Contextual Computing: Is Google Glass Next Step in Machine Interaction?

  • Forbes contributor Shel Israel addresses the hype behind Google’s Project Glass and what he anticipates will occur when the glasses become available to third-party developers next year.
  • “I think that there are very complex unanticipated consequences coming down the line,” he writes. “There are obvious ones such as privacy, but there are also strange ones coming when the technology we use starts becoming our intimate advisor, when machines have personalities and start reminding us of R2D2 and the robots we have known in fiction.”
  • Israel lists some interesting applications in the consumer, military and medical sectors — and how the possibilities (and implications) will expand when the glasses are connected to big data.
  • “In short, they will be a multimedia, networked computer that serve as also as a Siri-type personal assistant that you wear in the guise of glasses,” he predicts, adding that the concept is actually part of something larger in personal tech that will eventually impact us professionally and personally.
  • “Wearable computers are a subset of a larger category — Contextual Computing,” says Israel. “The name may be boring, but the concept is very large and it rests at the point where the SciFi that entertained us yesterday become the essential tools our lives.”
  • Contextual computing will dramatically affect the way humans work, live and communicate — especially as the technology improves and machines merge more with people.
  • “Where is it all going? I have absolutely no idea,” concludes Israel. “Are their dangerous unintended consequences looming? Of course there are. Have we hit the point when [Dr. Frankenstein] should not be allowed to create the next sentient monster? Not a chance.”

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