It’s pretty rare for a piece of technology like Google’s Glass to come along. Sure, we’ve seen smartphones grow more and more powerful over the last couple of years but for the most part, we still use them just as we always have and it’s incremental, than revolutionary. Nobody can argue that Google’s Glass is going to be anything but revolutionary, it’s perhaps a bigger change in computing than the mouse was. Google Glass has enjoyed a lot of press coverage, after all it’s one of the coolest things to come out of Google for a long time, not only that but it’s starting to look like the future of mobile technology.
So, we’re all really excited for this, right? Of course we are but, would it surprise you if we told you that even Facebook’s Mark Zuckerburg was excited for the new technology? Perhaps not, considering everyone is excited about this sort of technology. Recently, Sergey Brin – co-founder of Google and head of Special projects – were together at UCSF due to their shared interest in the Breakthrough Prize For Life Sciences and they got together in UCSF’s Genentech Hall for a little chat. Forbes has it on good authority that once the press interviews were dealt with, Zuckerburg confidently “strode over to Brin” to take a look at the amazing new product. While Brin adjusted his own pair – which he’s rarely photographed without – on Zuckerburg’s head, the CEO of Facebook said “I can’t wait to get my own”. Yeah….you and me both, Zuck.
It’s no secret that the two companies aren’t exactly pally with each other, in part due to the spaces the two now occupy on the Internet but, Zuckerburg has respect for Google and has spoken out about the company in the past saying: “Even though our relationship isn’t one where the companies really talk, we are able to do a bunch of things and build some great experiences”.
The logical step here would be for Facebook to develop for Google’s Glass, and you’d be right because at the event the two of them spoke about the largest social network in the world developing for Google’s Glass. Apparently, Facebook has a small team of three engineers that are waiting to get their hands on a pair to start developing for it, which just so happens to be headed by a former Google employee. The two of them wanted to keep the meeting as informal as they could with Zuckerburg nervously saying: “Wait , this isn’t supposed to be a thing.” The head of Facebook had a lot of questions for Brin, for instance is there a way to get indoor directions? Which Brin replied with “No, there’s no way to specify destination indoors.” which isn’t really that surprising, as small GPS chips aren’t known for being great indoors.
Zuckerburg is certainly excited for the upcoming technology and he candidly asked Sergey “Is there anything specific you want us to be trying? If so, I want to be doing that.” So, it looks like Mark is looking for guidance, what do you think Facebook would do with Google Glass? I guess the more exciting question for a lot of us, what we would do with Glass?