisco, and video quality in the hangout as about as good as one would expect considering the circumstances. In fact, the hardware may have changed a bit since early demos, as the video seems considerably clearer than the infamous trampoline video that made the rounds a few weeks back.

(Hat tip to CNET for posting the video)

To emphasize how cool the concept of seamless video sharing is, a small crew of bikers performed a few flips off of a carefully-placed mount, and two people took the Glass on a ride as they ran down the side of the Moscone Center.

The current iteration of Glass hardware obviously has a camera and microphone capable of recording video and audio, and it also sports a touchpad for navigation along its right side (though that hasn’t really been a secret). To keep users abreast of their surroundings, it also packs gyroscope, accelerometers, and a handful of other sensors.

Glass’s lead designer feels that “Glass as a whole is meant to be close to your senses, not block them,” which prompted her and the team to mount the display slightly above users’ eyes instead of directly in front of them. They also focused on making the device both physically and visually light, so as not to impact either a user’s comfort or their sense of style. All of the components were shifted to one side, which allowed Google to design different form factor for their Glass frames — some of which we may have seen before.

One of Google’s big plans for Glass was to help users capture and share the world as they see it, but that’s clearly not all. As we’ve seen in the concept video, it’s also about facilitating communication and putting more information — think navigation information, or a user’s current speed. The possibilities are certainly “incredible,” but why is Google showing it off? According to Brin, it was because of three things — Google thought it was amazing (it is), it’s very visually striking, and because they wanted to appeal to the developer community. As such, U.S. based developers will be able to pre-order a beta build only at I/O, for the low, low price of $1500.

Click to view slideshow.

It’s hard to ignore Google’s X Lab-born Project Glass. News of the slim-lined, sci-fi goggles’ existence first surfaced this past February and it wasn’t long after that Mountain View’s own elite began to flaunt the heads-up display in public. While little of the device’s true purpose and functionality is known, we have been privy to certain features over the past few months, like photo sharing to Google+ and even its ability to overlay Maps. Though product lead Steve Lee shrugged off rumors of a late 2012 launch, it does appear the company’s itching to spill a few more (jelly) beans at today’s I/O conference.

To do that, Sergey Brin rushed onstage at Google I/O wearing the glass units to give us a brief live action demo courtesy of a skydive over San Francisco. Video of the jump, performed by four divers in a blimp, was streamed live through Google Hangouts to attendees at the Moscone Center. In keeping with the extreme vibe of this demonstration, the showcase was handed off to bikers on the rooftop, also outfitted with the lenses, who jumped from building to building via ramp and then eventually cycled into the arena and right up to Sergey, himself. As a finishing touch, Brin also snapped a shot of the team using his own headset. All told, it’s a pretty incredible way to once again officially tease this forward-looking tech.

Check out our full coverage of Google I/O 2012’s opening keynote at our event hub!

Update: Google’s posted the entire segment by itself, it’s embedded after the break if you want to relive every step (stage to blimp and back to stage, with a few handoffs in betwee) as it happened.

Continue reading Sergey Brin demos Project Glass onstage at Google I/O (video)

Sergey Brin demos Project Glass onstage at Google I/O (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Jun 2012 14:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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