Unwearable tech: Five ways IT garb's gone HORRIBLY WRONG The Chocolate Factory has the technology for its Google Glass locked down in a patent but it has to collaborate with fashion retailer Warby Parker to make its artificial eye tech look cool, says the New York Times. The augmented reality spectacles are supposed to change the world, but currently they look too dorky to catch on …
You need to look up the current Explorer edition which allows lenses to be attached, although at the moment just Google built ones I believe. Google are working on a "framework" (Don't know if pun intended or not) that manufacturers can adapt too, so the hope is you can use the lenses of your choice.
I found myself a bit torn when it comes to Google Glass. Part of me thinks it's really cool and part of me thinks that the only thing it can do that my phone can't is make people point and laugh at me. I don't think I would want to go out wearing it until it had been around long enough to be considered normal, which might take a while.
The main problem with wearable tech (apart from making you look like a weirdo) is that it seems to be a solution in search of a problem. I can't think of a single practical use that I would have for it.
If anyone is interested in makeing their own wearable tech Adafruit make a cool line of in house designed Arduino compatable wearbale devices that can be sewn together with conductive thread. They call it Flora.
http://www.adafruit.com/products/659
Much cooler if you make it yourself :-)
Some 10 years ago or so, there was a stylish looking device called "Eyetop". It was essentially a pair of moderately stylish sunglasses with a built in screen you could see out of a corner of your eye. It had composite analogue AV input. It was fairly unobtrusive, but if you wanted to use it with a computer you need a VGA->TV adapter and a small laptop (back then the choice was probably a Sony Vaio PCG-U1 or U3). Google have essentially done the same thing with next to no improvements, other than bundling an Android computer into it (no difficult feat these days), and priced it outrageously high for what it is considering the technology has hardly changed.
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