Computerworld – Sergey Brin, CEO and co-founder of Google, wears Google Glasses during a product demonstration at the Google I/O 2012 conference last month. (Image: Stephen Lam / Reuters)When one talks of computers today, he or she could be referring to a laptop, a desktop or maybe even a smartphone. However, if Google’s latest plan stays on track, the definition of a computer could broaden significantly.
At its Google I/O developers conference in San Francisco, the company threw a lot of effort behind the unveiling of a prototype of its so-called Google Glass computerized eyeglasses.
The Android-powered eyeglasses are equipped with a processor, memory, camera, GPS sensors and a display screen.
Google co-founder and CEO Sergey Brin said the Google Glass development effort is all about “doing brand new risky technological things that are really about making science fiction real.”
In that world of science fiction, he said, computers won’t always look like what we now expect from the term. The next generation of computers won’t necessarily sit on one’s desk or lap or in one’s hand. The devices may not have a have a monitor and/or keyboard.
Someday – probably in the near future – computers will be worn, whether incorporated into glasses, or in a piece of jewelry such as a bracelet or something else, analysts say.
“Google Glass changes the way we will look at computers,” said Patrick Moorhead, an analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy. “It isn’t just research, it’s a workable prototype.”
“Glass serves to stretch the technology ecosystem to even greater lengths, Moorhead said. “I believe that in five years we will see many different form factors and brands of wearable computers. We will have computers embedded in our glasses of course, but also in our jewelry and watches.”
Moorhead noted that the U.S. military, especially the Special Forces units, already use wearable computers to for communications and GPS tasks. That technology hasn’t yet reached consumer or business users, he added.
Google’s research efforts could hasten the mainstream use of the technologies.
“As we see real devices in use that we previously saw only in movies and books, it will expand the possibilities even further,” said Moorhead. “We can go beyond the glasses and visualize computers in our jewelry, in our watches and even inside our bodies.”
Charles King, an analyst at Pund-IT, said such new computing form factors are an extension of the current mobile trend, taking GPS-enabled smartphones, growing compute power and multiple new communications capabilities to the next level.
“It’s the ever smaller and ever more powerful mobile technologies,” he added. “It’s about the things we used to see and think about in relation to sci-fi novels or Star Trek. The idea of highly mobile and highly powerful computers is extremely intriguing.”
King said he expects there will be great demand for what he calls “mobile computing lifestyle choices” in a few years.
“It would not surprise me if we see a lot of this in, say, five years,” he noted. “As the technology becomes more sophisticated and cheaper, it becomes something everybody can afford.”
“Some years ago, a smartphone like the Blackberry was considered something that only business professionals needed. It doesn’t seem farfetched to think we could see Google Glass widely adopted in five years,” King added.
Rob Enderle, an analyst with the Enderle Group, pointed out that Google Glass or other wearable computers could be very useful in many workplaces — not just the next big thing to help users look cool or geeky.
“They could be used regularly for things like taking inventory in warehouses, and for tasks on factory floors and other places where folks need to use computers and their hands at the same time,” Enderle said.
At the Google I/O conference, the company said it is offering prototype versions of Google Glass, dubbed the Google Glass Explorer Edition, to developers for $1,500. Brin said he expects the glasses to be generally available in 2014 — at a lower price.
“If the developer community can come up with interesting solutions, the sky’s the limit,” said King.
Enderle said that wearable computers could be a big step toward a new generation of compute form factors that can be embedded inside the human body.
Putting aside visions of Star Trek’s Borg initiative, Moorhead and Enderle agreed that wearable computers are a bridge to the first such computer implants.
“It’s an interim step toward imbedding computers into people and creating some kind of biomechanical interface that bypasses the eyes,” Enderle said, adding that he believes that computer generation is some 25 to 50 years away.
“The change we are working toward … is one of the big changes we will see in computing this century. It will redefine personal computing by the time it has fully matured,” he added.
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| Sharon Gaudin |
Author Biography:
Sharon Gaudin covers the Internet and Web 2.0, emerging technologies, and desktop and laptop chips for Computerworld. Follow Sharon on Twitter at @sgaudin, or subscribe to Sharon’s RSS feed . Her e-mail address is [email protected].
In Chrome, Google Drive operates as the local file system, said Clay Bavor, director of product management for Google Drive. He showed how a user can search through a folder of scanned receipts and find a particular receipt using a keyword search. The receipts are stored as image files, but the Drive application uses optical character recognition to index the text in the receipts.
Google also showed how Google Docs and Google Drive can work together to allow “real-time collaboration.” It showed how three users can edit a text document simultaneously from three different devices, and have the changes all appear on each of the three screens.
You can add songs to the Q’s queue (pun unavoidable) or play them immediately by tapping on options in a menu that appears when you tap a track listing. You can fiddle with the queue, moving or deleting tracks, by tapping an option in Play Music. To play YouTube videos, you go through much the same routine after tapping the Android’s YouTube app. You are already signed in to your Google account, so accessing favorites and new videos on channels you’ve subscribed to is a breeze. Quality was good, at least while the Nexus Q was connected to the network using the ethernet cable and powerline switch. I didn’t download any movies or TV shows to check out how well the device works with the Google Play movie and TV app.
Hopefully Google will work on these issues before it begins selling the Nexus Q to the general public. But even if you’re an Android fan willing to spend the $299 on a device with fairly limited functionality (it could at least have supported streaming media from other local network devices), I wouldn’t recommend the Q to anyone who is planning on Wi-Fi only connections in a city or a neighborhood with lots of Wi-Fi networks in range. That’s just asking for trouble.
The Map gadget uses content from Google Maps to display the addresses you have entered as markers on the map.Pictures convey more information than words do, and a map offers the easiest way to show people where your office and other places of interest are located. The Map gadget lets you create a custom Google Map with pointers to the places you want to highlight, and it’s simple to use. To begin, type a list of addresses, one per row down a single column. If you want a tooltip to appear over the map location when someone hovers over the marker, type the text for this item in the cell to the right of the address. For example, to produce a map of local farmers’ markets, type each address in one cell and the name of the farmers’ market in the adjoining cell to the right. Choose Insert > Gadget >Maps, and click Add to Spreadsheet. Now select the range of cells containing your address and tooltip data, and then enter a title for the map in the Title box. If your data includes tooltips, select the Last Column as Tooltips checkbox, and then click theZoom Using Mouse Wheel checkbox. From the ‘Map type’ list, select the type of map–Normal is a good choice–and then click Apply & Close. The gadget dialog box will now show a map with the addresses plotted on it. As with the other gadgets, you can publish the Map gadget for use on your website to show your business locations or places of interest to your customers.
The Organization Chart gadget can create a hierarchical chart showing the design for your website or the management structure of your business.
At its simplest, the Table gadget lets you filter data to see a subset of it.The Google Table gadget allows you to analyze data by creating a table that supports filtering, grouping, and even totaling. Insert the gadget by choosingInsert > Gadget > Tables > Add to spreadsheet. Select the range containing your data, including the heading row, and click OK. Click in the Title box and type a title for your tables. Select the checkboxes for Show Filters and Enable Grouping, and then click Apply & Close.To group the data by the contents of column A, for example, click the Define groupings and calculations link, select that column’s heading, and click the arrow to add it to ‘Group by Box’. Click Next, and select a column to calculate. To sum Profit, for instance, set the Profit entry to Total. You can apply calculations to multiple columns, if you desire, or to none at all if you just want to group the data.You’ll see a table appear in the gadget dialog box, with the headings over each column. Use the filter box at the top of each column to filter that column of data. Click OK, and the gadget will show you the grouped data, with any calculations appearing in the row above the appropriate group. You can collapse and expand the groups as necessary to see the values in the table.
The Gantt Chart gadget illustrates the tasks in a project and the time allotted for each of them.You can use a Gantt chart to display projects involving tasks that must be performed over time. To make this type of chart, you need three columns of data (with an optional fourth column). In the first column, place a list of the individual tasks in the overall project–the steps needed to create and publish an email newsletter, for example. In the second column, place the start date for each task; in the third column, insert the end date for the task. If you wish, you can add a fourth column containing the percentage completed for that task. To produce the Gantt chart, chooseInsert > Gadget > Charts. Locate the Gantt chart and click Add to spreadsheet. Select the data for the tasks, the start and end dates, and the completed percentage, and click OK. Set the Name column to the column containing the task names. Set the Start column, Finish column, and % Complete column to the column letters containing that data (typically columns B, C, and D), and click Apply & Close. The Gantt chart will present the tasks to be completed, their start and end dates, and the progress made toward their completion to date.
The Heatmap gadget shows relative values as colors on a map.You can plot data related to states or countries on a heat map, with small values indicated by light colors and larger values rendered in darker and more saturated colors. To plot the data correctly, you must use ISO country codes (or, for U.S. states, the usual two-letter state codes). Place the data to plot in the cell to the right of each relevant state or country. Choose Insert > Gadget > Map > Heatmap, and then click Add to spreadsheet. Select the data–including the locations and the data to plot, but not the column headings–and click OK. Type a title for the heatmap in the Title box, select the map type from the Region box (click USA to plot data on a United States map), and click Apply & Close. The map will appear with the regions colored appropriately for the value of the data associated with each.
Drag on a pie slice in the animated pie chart to offset it from the chart itself.Interactive charts are more interesting to look at than static graphs. You can create animated pie charts in a Google spreadsheet using a gadget. For this chart, you need only the categories and one set of data, because pie charts can plot only a single data series. Insert the gadget by choosing Insert > Gadget > Charts. Locate the FusionCharts Pie & Donut Widget, and click Add to spreadsheet. Click in the Range box, select the data to plot–omitting the column headings–and click OK. Now select the chart type, such as Pie 3D. Type a caption and subcaption for the chart to inform the viewer as to the information the chart is intended to convey. Enable the Animate checkbox, and, if you prefer, enable Values On and Labels On to show both labels and values for each pie slice. If you enable Tooltips, the mouse pointer will show a tooltip if the user hovers the mouse over a given slice. Select Format Number and set Decimals to No Decimal so that numbers will be constrained in size. Enabling Shorten Values will ensure that the chart presents large values legibly. Click Apply & Close. When the chart appears, you can drag on a pie slice to explode it from the chart. Right-click the chart and click Enable Rotation so that you can then rotate the chart with your mouse. Gadgets such as these add a range of extra functions to Google spreadsheets, allowing you to do new things with your data and display it in ways that can help your business.
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