Good Day Google+ - Seeing the World Through Google Glass

Hey there everyone, sorry for being a little late but it's a little rainy out here and I just got back from Daytona where I was at the Ford EcoBoost Challenge and actually Jen is still there, she's down in the audience, she's going mobile from there and we had a great time playing with the cars and I got kicked off one of the test tracks because I wasn't using my gear shifter very well, but they did drive me around and do a couple hot laps, and I was just thankful that I had made it to the men's room before they took me on that test ride because the guy was having a little too much fun with the car. You know, luckily there wasn't anything for us to hit, so I wasn't too worried. Just cones and portable fencing. I didn't think that was too bad. But we have a great day here on Good Day Google+ and we're all braving the weather in Florida. You may hear some occasional thunder in the background or and Jen's case, see some rain because she's still out at the Ford event on mobile. So let's get started, and I'm just gonna run through the panel real quick and say hi to everyone. And Alex, hey, how you doing? Glad to see you here with us today wearing your Glass. You're all set.

Yeah, yeah, I know it's been a while, Chef. It's been a bit, but yeah, it's really nice to be back. Thanks for having me back. I thought I'd wear my glass, you know, I wanted to fit in.

Be one of the cool kids. I know.

Yes.

And next to her is Carolyn. Hey Carolyn, how you doing?

Hey Dennis, good to see you online or off.

I know, I know, we almost see each other more offline these days.

I know.

I think we're due for a hangout. I thought we were going to go to see the Coop. I haven't heard about any more on that.

Yeah, we gotta pull that back together and go get some good fried chicken.

Absolutely, absolutely. Greg Trivillio, hey Greg.

Hi Chef, how are you doing today?

I'm happy that I'm home and I made it through all that funky Florida weather. Although, when we were in the tent, it was raining really, really hard, but I looked at the guys and went, "Oh, this is nothing. It gets heavier than this," and they looked at me. Like I was a little crazy, but I said, "Oh no, it sounds like they're pouring buckets on the roof." That's about as bad as it gets.

Oh yeah, just wait.

Just wait. And Jen, glad to see you here, and it looks like it cleared up there a little.

Yeah, it's sprinkling a little bit. The tent ended up flooding. I don't know if you were there for that.

No, I missed that luckily.

Yeah, so a little soggy, but pretty great, pretty good day.

Oh yeah, it was fun there at the event, driving the cars and having a good time. You could smell the clutch burning though when I took the little sports car out for a tour. So after 2 laps they flagged me.

Had you ever done one of these before?

No, this is my first time, and it was quite interesting, so I had a good time doing it. And I really wanted to try the Escape because I'm thinking about buying one.

Yeah, the Escape is really good. I like that one. There's a definite difference in handling and acceleration.

Absolutely. And you know, I love the price and the gas mileage. You know, I have a Honda Pilot and I love it, but the gas mileage— I get 16, 18 miles to the gallon on a good day. It's nuts. So, uh, and they haven't done anything to improve it, so I was really interested in the Ford and I think I'm sold on that. Hopefully I can work some kind of a deal out. Maybe we can do some hangouts for them, you never know.

Well, for the last month, month and a half when I was in town, I test drove the C-MAX. I drove it to New Orleans and back and drove it all over Florida pretty much and through Central Florida. So I kind of had a preconditioned expectation when driving the hybrids, and it definitely I'm glad that I did because I had never driven a hybrid before the C-Max.

I was really impressed at how that hybrid handled.

Oh yeah.

You know, I didn't want to drive the Prius because, you know, if I got something, honestly, it wouldn't have been that, it would be the Ford. So I said, you know, just put me in the Ford and let me try it. And it accelerated really well, it turned really well. You know, I think it was all about that— what was he calling it— regenerative braking or whatever.

Yes.

Where it actually have to learn to brake a little better so it sends the power back to the engine. It was all in all, it was a really cool day. I'm glad I went down and I got to see Daytona finally. Tina will be happy, guys, except we didn't go down to eat there, that's all. But now it's right by. Now I know the way to Daytona.

Yes, you've braved the other side of I-4.

Yeah, I noticed that I-4 just kind of stopped. And I kept going.

Yeah, it runs right into 95.

I knew I didn't want to go to Miami or Ocala, or as I like to say, Okala. I just have to be careful not to say that in front of locals because then they look at me like I'm stupid. But when I say it to people that aren't from Florida and I call it Okala, you know, it's kind of fun.

Slow Cali.

Yeah, there we go. It's like calling jalapeños when I was in Mexico, and even being Mexican, you know. Anyway, all right, well, let's get this glass party started. And I have 4 glastronauts here, and that's a new one.

I love that one.

And they're going to talk to us about their experiences and things that they've learned and done and some of the changes they've seen. And see what happens. And if you guys have questions, put them in the comment tracker and we will do our best to answer them. So let's jump right back to Alex, put you on the spotlight here, and talk about your Glass experiences and what you've seen or expect or you've learned.

Wow, that's a big question. First of all, I think it's hilarious that I'm in Ohio, So I think it's hilarious that all of you Floridians are complaining about weather.

I know.

Though I have to say it's not that rainy here. It's like 50 degrees and overcast, so I can't complain today.

We were in the 90s earlier in the week.

I just came back from New York, and it's in the 50s and 60s there, and I miss it already.

Yeah, it's actually nice now. But OK, back to Glass. I purchased Glass in January, so I've had it for almost 6 months. And I really purchased it to use it in my classroom. I teach undergraduates at Kent State University. And I started a series called Glass in the Class. And basically what I do with my Glass is I use it as another perspective in the Hangout. And I bring in experts that talk about the topic for the week. So if the topic's persuasion or if it's perspective, in communication. I have them come in, I have them talk to my students for about 20 minutes just to give my students an idea that what we're talking about in class isn't just academic bullshit, for lack of a better word. It does apply to what they could be doing in the future. And that's been really successful. I've had some really, really great people come into my classroom totally on their own time and talk to my students. I have had connectivity issues with Glass. The Glass team have been really nice about reaching out about all of that. And they actually just recently dropped the Hangout application for Glass.

I heard about that.

Yeah.

That bums me out.

I'm really not happy about that. But apparently you can use Livestream, so I'll try using that over the summer. But yeah, that's the one change that I'm kind of— sad about. That application was like the one that I needed.

Yeah, that was the reason I was all set to get Glass, and then when I heard that, I went, well, geez, that's not going to do what I wanted to do. I was going to use it in my cooking show, and that's kind of sad.

It would have been great for that.

Yeah, do you think they're going to bring it back? Any of you, have you heard anything?

Yeah, what we hear— What I've heard anyway is that they took it offline to basically tweak it and make it a better program because it was really buggy and having a lot of issues. It didn't support Hangouts on Air anyway, which is an even bigger bummer to tell you the truth. It'll be really useful for that when they eventually do roll that out. I think it's only a matter of time. It's just too useful a feature.

It really is.

It really is.

The way that I did my Glass in the Class, I work with John Ellis, and he uses Wirecast. So we use a third-party system to stream it out live onto YouTube. So I don't need— yeah, I don't need the HOA, per se. But I need the Hangouts. I needed that. So yeah, but it was really buggy. I had a lot of issues with it. And I have some connectivity issues with the internet on campus, because it's blocked by multiple passwords. And Glass doesn't really— so I have to use my phone to connect to the internet, and it just kind of— that's been difficult. But overall, I haven't had any negative responses from the public. They're all— well, sometimes I get weird looks. But the people that do approach me, they're just curious. They're not angry in any fashion. So that's been good.

Alex, do you have a higher percentage of people who don't know what it is, or a higher percentage of people who know what it is but are curious about what it does. They think it has x-ray vision or something.

Funny you should ask that. Before they did the open sale on the 15th, I got a lot more, what is that? Now I get a lot of, is that Google Glass? For some reason, that open sale, people now realize what it is. But before that, it was much more like weird looks, like I'm like a cyborg or something.

Oh, that's fun. Yeah, we get a lot of both of those, honestly. I think for Greg and I anyway, it's been about 60/40, probably in favor of the, is that Google Glass?

I would agree with that.

Yeah.

Oh yeah, we get a lot of people that just have no idea what it is. When I had shale, people thought— and that's the gray color of glass— people thought I had a medical device. They thought I had a seeing problem, so they wouldn't ask me about it until Carolyn got a pair of glasses as well. And somebody even said that, "I thought you had a seeing problem until I saw she had it too, and then I knew it was some kind of nerd tech device." Nerd tech device, I love it.

That's a good— that's the official term for it, yes.

Yes, that's the technical term.

Real quick before we move on, Mia Voss, my partner in crime, she says she shows up right when Alexandra is getting feisty with a swear word.

Yes, I warn my students at the beginning of every semester, I don't mean to offend them, but I do tend to swear.

That's the worst word you use. I'm not too worried about it, as long as you don't go throwing the F-word Facebook around.

Never.

Alright, while she's got picture, I'm gonna move over to Jen and let's talk to Jen for a minute just in case she fades out on us. And I love seeing Daytona back there behind you, and I'm glad the rain looks like it has stopped a little bit.

Yeah, it's sprinkling. It's not torrential downpour like it was before.

Oh my God, yeah, it was pretty bad. So what have been some of your good and bad experiences with Glass, or what do you think you'd like to see?

Well, I come from kind of a different place than a lot of people because the main basic elevator pitch for me even having Glass— oops, I just took a picture— was something I call Glass for Good. Which is I cover events already for different blogs and different traditional media, and I also do a lot of volunteering in the area. So I figured people are looking for an object for Glass, why not show them what I'm seeing? So if I go to Give Kids the World, for example, which I was for the Global Selfie Day, I'll show them, like, the volunteers, or The Gingerbread House or Mayor Clayton. They may not necessarily be looking for a way to donate or even know what Give Kids the World is, but because of Glass, it'll bridge that connection.

My wife just started working there as a volunteer.

That's a great thing.

Good for you.

Yeah.

It's an amazing place. They do so much good there, and they have so many dedicated volunteers that are basically full-time employees. But on a volunteer schedule. I have had kind of two neutral experiences, I guess. I was backstage at a The Monkees concert—

Oh, wow.

—last year in Clearwater, and I was wearing glass, and Mickey Dolenz of The Monkees asked me if I would take it off. And then I explained to him what I was doing with glass and how it worked. He didn't want to try it on, but he understood, and then we started talking about Make-A-Wish kids and UCP and all of that, and he seemed to warm up to the idea and know that I wasn't coming from like a creepy stalker place. I did a ride-along with Mayor Dyer last July— or no, last August for National Night Out, and we went to different neighborhoods, and I had OPD kind of giving me the eye like, what is she doing? I see a camera lens. But then when I showed OPD and the fire department what Glass did, completely transformed them. They were like, oh, oh my gosh, I have to have one. Are they on sale? Where can I get one? Do they come in different colors? Like, they were very excited. Where at first they were very standoffish and like, who is that girl? Those are the only real negative experiences that I've had. I think coming from a nonprofit place like I do, most of what I do. I've had more experiences that were very, very positive than not. And I had— in fact, Glass, there were 35 people responsible for me even getting Glass. I couldn't afford it. So 35 people in and outside of Central Florida and in and outside of the state helped fund Glass and helped get me out to San Francisco to get it last July. That's great. So it's been a Very cool, very, very positive experience.

Excellent, excellent. That's good to hear. I love that you're using it, you know, like at Give Kids the World and for nonprofit. I think that's an avenue a lot of people don't think about, you know, other uses for Glass, and especially with the OPD and the fire department, I think that would probably be an amazing tool for them. To have their Glass Rangers or whatever you want to call them come out and, you know, to do different things, to see things that maybe other people might not see, or to give that firsthand look in on scenes and stuff.

One of the officers told me that they're testing a ballistic kind of version of Glass already. I don't know how often they're testing it, but I know that that was in the works for them. When that's going to execute, I don't know, but they said that it's been helpful, especially the hands-free aspect.

Absolutely. Yeah, I think it's going to open up a whole new world of stuff for people once it really gets out to the masses a little bit more. All right, great. Well, let's jump over onto Carolyn now and let's talk about some of your Glass experiences. Yes.

Well, it sounds like Greg and I have actually had the only outright negative experience with Glass on the panel, actually. We had a run-in with a guy at a Panera who really thought that what we were doing was violating his privacy. And for the record, what was happening was we were sitting at a table eating breakfast and looking at our phones. We were both wearing Glass. We weren't actually even using it. We weren't talking to it or interacting with it in any way. We were just sitting there eating bagels. And this guy walks up to us, pulls out his phone, points it at us, and says, "Can I record you?" And we said, "Sure, whatever. It's a Panera. It's a public place, and we're not doing anything interesting, so go for it." And then he proceeds to get into about a 25-minute argument with— well, mostly with Greg, to tell you the truth, because I hate arguing. I can't imagine that happening. Yeah, I hate arguing. Greg doesn't so much, so he argued with the guy for about 20 minutes about the relative merits of the privacy conversation and would not accept the premise that what Glass could do is basically the same thing his phone could do, and that there were probably other people in the Panera recording that run-in, which was getting kind of loud. So—

Well, when it came to that, I mean, I tried to show him. I asked him if he'd like me to demo Glass for him and explain what it actually does. He outright refused. He didn't want to know anything about the device whatsoever. He wanted whatever he had heard from the media that was already a misconception of it, and he just wanted to run with that and yell at somebody. It was pretty obvious he had went over this argument in his head long before he ever saw us.

He may have had it with himself quite numerous times, it sounds like, too. He seemed well-rehearsed, so— Has he been stalking you?

That's the other question. No, no, we haven't heard from him since.

It makes you question who really is on which end of being a quote-unquote glasshole.

Yes, I was just gonna say, he fell— I saw that when I was Googling Glastronaut to see if anyone else had used it, but I did come across some other interesting terms, so glasshole was one of them.

Yes, I think Jen's observation is quite right. Oftentimes the real glassholes wind up being the people interacting with the person with glass. Definitely. But fortunately, you know, on the whole it's been very positive. That was the most negative experience, although we have had one or two other friends, actually, who've told us that they're very uncomfortable with us wearing glass around them. So, you know, we try to honor that request, but it was quite disconcerting because apparently they felt like it was no longer us. And that's— it is so weird because how much—

does it always go back to the privacy? Is it always about the privacy issue?

Most of the time, yeah. Occasionally there's a little bit of the, I feel like I'm talking to the Star Trek or something like that, but most people think that's fun. Wow. Yeah, we usually get called the Borg.

Yeah.

Well, I still think that should be Google's new slogan is, "Resistance is futile, prepare to be assimilated." And by the way, you'll enjoy it. Yeah. It's not like the Borg experience so much.

Exactly. Honestly, I got Glass. I'm kind of like Jen. I have Glass for reasons of personal passion. Greg and I do take our Glass to a lot of charity events, but the driving reason behind when I got it was to spur conversation about what might be possible with Glass in the medical field, whether doctors could use it to better interface with their patients and reduce harm by having easier, quicker access to data. That's huge right now. It is, yeah. And so, you know, we've been I've been using it personally a lot to steer people towards that conversation of, you know, what were your patient experiences that could have maybe been made better or easier by access to a wearable device like Glass? Not necessarily Glass itself, but like it. So it's definitely an interesting field. And there are a couple of people who were responsible for sponsoring my Glass because they believed in that in that ideal too. So it's definitely kind of a— it takes a village, right, Jen? Amen.

Thank goodness. Here's a question. Scott Socraft just mentioned about Glass lookalikes. He wondered if there will be Glass lookalike products giving Google competition.

There's plenty of them out there already. I mean, there's one called Space Glass. Which actually looks like, in my personal opinion, is going to destroy Google Glass on the market. I, I feel that Google Glass is going to be a very industry-related product. It's not going to be something that individuals are going to want to have and own in their home. There might be certain select instances for that, but it's not like you can really watch movies on it or really play interactive games that they've come up with yet for it. But when it comes to MetaGlass, MetaGlass looks like it's not only going to be extremely useful for engineers, architects, but also is going to be a household device that people are going to use in order to play games, you know, basically a virtual reality or augmented reality, possibly connection directly to your Xbox or PlayStation 4 or a standalone system that you play games on with people around you there. I think that that's where the majority of the market is. I mean, if you look at any kind of technology device, we almost never have them built and specced out for actual creating or creation of new things. We build everything for entertainment, and Google Glass is not an entertainment device.

Talk about the other brands that are out there. I know Samsung had one too, but you couldn't record with it, I think.

Well, not sure about the specs of theirs because they did a rumored leak about the device, but they haven't actually come out and presented the device and said, here it is, and here's what it's going to be and what it does. That should happen later this year with Samsung, and Nissan last year also announced that they have in development a wearable and looked very similar to Google Glass.

Hmm, that's interesting. Nissan. I would not— I guess they do a lot more than just cars.

Yeah, a lot of people are kind of cross-branding different things now with like televisions and cell phones, Wi-Fi hotspots and things like that. There's also a HUD device called the Recon Jet. That's a Canadian company. They kind of looks like a very expensive pair of Oakleys, if that's not a double negative already. It's geared toward more the extreme I'm not a sports person, but the, like, these, this part of the glass, for example, I can take out, unglue the glass on Recon Genesis, and this part down here. So I haven't had a chance to play with any of those yet. I think it looks interesting, but I think their price point was in the $200 or $300, maybe even $300 or $400. It's been a while since I checked. And then I saw on, I think, QVC, or HSN or something, they had a very dollar store looking pair of sunglasses for $50 that had a camera in them. I think with the same specs, 5 megapixels, 720p video as Glass, but it's just, it looked terrible.

It just looked goofy. Have you seen the make your own Google Glass for under $200? I've seen that. There's actually out on the web, there's a tutorial on what elements you need to purchase in order to make the Prism, and then, you know, what you need to get to basically build the frame. And then instead of having its own computer within it, what it does is you just have a wire that runs from it to your smartphone, so you can run it on Apple or or you can run it on Android, and it does a lot of things that Google Glass would, of course, do, but not as well. Interesting.

I've heard of it. I'd need to look into it a little more.

I thought about building it just so I could do a side-by-side comparison, what the advantages are and disadvantages.

Yeah, I'd like to see that. I think that might be a nice add-on if you could plug it into your phone, even Google Google Glass, even just to use it as an auxiliary power source, because I think that's one of the biggest problems too, is doesn't the power— there's a big power drain on it. It gets zapped so fast.

Yeah. If you're shooting video or using GPS, it's pretty bad.

Alex, how do you do with using it in your classroom in terms of battery life?

I always have to bring the charger with me, and between classes I like I charge it, especially when I'm doing— like when I do— I've only done one HOA a day because it couldn't. It just couldn't do multiple. And sometimes it'll just drop out of the HOA because it can't handle it. But if I'm videotaping— I videotaped a couple of speeches with my students' consent, of course. Don't worry, everybody out there. And between classes, I had to plug it in because it just, oh, it kills the battery. That's definitely a big downside.

Gets so hot against the side of your head too.

Yeah, and then you get that little pop-up that's like, glass needs to cool down. And I'm like, no!

No! How long is that when it does that?

Eh, 10 minutes. Yeah.

Yeah, it doesn't take that long.

So that really isn't a very long time, so that's kind of a drawback too then.

Yeah, the cooldown thing is. I'd say the battery, depending on what you're doing, the battery can last a while. Definitely it's if you're doing video or if you're doing GPS nav like Jen said that it really gets eaten up in no time.

Where does it plug in to charge?

Where is the charge Right under here. So you can theoretically, if you have a battery backup that you can wear in your pocket, you could plug in Glass. That's what I do. Yeah, I know a lot of people who do that. Anyone who goes out to events has to. You did that when you went to NASA, right, Greg?

Oh yeah, I actually had to take 2 battery backups, and both of them were solar as well, so that way when we were out, you know, on the bus ride to the rocket and being able to see the rocket and take pictures with the rocket. Yeah, I had to make sure that I had solar-powered devices because once one charged, which the charge went through maybe in about 45 minutes and then the whole device was charged and half my battery was depleted, I really didn't get many opportunities to plug anything into the wall. So the launch was at 9 PM, and we got there at 7 AM to the media center at NASA. And I mean, my battery on Glass ran out, I think, like 4 times. It was pretty extreme.

Anything out by the press center, anything out by the launch pad, because of all the technology out there, You're lucky to A, get a signal first of all, then to even maintain batteries. So good on you for bringing solar. That was very smart.

Works well here in Florida, right? Oh yeah.

So what kind of battery chargers do you have then? I have a Jockery. I don't know if you've ever seen those. It's like an extender, and only because I saw someone on Fox use it in Philadelphia. So, you gotta believe everything you see on Fox, so I ordered one.

I actually saw those on sale recently. I think they were 50% off for a limited time. But we actually use a brand, we had gotten in our first year in business together, we'd gotten in with a solar company in, where was that again, Carolyn?

The Netherlands.

The Netherlands, that's right. So it's a company called A-Solar, and they sell a variety of solar products— backpacks, solar chargers, laptop solar chargers as well, iPhone chargers for solar, all kinds of different stuff. And so they sent us a whole bunch of test products, and that's what we've been using to keep our devices charged whenever we're out and about.

Great. So is there some place we can get those? I mean, can you throw a link on the— oh yeah, comment section later so we can look at those? Yeah, absolutely. Because I think solar power is a really much better way to go.

So fantastic. Yeah, yeah, it works really well.

I use a battery pack called the LimeAid that a developer friend of mine, Keith Myers, recommended to me. It's an 18,000 milliamp battery and it goes for about 22-23 hours. It's got a, um, it's got 2 ports on it. I used it today as a matter of fact. I recorded I think 3.5 to 4 of my drives, little 2-minute segments, and I already had to charge. A little nutty. And then I also on the back of my Galaxy 3, I have an Anker battery. It's a double capacity battery. It makes the phone a little bulky, but it gets the job done.

Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up because I've just seen those, those batteries for phones, and I, you know, I was looking for one, a replacement for my wife's phone, because hers keeps dying, and I had no idea that you could put different batteries on them to like double the power and the length of time it stays. So it just— does it make it harder to use, or it's just a little thicker? It's thicker.

It's thicker for sure. It lasts a while. I'm telling you, going to a NASA social, like Greg was talking about, that will teach you power management. Indeed. I went to my— I went to the first NASA social at Kennedy Space Center in 2009, and probably within the first half of speakers, my phone was dying., and I had a plug near me, so it's like, alright, how am I gonna stay powered for the rest of the day? And then I had— when I had an iPhone, I had like 5 different batteries. I cut all that and just stuck to the one now. The 18,000 milliamp tends to get me through the day.

I'm not quite sure how powerful that is, but that sounds like a lot.

That's a lot.

That's gotta be good. Okay, I see you put that in, great. And, uh, what else? We had another— any other questions out there? We just had another comment from Mia Voss talking about Daytona. She wanted to know, and I'm Luis in case any of you didn't know that. She is Thelma, so together we are Thelma and Luis. So vroom vroom everyone. We actually thought when we were going at first that we might be on the actual track at Daytona, and I was a little worried about that almost.

Close, pretty close.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, the guy took me around on the hot laps, that was a little scary, a little bit, you know, except I knew what he was doing. Of course, I tried to replicate it, then they banned me from the track, but mostly because I was driving in third and I didn't know It's been so long since I've driven stick. It's not easy. You get used to it. I drove nothing but stick for so long, and then automatics come out and everything, and there's no reason to. Well, it was fun to drive, you know, in city driving. It got to be a real pain in the butt, so as soon as I could get something automatic, I said, "I'm done with stick." When you live in the country, it's one thing, but when you live in the city and every stoplight Oh my God, yeah. God, and I went through more clutches than probably I should have too, so that was—

Oh goodness, yeah. No, I mean, Glass is a lot of fun. And I think what Greg was saying earlier about how he doesn't think it's necessarily going to be a consumer device, I'm curious to know what Alex and Jen think about that. My thought on it is it's going to be appealing to a slightly wider market. Than people who like Bluetooth and like wearing Bluetooth headsets. It's good for people who need either the ongoing camera function that you use through video or for photos. But, and you know, otherwise it's really just good for brief in-the-moment information interactions. What do you guys think?

Yeah, I, I I don't know how well it's going to do with the consumer. I'm still waiting for it to get better. I think as Greg mentioned, people do tend to like to use technology for entertainment purposes. So right now, he's right, Glass doesn't serve an entertainment purpose. But new apps are being developed regularly. I still don't know all of the ones that are being developed. So I think that it could become consumer— a consumer product. I think right now it's also everyone thinks of it as the price that it's at. So I think once it goes down in price, it'll just be another one of those, you know, do I want another— like, I've never owned a tablet. I don't own a tablet, but everyone else seems to. Everyone loves their tablets and their iPads. I've just never found a purpose for one. I prefer laptops. But I think it's just going to become one of those, like, does it fit your personal needs? I study it from a communication standpoint. And as someone that likes text and likes to— I like to be able to say a lot. It doesn't work too well for me, especially because I feel really awkward talking to my Glass in public. I'm still getting used to that. I'm still getting used to like— yeah, exactly.

Yes, I'm with you on that.

When I do that in front of my students, they're like, "What are you like— what are you doing?" I'm like, "I'm sorry, it just keeps going up." Yeah, so I think part of the reason that they haven't made it for the consumer yet is because it's not ready for the consumer. I think it still has possibilities, but I'm waiting for it to reach that point. As it is right now, I agree with Greg. I don't think that it's something the average consumer is going to want. I would agree with that.

It's definitely not consumer ready. Some would say it's not consumer friendly, period. I don't know. I would kind of debate that issue depending again on, like Carolyn said, what you do with it. But I— yeah, there's a reason why it's it's still in beta and the price point is definitely a turn-off. But, um, yeah.

Yeah, it's not— it's got so many bugs, especially with this latest update, my goodness. I feel like they went backwards.

What is this? This latest update was supposed to be amazing. They just updated to Android KitKat. So now Google Glass runs off KitKat, which is the, I guess, the latest, greatest Android out there that— or I guess most popular, latest, greatest Android that's out there right now. And the version is supposed to increase the battery life and increase stability. And there's also some changes that were supposed to happen. That seem to be a little bit more of a nuisance than anything. The devices actually now— most people are reporting that the battery drains faster than ever and that sometimes they're getting random reboots. Uh, there's just been— yeah, there's just been a lot of problems with the latest update, and they quickly released another update in order to update the, uh, previous update, which still didn't fix a lot of the problems. It just kind of, you know, patched some of them, I guess, to make people not complain so much. But at least they are really responsive to what it is that we're saying about the device and, you know, how it's not working. And, you know, they're very good with their support, and they want to document all of this So my device actually broke for the latest patch. Yep. And it's happened to a lot of people. Mine won't boot up. It just gets stuck in the— kind of like a Windows machine that just loops constantly at the Windows screen before it even gets into Windows. So that's what my device is doing. And they had me run a couple of diagnostic tests on it. You know, from that they're saying, okay, well, we can't really do anything else, so they're sending me a new device, which I'm expecting by Monday. And they actually hooked me up with the Frames now, so, you know, I get a pair of Frames as well, which is pretty cool. Although they couldn't honor my request. They asked me if I wanted a new color, and I said yes, I wanted clear. Unfortunately, they don't offer clear.

Imagine how cool that would be though, clear Google Glass, look at the circuitry and wiring, it would be like a design on its own. Oh yeah.

Get more transparent than that.

Oh yeah. Here's a— Christopher Vogelman put up a comment, he says if Google Glass runs on Kit Kats, it would never survive in his household. I don't think we're talking about that kind of Kit Kat. Now I'm hungry. I had to wolf down some peanut butter crackers as soon as I got in because I hadn't eaten since early this morning driving back and forth and wasn't about to stop in all the rain, that's for sure, and with it being late as it was.

The rain around here makes people drive like crazy people. Even more so than usual. Yeah, or completely stop. Or completely stop altogether. Alex, that's what we complain about with the weather, really. It's not so much the weather itself, which tends to just— in Florida in the summer, it tends to just— the skies open for about 20 minutes every afternoon like clockwork and then stop and go away. And during those 20 minutes and the hour or so following it, people just turn into morons on the roads. It's true.

It's like an excuse, like Oh my goodness, the sky is falling, I'm going to drive like a maniac.

And they really don't need any excuses. I have found that, and I think I've mentioned before that the reason they drive so crazy is there's too many places to turn. Up in the north, we got jug handles, and we got jug handles for a reason. You can't just turn wherever you want to turn.

Yeah, when I first moved here, it shocked me at how many places I could U-turn.

I'm sorry, I have to argue with Christopher Vogelman for a second. He just said clear is not a color. Clear is absolutely a color. Think about it. If you send light through a prism, it separates into all the colors that make up light, and if you combine them, they become clear, which allows you to see anything that the light is reflecting off of. So if light wasn't clear, let's say if light had a color like green, that's all you would see was green. Clear is absolutely a color. Technically, clear is all colors.

Yes. See?

It's the supreme color. Thank you for clearing that up for us.

Clearing that up, and chee!

Ah!

Sorry, I couldn't get to it fast enough. Timing is everything.

Maggie Unzweita just stopped by and she said, "Why do all the cool kids have Google Glass?" She needs to get one.

Hi Maggie, you're sweet for calling us cool.

I know, I feel like it's generally the opposite. I don't know what you're talking about, there's nobody behind me with Google Glass.

I heard, and this has only been within the last 2 years, I heard that nerdy was the new cool.

I think we have Big Bang Theory to thank for that.

Yeah, absolutely. Nerd has come a long way because of them. So yes, actually, I met up with a physicist in, in, in Florida, and I tried to get him for my show, but he says no, he works at that time of day. And I'm like, I thought that would be so cool. Be cool to have a physicist on. Oh yeah. I'm thinking Big Bang kind of style physicist.

Well, if you pull that off, man, I know Greg would love to be on that show.

He'd be debating the Matrix now.

He would.

Oh yeah. Uh-oh, there goes— we've opened up a whole new can of worms here.

Now we've hit on the real reason that people get Google Glass. It's just nerd cred. Straight up nerd cred.

Well, I tell you, it does make you look a little more— not yet— it does add credibility to your nerdiness because it makes you look even brighter, I think.

Thank you. As a matter of fact, we're— speaking of nerd cred, Greg and I are going to probably head from here over to downtown Orlando where our favorite photographer is doing his monthly First Friday photo shoot and it's Star Wars themed because of May the 4th.

Oh, is that why I see all the Star Wars stuff out? Yes, yes, it certainly is.

Props and lightsabers, so I'm definitely getting a picture of lightsabers with me and Glass.

Most def. Well, what was the thing, I liked what Landro Calrissian, his form of communication where they just subvocalize things, and his first in command was always getting the messages from him.

Oh yeah, yes, definitely.

We need more of those kind of communications. So, and I agree with Google, I'm just ready for the chip, you know, just put it in. Let's hope it doesn't pull Skynet on us, you know.

I think the next Google advancement is actually ocular implants. They're going to go from this to the whole eyeball. And I think that's probably going to be in the next 20 years. And I've been told that I have a possibility for glaucoma, so I'm going to be ready for it in about 20 years. Sign me up. Cut my eyes out. Give me those ocular implants. We'll have to call you Jordy.

There's a great thing, LeVar Burton was actually selected for the Glass Explorer program, and I put this in my presentation. It's my favorite response to being picked a Glass Explorer. They said, "Congratulations, you've been picked," and he said, "It's a downgrade." That's fantastic. Yeah, it was awesome. Did he actually get it? I don't know. When I went out last July to San Francisco, they said he hadn't picked as of that date. And I haven't seen any tweets or anything from him or Reading Rainbow with Glass or having to do with Glass.

So I don't know. And he's not using them on that new series he's on with— Oh yeah, with Ashton Kutcher.

Yeah, on TV.

Yeah, yeah, you'd think he'd show up with those. I keep— they did have— Robin Williams has a new comedy, and I don't watch it that much, but I caught part of it. And the guy from— the brother from Everyone Loves Raymond was on it, and he was wearing a form of knockoff Google Glass. They were asking him questions. He was— well, he was— they mentioned something, he wasn't social, so he was just going on about— I forget what it was, like Ecuador or somewhere. And all the things you could do and different things you could do, and he's talking like he really is knowledgeable. You really know a lot. He's talking, all of a sudden he said scroll and kind of gave him away. I mean, we could have some fun with it. Oh, I'm sorry.

Hey, Chef, have you seen our short film yet called Tech Squad?

I have not.

You'll have to check out Tech Squad. It's a film that we made, it's about 8 minutes long. I can't put the link up, but it's creativeinletfilms.com/techsquad. We made a film in 48 hours for the 48 Hour Film Project. We ended up winning Orlando with it. Wow. And there are some pretty cool glass components and some cool Easter eggs within that film. We played Florida Film Festival, we're gonna play Central Florida Film Festival, we're playing somewhere in Jamaica this weekend, I think. So you'll have to check out Tech Squad. If you are a fan of Fred Armisen and Saturday Night Live and what he did with the glass steel, we have a little fun Easter egg in that.

Oh, cool. Absolutely, I will look for that. Thank you. Oh, here's Christopher Vogelman has another Here we go. I think that Daggers and Hearts would be a great name for your new brand of wine, Maggie. So I don't know where that came from, but okay. Oh, here, Maggie said something about it earlier. Mia Voss, original Bluetooth Lobot, Lando's assistant. May the Fourth be with you. She's so cool. Oh yes, Mia and I have a new show.

We're actually doing a Oh, do you? That's great.

What were you saying?

Oh, I was going to say we're doing a May the 4th Hangout. We're doing a May the 4th HOA that Mia is hosting. Oh, alright, on Star Wars. Yeah, Star Wars geek out for the annual holiday.

I keep trying to come to your Walking Dead one. I did catch part of one, but you know, it's just Lisa is always He's got other plans for me usually about that time. I keep thinking I want to go on The Walking Dead.

No worries. You know we're there.

Yeah, I will get there. I have been saying yes to them, so I will be ready to be in on those a little more. I'm waiting for the new season. When does the new season start?

It should be October.

Ugh, we have to wait until October. It starts tomorrow. Next week, I mean, I'm hoping that it comes back good, but next week starts, Jack is back, so, uh, 24 starts on Monday, I think. On Monday?

I think I'm the only one who has never seen that show.

What's that?

I said I think I'm the only one who has never seen 24.

You've never seen 24? I've never seen it.

I've never seen it. Oh good, I'm not alone.

Nope. Well, if he comes back, he looks like he's pissed in the, uh, the trailers with Chloe. So, uh, if he comes back— I remember the one episode I saw of him, they had told him that they killed his daughter, and I went, oh, that was a mistake. You just pissed him off, you know, and he just went in there with no care in the world. But he was so— it was always— it was like one of those things that I know I'll get a lot of flack for saying this, kind of made you proud to be an American because of how he was always fighting terrorists and just snapping their necks randomly. One of my favorite scenes was when he was interrogating someone, they wouldn't talk. It was, "Get me a lamp!" And he tore the end out of the lamp and plugged it in and was just shocking the person with it until they talked. I do that on occasion without the same effect.

"Get me a lamp!" I just wanted to answer Sue. She asked if there was a tinted version, and they actually come with a pair of tinted shades that are pretty easy to put onto your device.

You kind of look like Terminator when you put them on too.

Yeah, you had them this morning, didn't you?

I didn't.

Because I know you gave them to somebody to hold, and they were so afraid. I said, don't worry, that's not the glass. Those are just the sunglass part of it. She gave them to me to hold, I'm afraid I'm going to break them.

I was trying to beat the rain, I just didn't want to get wet so I wasn't even thinking about taking them off. I didn't need them.

Yeah, the shades are handy. Films, thanks, Carol, for putting the link for the Creative Film up. That's great. And Mia put the Nerd Alert up for Join 'Em for—

Are you going bowling tomorrow? Bowling? Yeah, it's Jen's event. There's bowling tomorrow.

It's everybody's event. Where are we bowling? We're bowling at Kings Bowl Orlando.

You said yes to the Google+ event.

Yeah, I didn't know we were bowling though.

Oh yeah, we get free bowling. Free entry. I tried to work out free drinks, but it didn't work out that well. Free bowling is fine.

Lisa is Polish, so I always tell her that we need to go bowling more.

Yeah, it's called #GlassNightOut. It's a nationwide Google Glass event happening. I think there are 8 or 9 locations now around the country that are doing them, and no one was hosting one here, so I decided, hey, we should do one.

It would be pretty awesome. Well, that's great. So that's—

where is it? It's in Orlando?

Yeah, Kings Bowl Orlando on International Drive by the new I-Drive complex. Orlando I-Drive complex.

What's up, Alex? Yes? I was going to ask, are you the only one in your area with Glass, or do you have anyone else at the college or in your kind of general geographic area that has it?

Yeah, you know, those that I have actually like met in the Explorer community or Google+ aren't in my area. Though I did get a student from last term sent me an email asking me a question because I guess her friend got Glass. So I'm sure with the new rollout of more Glass, there's probably people in my area. But I've never run into them. And a lot of— it's interesting that a lot of Explorers actually aren't in Plus. There seems to be these two different worlds. A lot of Explorers are just Glass Explorers. And then people in Plus are people in Plus. Disconnect between the two. I do most of my conversing in Plus, so I'm sure there are Explorers around me. I haven't run into any of them though.

I've noticed the same phenomenon though, that there's a big disconnect between the people who are active on Plus and the Glass Explorers. There are definitely, I think, Glass Explorers who get more active on Plus as a result of having Glass and just the tie-ins that happen. I mean, I know you're in that category, right, Jen? Or close to that category.

Yeah, I think I became more active on Google+ because of Glass.

Yeah. But I was using Plus as my primary social network before Glass, and I know you were too, Alex, and Greg was. So we're probably— us and Lee Smallwood, right? He has it too?

Yeah, he does. He's probably the only one in his area because he's not even in the in the US that—

Right, he's one of the few internationals.

I asked him, I had a hangout with him and I was like, "I gotta ask you, how'd you do it?" He was like, "I have friends sometime in the US." So he just kind of worked his way around it. Yeah, pretty much. He has a place in the US so it was sent to that place and then he had them send it from there to where he is in the UK and he was like, "You don't even want to know what I had to pay." pay for that. I was like, "Oh my God, don't." No, that's horrendous.

I don't even want to think about it.

No. If you need some service as well, Google's service agreement says that you have to be in the US, so he'd have to send them back to the US to send them to Google. Yeah. Crazy.

That could get quite tedious. Oh yeah. One last question then. What do your families think of this? How do they react to you wearing Google Glass?

Oh goodness, who wants to go first on that one?

Well, mine's quick and easy because my family is mostly, um, Jen. Not Jen Vargas, my fiancée Jen Malier. She's pretty OK with it. She was interested in it at first. And really, I think the only rule that came out of me getting Glass was no Glass in the bedroom.

I was just going to ask you that, but I'm trying to figure a delicate way to say that. Or we might be calling you a Glasshole for a different reason.

Well, I think in that instance, again, the person without Google Glass is the glasshole.

Yes. Okay. Well, you would have still found it. It would have been in a different location.

Oh, yeah. I backed up that rule because the company bought Greg's Glass. I wasn't okay with that idea.

Well, that's enough. Yeah, that's fine. Oh, lordy, lordy, lordy. Well, you know, I'm looking forward to a lot of the improvements that they're hoping to make, and I still would like to see them for my cooking shows. I think being able to look down at the hands or looking down at what I was doing would be a lot easier than having another camera do it. Again, we need the bugs worked out, and I think the power source— I'd like to see just a wearable power pack. I mean, in the old days of video production, you always wore those battery belts and stuff. You'd see people with them all the time. They should come up with something not quite as obtrusive, but something you could just strap on. Pardon.

So wait a minute. You want us to have Google Glass and a utility belt?

Yes, yes, because then we could be Batman.

I picture myself getting beat up in the streets all the time.

Well, you know, that's alright. I have that sleep apnea thing, so I wear a mask to sleep now, and Lisa's saying, are you alright leaving it out so people see your mask? I said, yeah, as long as you don't I'll show them my cape too.

What is that line that you see sometimes floating around on memes? I'm not saying I'm Batman, I'm just saying no one has ever seen me and Batman together in the same room.

I remember someone brought that up about Santa and Satan too, you know, their spellings, letters are different, they both wear red and you never see them together. What?

I would be really curious, Dennis Littley, to see or to hear your thoughts about like All the Cooks, which is some Glassware that's out right now, and a couple of the other ones I believe that you can sideload, uh, recipes, I think. Um, I don't cook, sorry, but, um, I would be curious to, to hear your thoughts on those once you get Glass. Or at least get to try them.

Dennis, maybe we should come over and do a Glass special for the kitchen one where you can actually follow along with the recipe on the Glass app. Yeah, 3-camera setup, that's awesome.

Yeah, well, I actually ordered another camera today, you know, so now I have 4, but that's only because I'm too lazy to move the one off my computer here. As I was taking off one hookup to pack up my bag to travel, I did take everything with me just in case, you know, I did have to do it from location. So now I just— you gotta have enough cameras to do different shots. And as my kitchen gets done, you know, I will be having live guests in there sitting with me, so I'll need more cameras at that point too. So yeah, it's also coming down the road. And we touched upon it briefly, but me and Voss and I are starting our new show, and it is called Food and Booze. Alright! Yep, and we're actually going to be—

Two of my favorite things in life.

Yep, we're going to be looking for restaurants in the Orlando area, or I am, that will allow me to broadcast from there live, and you guys are welcome to come along if you're in the neighborhood. And Mia will be— one of us will be at a restaurant, the other one will be stuck at home eating peanut butter and jelly and doing saddle shots by herself, eating and drinking as much as we can. But the whole idea is for us to finally get out together and visit cities all over the world and visit our friends in different locations and go out and drink and eat with them and film it while we're there and do a Hangout. So Food and Booze may be coming to a city near you. Soon, we hope. Excellent. Oh, that's exciting.

I definitely know some places that would probably be interested in letting you do that in Orlando, so we'll talk about that for sure.

Absolutely. Yeah, she's got a couple places lined up in Denver, so for now we'll start, like I said, separately, but you know, the idea is for us to get together and do it in the same room, which would be Yeah, it would be way too much fun because when we get together, we're trouble. I can't imagine.

Hahaha. To a new level.

Alright, well, we started late, but we're hitting the hour mark now, and let's run through the panel real quick and talk a little bit more about what your thoughts on glass were, parting thoughts, or anything you'd like to share with us. Doesn't have to be about glass, but Alex, any projects coming up, any shows, anything you'd like to share with us or what you're going to be doing?

Well, I will be— this term is ending. I actually— my finals start Monday and Tuesday. Yay, studying! But I will be teaching over the summer, so I will be continuing Glass in class at that time. My students this term really enjoyed it, so it'll be interesting to do it in a summer course when everything's super condensed And then of course I'll be continuing it in the fall. But I also do the SEO WISE show. Check those out. We just did something really interesting with Annabelle Howard, who also does education. We're really big on education and produced Hangouts and combining the two. So yeah, I'm kind of all over Plus.

You can find me anywhere.

Carolyn, any projects, anything coming up? I know last Saturday the PAWS walk, was it? Yeah, oh yeah, that was fantastic.

And we've got another fun thing in the works with that charity Harbor House that I'll let Greg speak to. But we've got lots on tap right now. We'll be on Legally Speaking on Monday with Tina Willis, which is going to be a lot of fun. We've of course got Zombies on Air on Sunday night. Sunday Night Nerd Out is going to be continuing. We're having a great time with that, and we'll also be joining Mia on the May the 4th show as well.

So it's keeping you busy.

Oh yeah, love it every day.

And Jen, anything, any projects you're working on, anything else coming up besides the bowling tomorrow night?

Oh geez, Glass Night Out tomorrow night. On Sunday is Enzian Film Slam. I help facilitate that with the host and programmer Tim Anderson. All filmmakers, all local film at Enzian Theater at 1 PM. We're going to do the 48 Hour Film Project again this year. It will be our 6th year participating. That is in August, I believe. And then I've got some other little projects, little side projects I'm doing with Central Florida Top 5 and My Glass for Good and a couple of other guest blogs that I've got some stuff going on. And then I do, I've got a couple of freelance film and video gigs that I'm doing and then Indie Cinema Showcase as well. We're on hiatus but we will be back in the fall.

Sounds good. So when you do get to a computer, if you want to leave any other links for us into some of the things you're doing in the comment tracker, I'd appreciate appreciate that. We can come back and check on them.

Cool, thank you. You're welcome.

And Greg, any other projects that Carolyn didn't mention or anything you'd like to share with us?

Yep, the thing that she was talking about or mentioning with Harbor House is earlier this year they had an event called Walk a Mile, or they were part of an event called Walk a Mile in Her Shoes, which is actually a national event that's supposed to be a men's engagement, but of course women are invited as well to raise awareness for domestic violence issues. And so while I was there at the event, I had these, I don't know, like 4-inch heels, absolutely terrible on my feet. First time ever in heels. It's a pain. I don't understand how some women do it. It's absolutely absurd to walk in those. But anyways, I was doing a little dance in the heels, actually. And Carolyn caught it on the phone and uploaded it onto Google+. And some other people saw me dancing in the heels. And Dennis Littley, he actually saw me, and we were talking about what the Walk a Mile event was. And he came up with the idea of, well, why don't we try and auction off these shoes and give all the proceeds to the Harbor House? So we're going to be kicking that off not this Monday, but the following Monday on the Craft Star. We're going to be talking about Harbor House. We're actually going to get the executive director, Carol Wick, who actually won Orlando Business Journal's Woman Who Means Business Award. So we're going to have her on the show talking about Harbor House, and then we're going to put the shoes that I danced in, and I think we're going to do another dance and and get that on Google+ as well. We're going to put those up for auction. I don't really see people buying them to actually wear them, but once they hear about the cause and what they're doing, I definitely think it's something that people stand behind. I mean, it's something that I definitely stand behind.

Well, that sounds good. I will share with you too, you were here for our party before Easter, And while you were talking, Jen did share with me that those were your heels. She said— Yes, yes, they were not hers.

I actually went out and I bought a pair of heels that fit me specifically. I tried them on and made sure that I can stand in them and that they, that they fit. And they were fine when I tried them on. But after about like 5 minutes of standing in them, that was, that was too much. I mean, I could dance in them, but I could not stand because I kept trying to put a lot of the weight on my heel, which is a big mistake in heels. You're gonna fall over doing that.

Well, it did make your butt look great, so don't worry.

Funny, you're not the only person to say that.

Oh, I'm sure.

Oh, wow. His fiancée thought it was amazing.

Yeah, there you go. Maybe she had the glass on in the bedroom. There you go.

If that happened, I don't want to know. A whole different show.

Well guys, on that note, thank you so much for coming today and spending some time with me. We had a little nerd out here and had some fun. Thanks for everybody that was watching. It was a great day on Google+. We got to spend some time with some friends and talk about some cool things. So I will see you all soon. Have a great weekend.

Bye!