All of the Glass videos I have watched depict Glass as this amazing technology that does not have any problems. I, as a member of Generation Y and avid technology user, especially understand there are always some problems associated with technologies, but depicting Glass as a perfect device still transforms our society's understanding of Glass. If all prospective Glass users watch Glass' perfected performance in these videos, they will understand Glass as a technology that perfectly caters to users’ main needs. However, what happens when prospective users obtain Glass and Glass cannot tether to a user's smartphone, or the device cannot hear the user's voice commands? Now, Glass has been transformed into this obnoxious technology that complicates social interactions instead of catering to them. Between videos, photos, and other medias that cater to Glass' current advertisements, society has a very misconstrued conception of Glass.
“It [Glass] is a paradox and I think we need to make it even better, even faster, make it lighter. Ya know, this is just baby steps” — Isabelle Olsson, Lead Industrial Designer for Glass, 2013
Less than five years ago, the idea and concept of society having a technology that functions the way Glass does was a distant dream; therefore, it is unfair to only notice Glass’ flawed components. The Glass team's recognition of Glass’ current version needing to evolve is crucial in creating the device as a humanistic product. In fact, several new Glass advancements have been released regarding the next software update potentially giving Glass users the ability to interact with Glass through external keyboard features. Glass' frequent software updates and processes the team is making in developing additional features for Glass implies Glass will eventually progress into a device that perfectly caters to everyone.
While Glass' new updates present new features that will contribute to solving problems associated with the Glass' current version, these new features are overlapping current basic problematic features. Therefore, instead of Glass' new software updates and announcements creating new features, team members should focus on creating features that solve Glass' primary problematic areas before creating additional new features. For example, Glass' most recent announcement suggests Glass users will be able to interact with Glass through external input components, but what if Glass' excessive connectivity problems are transmitted into Glass' consumer version? If users cannot successfully tether their phones to Glass or connect to the Internet the only features users will be able to access will be photos and videos, which raises the question of how much keyboard accessibility users will need if these are the only features they can effectively interact within.
In order to ensure the most effective and efficient progress for Glass' evolvements into a revolutionary communicative device that caters to all of society's interactive methods, I am suggesting Glass' development team members takes a step back and focus on how the current device works with and for humans before it is released as a consumer product. The current device is already brilliant in pushing the limits of traditional human interaction and communication, but in order for this to continue Glass' developers need to refrain from,
Proposing, justifying, negotiating, and celebrating future inventions in language before they can touch them. We need to hold technical artifacts to a critical model of scrutiny that can function in complex ways (Isabel Pedersen, 2013).
In my research and additional studies with Glass, I understand Glass to have positive and revolutionary implications on our entire society; however, several current Glass features need to be redesigned to effectively interact with everyone before Glass advances into its next stages. Perfecting and redesigning current Glass features will launch Glass past being a niche technology and that of revolutionizing society—similar to what Google did when the company was launched in 1998.