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back to article Korean boffins launch K-Glass for hands-free Google Glass-ery

Boffins at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) are predicting the end of the smartphone era after launching their answer to Google Glass – a head mounted display (HMD) dubbed K-Glass. The hands-free wearable features a 65nm augmented reality chip which KAIST claims is 76 per cent more energy …

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  1. Charles Manning

    Isn't normal reality good enough?

    The real in augmented reality is about the same as the real in reality TV.

    It has alreadty been demonstrated that taking pictures of everything interferes with your ability to actually take part in your surroundings and hence detracts from your quality of life (unless you live in some shit hole where a pixelated life is far better than the real one).

    People have worse memories of their holidays if they spend their time taking photos of everything.

    The latest craze of taking photos of food you're about to eat detracts from your actual enjoyment and experience of the food (apart from disrupting other diners).

    As for playing with the kids... they prefer it, and will remember it more fondly, if they actually get to play with you rather than having to interact with the camera instead.

    In the past our technology was limited and we could all cope well with its invasion into our lives. Now the technology has got to the stage where we are limited and are struggling to cope.

    Shutting down now... Going for a walk on a real beach with the family... No cell phones, no Facebook... We mighe even see - with our real eyes - a real penguin.

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    1. OvAl
      Reply Icon

      Re: Isn't normal reality good enough?

      I agree with you, and I do wonder where this will all end up. The current trend being foisted upon us seems to me to be to live your own life vicariously...any experience that isn't shared through social media or recorded in someway isn't deemed valid.

      These specs of course, could be a useful tool - for example, to learn a language by looking at an object and getting the translation on screen - but instead, it's going to only be a mode to sell you more stuff.

      Instead of having billboards on street corners and posters in shop windows, _everywhere_ we look when wearing these could be co-opted into some marketing campaign.

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    2. Eddy Ito
      Reply Icon

      Re: Isn't normal reality good enough?

      Yes, it seems we now have the next next big buzz word where 'augmented' is the new 'virtual'. It's comforting to know the definition is still the same as they are both marketing terms meaning 'not'.

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      1. Charles Manning
        Reply Icon

        Augmented != virtual

        Augmented reality and virtual reality do not mean the same thing. One is a special case of the other.

        Augmented reality means adding an overlay of information over a real backdrop. You can still see the real world.

        Immersive virtual reality replaces the real world entirely.

        Both are flavours of virtual reality.

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The 'Borg' has landed

    Prepare to be assimilated.

    If they think I'm going to wear something like that and look a complete [redacted] then they are barking mad.

    I can put my switch off my phone, put it down and leave it. I don't want to be 'always connected' to whatever world these people are living on.

    Sure some wannabe's will gobble this up but the rest of us have better things to do.

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  3. Paul Dx
    Thumb Down

    "... allowing K-Glass wearers to check out restaurant menus and other information by standing outside and looking at the name of a particular eatery."

    Rather than looking at the menu displayed in the window. Isn't technology great ?

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  4. Chris G

    Well at least it doesn't make you look stupid!

    I know it is in development but ugly is an understatement.

    My biggest objection to this and Borgle Glass apart from privacy and potential safety issues due to distraction is the stupid 'Augmented Reality' description; there is no way to make reality more real, the term is an oxymoron with the accent on moron.

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    1. JDX Gold badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Well at least it doesn't make you look stupid!

      You'd hardly know he was wearing it!

      Also, "AR" clearly is a real term. It means "reality with extra stuff that isn't really there".

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  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Its as much as a white elephant

    as 3d telly. A few will snap it up but the overwhelming majority will treat it with derision.

    Good.

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  6. smartypants

    Because I'm a liberal...

    ...at some point I will end up having to defend people's rights to have these things on their faces, even though I think they're silly and a barrier to ordinary social interaction. (A little like burqas in that respect I suppose)

    This does niggle me somewhat.

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    1. Charles Manning
      Reply Icon

      Re: Because I'm a liberal...

      Liberals are all about rights, but not the responsibilities that should come with those rights. Instead the responsibilities are imposed on someone else. You know what I mean... " I want babies, but is the taxpayer's job to pay for them."

      That is very different to libertarianism which puts both the rights and responsibilities on the same person.

      Will you protect the rights of people to wear twatty eyewear when they do irresponsible things with them?

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  7. plrndl
    Pint

    Augmented Reality?

    What is he on?

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    1. Euripides Pants
      Reply Icon

      Re: What is he on?

      Augmented cocaine.

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  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Is it me or does that chaps picture look very borg esk..

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  9. heldeman
    Megaphone

    Did you try it?

    In the past history you could not transported anything on wheels in China. If someone said you fly on a broom you were stoned. With the first cars speed were limited to walking speed later to 20mph. They believed that going 40 mph you would not be able to breath. With calculators they said it will make you dumb. With TV's that you will stop communicate with other people. Computer games were suppose to transform healthy children into murderers or stupid people.

    Now these specs will do many other things not good to us. There's thousands of other examples. I think give it some years and the new generation will not be without it and much like us today.

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    1. OvAl
      Reply Icon
      Childcatcher

      Re: Did you try it?

      Mm, have a look in most living rooms up and down any country of an evening and I pretty much guarantee that you see people staring at the goggle-box and not communicating...And the other points you mention are not precisely comparing apples with apples.

      But I see what you're getting at: That new tech can be feared and often misunderstood but in the end is assimilated with no harm done.

      Time will tell I suppose, but I'd hate to be a kid growing up in a world where these things have taken off in a big way...I mean, how can you form your own idea of the world if you're being assailed in what could become a very subtle way, with info/alerts of what other people should think you should find interesting.

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  10. carl_cdk
    Terminator

    RESISTANCE IS FUTILE

    RESISTANCE IS FUTILE

    whack a laser on the side and its a finished product for nerdlingers the world over..

    once they slim it down to a clip on the side of your glasses i'd buy one.. but at the moment its a bit on the ugly bulky side..

    these will end up a tiny thing eventually that you wear over your specs.. maybe in 10 years

    sign me up (in ten years) until then ill have to watch p0rn on my tv like everyone else..lol

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  11. Roj Blake Silver badge

    Glasses

    People wear contact lenses or have laser treatment because in general people hate wearing glasses.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Glasses

      Ah, that would explain why I never see glasses on anyone anywhere ever. Wait! I'm wearing glasses!

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  12. proud2bgrumpy

    Don't worry....

    Don't worry, anybody wearing these has exactly 0% chance of procreating, and an increased chance of early termination of their life while they wait for their glasses to offer best advice for how to avoid an oncoming car / bus / bull / train [...]

    How long, I wonder, before the Darwin Awards make their first posthumous award to a K-Glass / Google Glass wearer...

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