Through The Looking Glass+

     In case you missed the announcement, Google announced that they were releasing information about their new Project Glass which was the showing of what their hypothetical new glasses could do, as seen above. Predictably, everyone freaked out about the privacy ramifications, and allowing Google to see your every move. However, most bloggers have not been looking at the obvious cues and tips that Google has been signaling, either intentionally or unintentionally. 

First things first, Google+ is going to be the engine beneath this entire project. Or rather, Android isn't going to be running the glasses. Throughout it all, all the programs run are either primary Google services (Google Calendar, Google Maps, Google Tasks) and Google+ social tools (Google+, Google Hangouts, Google Latitude). No Gmail nor is there Google Play (née Android Market) were shown off. The guy checks in on Google+, shares a picture with his Circles, and has a hangout with a girl who he is trying to impress. Google is leveraging their ghost town of a social network to be the adhesive of the Google Glass products. Getting people to use Google+ with the Glass will make more people want to be on Google+, creating a positive network effect (a key example of this was Blackberry phones and BBM being a deciding factor in getting a Blackberry over another phone).  Without people on Google+ the Glass will be utterly useless, as it does not have a useful network that everyone can use. Google is truly going all in on Google+ and is willing to create other products just to get people to use it. 

If Google+ is the engine beneath the Glass, could the rumored Majel be the glue that holds everything together and a true knockout punch to Siri. From the video alone, the Glass is able to take a voice command  from the onboard microphone, and set a reminder to his calendar to pre-order tickets to a show. Surprisingly, this is already a feature that Android phones offer,   however, the video seemed to hint at a much tighter integration between Google services with voice commands performing all of the tasks. The sign that this may be some stronger type of personal assistant, is when, coming upon the 6 train, the glass warns that the subway service is suspended (not an uncommon occurrence in NYC) and offers to show alternate routes by walking or bus that can be used. This seems to hint at a location aware component that can react and advise the wearer alternatives when certain plans do not go as planned. Potentially, the Glass could see that you have a 5:30 meeting uptown in your Google Calendar and need at least an hour to take the train, alerting you that you need to begin to leave in order to catch the train and make it to your destination on time. 

While everyone has been calling them the new Google Glasses, they have been overlooking a key semantic wording in the release: it is called Project Glass, not Project Glasses. While Google has only shown the concept for glasses, the wording seems to hint at something much more grandiose that just designer eyewear. The naming of the project as Project Glass seems to hint that Google will try to make full scale glass screens that can act as full screens much like that in Minority Report. Imagine your entire Google universe tied together in a full screen display that can show you your full day and map out your plans. By not pigeon holing themselves into being forced to make just glasses, they are now able to create a new set of products of all shapes and sizes. Furthermore, the fact that this was revealed today seems to not be a total coincidence, as it has been one year since Larry Page took over, and Page has been one to emphasize  huge projects as well as pushing Google+.

    While only a two and a half minute video and a few shots of what proposed glasses might look like, there are several concerns that might doom this to quirky idea rather than complete game changer in the tech field. First is the 8 billion pound gorilla in the room in regards to privacy and location awareness. In order for these glasses to work, you need to be able to allow it to share and track every move that you do. With people becoming more and more concerned about privacy and the lack of clarification they get in regards to it, a product that takes every detail of their lives and broadcasts it to their social network 24/7 is potentially off-putting and could doom it from the beginning. Also, Google is under 20 year supervision from the FTC for its many lapses in privacy and will be hard pressed to justify this total expansion of taking customer data to be used. Secondarily, the glasses appear to be always connected, requiring a 3G/4G connection at all times, making the glasses like a second phone that you have to shell out a monthly data bill for turning off many people. Thirdly, there is no real way for Google to directly monetize these glasses after sale. Assuming that Google sells these at cost, the glasses were not able to search Google and be served up hyperlocal ads based on what they were looking up and where they were. Rather, since the glasses are held together by Google+, the increased populating of your social feed will provide Google with more data that they can use to better tailor the advertisements that are shown. 

   These glasses look incredibly useful but a long time before their release and perhaps even longer till they gain widespread consumer traction. As the year progresses, expect Google to announce more on this project, as well as many initiatives that help coalesce Google into one big integrated company held together by social and Google+. 

    

LTE and Siri and No Buttons Oh My

With the impending Apple announcement on March 7th, I wanted to run down some of the rumors that were attached to its release and what I see as occurring at the press conference.


What's Likely


1) Retina Display: The new display bump makes sense, following both Apple's natural progression of the displays on their devices as well as the invite's wording about something to see. There has also been reports of website analytic getting hits from iPads running what appears to be iOS 6 and a screen resolution of 2048x1536. 


2) The Same Price: It would be a deviation from past Apple pricing to have a price increase on the new iteration of a piece of hardware. That combined with the fact that there aren't that many new improvements to differentiate the iPad 2 from the new iPad, Apple will probably drop the price of the iPad 2 down and keep the prices of the new iPad at the prices the iPad 2 is currently at. Furthermore, the reduction of the iPad 2 price point would help make the price more palatable to schools, helping further the iBooks adoption in schools. 

3) Siri: It is a perceived differentiatior between the iPhone and Android phones, and the extension of the personal assistant to the new iPad would help keep the iPad on top of the tablet hierarchy, and help justify it over the Kindle Fire and its much lower price. Including Siri in the new iPad would make it a necessity in enterprise functions as it would replace the basic usages of a secretary by automating tasks. 




4) LTE: One of the reasons that Apple has avoided using LTE and 4G as their data processing is that it was a battery hog. There has been new advances in LTE battery life with the very slim Motorola Droid RAZR Maxx, getting over 8 hours of usage time. According to the Wall Street Journal, both AT&T and Verizon will sell the new iPad that can run on their 4G LTE network. That makes sense as neither Sprint nor T-Mobile offer 4G LTE at the moment and are both transitioning off of their WiMax and HSPA+ to LTE in the next few years. If Apple was going to release a 4G tablet, why would they release it for two networks that were going to be obsolete in the next few years anyway? By releasing it for only LTE, they stat true to their pattern of keeping the choices limited, especially with something as confusing as 4G.


What's Not Likely


1) No Home Button: There are gesture touches for the iPad 2, but the Home Button is a hallmark of the iOS devices, much like the clickwheel was for the iPod. There are two possible reasons for why the button is not appearing in the invitation. One is that the iPad that is in the picture is orientated in landscape instead of portrait where the Home Button resides. The other, and more reasonable answer is that the button was photoshopped out of the picture. If you look at the finger, there is a bluish tint under the finger, showing that there was something that was emitting light and is no longer there. Also, the Home Button just does so much already, that removing it would cause new mapping for major functions of the iPad, causing fragmentation between generations of tablets and setting a differential between the iPhone and iPad.


2) The iPad Mini: There is no threat from the Kindle Fire or any of the other smaller tablets. Steve Jobs was dead set against 7 inch tablets and Apple wouldn't fragment their tablet offering into different sizes like so many Android tablets.  


The Final Wildcard


From the details that have been leaked, there doesn't seem to be enough to conceivable call the new iPad release the iPad 3. Instead, I believe it will be called the iPad HD, to show its new HD display and enhanced visuals. However, to put the iPad over the top, I expect that there will be a special guest from Microsoft revealing the new Office apps on the iPad. The Office  suite has been seen in the wild, and was teased by representatives from Microsoft as coming soon, and wait and see. That would make the new iPad a pure enterprise dreams with both Siri and Office helping create a super tablet that could help untether workers from their desks.