A camera that takes images comparable to a picture taken on a current iPhone? For every frame (such as in a video) the amount of work involved to reduce boredom increases. Raw video of people's lives is utterly, unimaginably boring, even if the person is a celebrity.
Still photos work b/c they capture a whole moment, with just enough detail to inspire the imagination and to ground the imaginings in reality.
My personal favorites are the slightly grainy and oversaturated images taken by the camera in the blackberry I had about 5 years ago. Still photos bring out the best parts of the human experience, while raw video makes everyone as boring as the worst video blogger.
It's not the device, it's the applications people will crave. Think about these apps for your glasses:
- adBlocker to remove ads from your view
- first person shooter missions with google maps integration. All you need is an empty cow-pasture.
- architects/renovators guiding people through their new/renovated house before the contract' signed.
- ...
You're suffering from a serious lack of realism if you discard them based on the camera quality. The iPhone drove R&D for cameras we have now, same will happen for these gizmos.
Edit: The only real opposition I see is another wave of reports on the impact of having a non-stop wireless RF device next to your skull.
I think the augmented reality aspect is going to be awesome, I just don't imagine wanting to watch the video someone else is seeing in real time -- though after some editing it could be very fun to watch.
I hate ads, but not quite enough to go round blocking portions of my vision just to avoid seeing 'em. I envisage myself getting run over by an advertising-covered bus.
first person shooter missions with google maps integration. All you need is an empty cow-pasture
Sounds fun, but niche. Laser Tag isn't a big industry.
architects/renovators guiding people through their new/renovated house before the contract' signed
That's more the sort of application I'd envisage.
Or how about this? Imagine a store you'd walk into, get issued a pair of glasses, then you could walk around, look at things, and have information about 'em magically appear? How cool would that be? Answer: awesomely cool... the first time. In year one, that store would be the coolest thing on the planet. But the fiftieth time you go in there.... meh.
Or how about this? Imagine a store you'd walk into, get issued a pair of glasses, then you could walk around, look at things, and have information about 'em magically appear? How cool would that be? Answer: awesomely cool... the first time. In year one, that store would be the coolest thing on the planet. But the fiftieth time you go in there.... meh.
"A camera that takes images comparable to a picture taken on a current iPhone?"
I will be intrigued to see what pops out when this really becomes a priority. You may not be able to stick a single small camera in a glasses frame and get anywhere, but what about having 4 or 8 relatively cheap cameras and some image processing? With the cameras tuned to the needs of the image processing. Perhaps not even 4 or 8 identical cameras. Can we play games with optical interferometry [1] to extract surprising amounts of visual data from surprisingly small cameras? There's a crapload of optical tricks we've learned that we've not really needed to apply yet, and ahem IT IS OBVIOUS TO ONE SKILLED IN THE ART THAT THESE TECHNIQUES MAY BE USEFUL ON AUGMENTED REALITY GLASSES. (ahem)
Not sure there's a filter in Instagram that botches up your photos as much as early-2000's blackberry. So soon we forget the years of yellow skin tones, movement blur and jarring LED flash.
One day my kids are going to look at our old photos and ask "why did photo quality go to crap from 2002-2007? Did you lose the technology?"
Still photos work b/c they capture a whole moment, with just enough detail to inspire the imagination and to ground the imaginings in reality.
My personal favorites are the slightly grainy and oversaturated images taken by the camera in the blackberry I had about 5 years ago. Still photos bring out the best parts of the human experience, while raw video makes everyone as boring as the worst video blogger.