You're still getting a little too excited. This is a simulation. None of this is final. But even the promise of this does not obviate the need for a phone, The interface certainly does not have the richness of a phone. And I've not seen them suggest this is a phone replacement.

There are areas where it will struggle:

Simply being able to see a large amount of information from the device and without interfering with normal sight. With my phone I can read quickly and then be back in the real world by looking up. I don't see myself reading reams of data with this thing. I'd love to try though!

The interface is different/more limited. You lose haptic feedback and long-presses to expose different functionality. I'd love to see how good a feature-rich note-taking app will work. Voice-recognition is the most likely use.

But voice recognition remains difficult and performs variably.

And nothing to say of how slow it might be to change networks, adjust settings etc. Many things might be locked down to ensure a smooth experience for the average user.


So, integration (or how Glass will be useful).

Glass will serve as a nice entry-point into the phone experience. You could open the notifications in Glass but you might want to focus on recording some video.
Or you hover on a film poster and have IMDB open up the details on the phone. You might have a lot of these moments in a day. Imagine building up a list of pictures, quick ideas/notes, something useful someone said and then take your phone out only when you sit down. Everything is there for review. Glass might be a very good inbox.

I could instantly sync my photos. It's thus backed up on the phone straight away (and later on the net) and could be auto-shared - I don't need to issue copious voice instructions. Same with video. Glass will gather data but you might want it to hand stuff off to the phone. And net access isn't always guaranteed.

Looking up real world objects, scanning barcodes, even raw data and have it converted into usable data. You could hold up your phone but it's a nicer experience to have a document rendering onto your phone while you look at a page of data or even take a phone call. And you don't have to get the phone out of your pocket. Multi-tasking for the win!

I view pdfs and spreadsheets on my Note 2 all the time. I've not scanned much because it seems hit and miss and there's no cool software to do much with it. This would be amazing with my laptop. I often get printed documents or scraps of paper. Being able to instantly scan and digitise on the go would be almost revolutionary.

The point is Glass will be a very useful *extension* of the device you are already carrying around. Which people will be carrying around for many years to come.

I hope it's cheap as chips because getting it pinched off your face would be fun

Being all into numbers, I put the numbers in the video into my own spreadsheet and discovered that the graph for the number of words/SAT score is of course not linear. They appear very much correlated, but not linear like the graphic showed. That's the fault of the video editor, not the MIT professor, because he never says anything about linear correlation.

As long as at least one of the factors doesn't correlate linearly (and I think we know that neither do), it's possible there is still a correlation between income and length of essay, but not necessarily a causative relationship. It's more likely that buried in the income statistic is the level of the student's English -- the poorer you are, the more likely it is your first language isn't English, so the more likely you are to write a shorter essay, and drag your economic demographic down.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Life, xbox, stupid, nerd stereotype, Prince of Persia' to 'Life, xbox, stupid, nerd stereotype, Prince of Persia, video game, excel, spreadsheet' - edited by lucky760

Here's a little spreadsheet like the reward matrix in a game:
(Let A be the observer, and B the observed)

Scenario 1: No video taken
Scenario 2: Video taken, covertly, and kept secret
Scenario 3: Video taken, covertly, but later redistributed and coming back to haunt B
Scenario 4: Video taken, overtly, causing distress in B.

S A B
1 0 1
2 1 1
3 1 -1
4 1 -1

As you can see, in scenario 2, everybody wins.

It's a big iPod Touch. Quaint. Here's my Pros/Cons just looking at it.

Pro:
1. Apple's touchscreen is the best. Hands down. Very responsive.
2. It's a touchscreen television. That's kind of cool. Hell, it's probably the future.
3. The games and apps are nice. I doubt you'll find any hardcore games interested.
4. Price point. It's not "Apple" expensive.

Con:
1. Not a true browser. No Flash.
2. How often did you read books on your laptop? Exactly. I don't care if you can swipe the paged with your fingers; it's too bright. There's a Kindle for that.
3. It's not portable enough to buy for music.
4. Typing on it looks impractical. Seriously, would you really do spreadsheets on that thing?

If I wanted a portable TV, it's probably okay. Other than that, I'll stick to my laptop.

This is barely more exciting than me working an Excel spreadsheet. You should see the things I can do.

Anyway I presume this is a simulation and not live footage. Surprised they weren't slurping on Starbucks between kills.

I like that the related videos are all CoD Modern Warfare.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

There probably are quite a few people who buy Macs for the shiny - but I would posit that those are the same people who would be better off with a Mac- because it's more forgiving to people who don't know what the hell they are doing. "It just works".



Having said that- Macs are also a machine for hardcore internet geeks. Here's a picture from 2 days ago - the lobby of the Googleplex and the Reddit engineers trying to figure out why their site is down. Macs "just work" for these guys too.

>> ^campionidelmondo:
>> ^dag:
What's an example of people who would be better off with non-apple products - but still buy Apple?
All the people who buy Macs, because they have no idea
a) what kind of computer they need
b) what that computer should cost
I see it alot at work. People buying $1000 PCs to read their emails and do spreadsheets. They don't obtain any real information. Instead they watch TV and go "Ohhh look at that mac, it's so sleek and shiny. Apparently all the young hipsters and Justin Long are using them." I'm not saying apple products don't have their merits, but that's not what people buy them for anymore. Nowadays they're just status symbols, a sleek presentation with little content or innovation to back it up. $35 white earplugs with terrible, terrible sound.
I know you buy Apple products because you just like them for what they are and maybe because you've been using them for a long time, but that's not the M.O. of the average Apple customer (anymore).

>> ^dag:
What's an example of people who would be better off with non-apple products - but still buy Apple?

All the people who buy Macs, because they have no idea

a) what kind of computer they need
b) what that computer should cost

I see it alot at work. People buying $1000 PCs to read their emails and do spreadsheets. They don't obtain any real information. Instead they watch TV and go "Ohhh look at that mac, it's so sleek and shiny. Apparently all the young hipsters and Justin Long are using them." I'm not saying apple products don't have their merits, but that's not what people buy them for anymore. Nowadays they're just status symbols, a sleek presentation with little content or innovation to back it up. $35 white earplugs with terrible, terrible sound.

I know you buy Apple products because you just like them for what they are and maybe because you've been using them for a long time, but that's not the M.O. of the average Apple customer (anymore).

They won't miss these added features because those primarily exposed to Apple's mass marketed products won't expect them by default. If Apple can define tablet PC to lack or not require GPS, a camera, possibly even Flash then that will define their expectations. I'm sure more are and will remain oblivious to the likes of the Archos 5G/9 which is superior to the iPad and does everything it should:

Archos 9 - $600
1.76 lbs.
1.1Ghz ATOM Z510. Runs Windows 7.
8.9", 1024 x 600 pixels resistive, LED backlight.
10.08" x 5.28" x 0.67" thick
7.4v Lithium-Polymer battery, 5 hours, removeable. 36W (12v @ 3a) power adapter.
HDD 60GB (1.8")
WiFi (802,11b/g), Bluetooth 2.0 (EDR)
Microphone.
Stereo Speakers.
Headphone jack.
1.3mp Webcam,
Optical trackpoint mouse,L/R mouse buttons.
Built-in Stand, 2-positions.
USB port.
Lotus Symphony included: Documents, Spreadsheets, Presentations.

iPad - Starting at $500, but $700 for that amount of hard drive space.
1.5 lbs.
1Ghz A4. Runs iPad OS 3.2.
9.7", 1024 x 768 pixels, capacitive, LED backlight, IPS, Oleophobic
9.56" x 7.47" x 0.5" thick.
25Whr Lithium-Polymer battery, 10 hours, fixed. 10W (5v @ 2a) power adapter.
16GB, 32GB, or 64GB flash memory.
WiFi (802,11a/b/g/n), Bluetooth 2.1 (EDR)
Microphone.
Speakers: Mono Audio.
Headphone jack.
iPad versions of iLife apps: $9.99 each (x 3).

Also I think the user utility associated with Apple's products is exaggerated. It's simplicity that they do well, and again the kind of people who are not aware of the customization they might appreciate, are missing out on and might benefit from are the same people that laud it. That and the fact that user utility feels like it's too often conflated with style. The scroll wheel on the iPod sure was a fancy marketing gimmick but having used a 5G iPod now for over a year, I would gladly get tactile controls back. There's simply no comparison, and really the only thing I can assume is Apple users who claim it's efficient have no frame of reference. The same can be said with OS X, sure it's full of stylish transitions, animations and some good features, but I'd wager especially with how familiar everyone is with Windows, it's no more of an efficient work tool. I see Jobs made a big deal about pointing out that the iPad will have a similar user interface to the iPhone. I think that drives home the point that there's nothing that immensely intuitive about Apple devices. They still must be learnt. People are simply more willing to invest time into learning to how to use an interface of a device that is more popular and they predict will be around for a longer time.

Coming back to the iPad, I still think even the average consumer is going to be pissed off by the lack of some features. It's pretty clear that they didn't just want to make a portable internet device that surpasses the iPhone in usability, they wanted to make something that clearly doesn't eat into the market share of their budget MacBook and MacBook Air. They could have loaded a desktop OS on it, but they purposely didn't. I think many will struggle with the idea that an internet device like this can't do Flash, doesn't have a USB port and can't run their favourite PC/Mac programs.

That may be it's downfall or marketing, and simplicity as you mentioned may win out. If Apple says 'revolutionary' enough, maybe they won't realise this device is bested by something that came out in October 2009.

Doesn't sound like he's commenting as much on Windows and Excel as just computers in general.

If you were to work day to day in a cubicle using a spreadsheet program on a Mac or Linux computer, would that make it less gray and boring? Methinks not.

>> ^crillep:
I believe Excel has always had coloring options Stephen! Only they are not always utilized for the same reason you don't find rainbow colored hammers and wrenches in a workshop.
(maybe if you work for Apple)


This.

It's a fucking spreadsheet, not a scrapbook project.

Yet Excel is good. You haven't lived til you've nested some IF functions. Anyway what is he proposing to jazz up the world of spreadsheets?

Besides Windows 7 is pretty good now and at last provides a decent baseline from which to make further progress.

I loved this video as it is first hand account of what many consider to be common knowledge. It also shows that the lowly employee at the bottom sometimes have more business sense than the people at the top. Her helping people pay off their debt is a great long-term strategy for the company. Them wanting to keep the people least likely to be able to pay saddled with the most debt is extremely short term thinking as the company is increasing the likeleyhood that those loans will ever get paid at all. While it looks good on their current spreadsheet because they are owed more money and at a high interest in the long term they will have to write off much of that when the loans fail. Bosses at the top probably care more about keeping the poor down than collecting more money since they already have plenty for themselves and many generations of their families to come. Meanwhile the customers and most shareholders suffer in the long term... until the people at the top find themselves under the guillotine of course (sad inevitability unless the people at the top mend their ways)

-Karl

I didn't do it - honest! Someone's done the same to me, you can have a look at my profile.

So I guess now I owe YOU a promote, eh?

*edit* in fact, kronosposeidon is the ONLY one whose nickname comes up on both of those recently 15'd comments of mine.

In reply to this comment by schmawy:
I ran a spreadsheet on them and EDD shows up on every comment voted to 15. I was about to do yours too but you deleted the siftbot spam.

You ran a spreadsheet, eh? You're smarter than the average cat. Thanks for the info. I'll have to return the favor.



In reply to this comment by schmawy:
I ran a spreadsheet on them and EDD shows up on every comment voted to 15. I was about to do yours too but you deleted the siftbot spam.