By now, news of Stanford’s Offensive coordinator wearing Google Glass during the Rose Bowl game has already made some headlines. Still, its interesting and equally parts awesome to see that this kind of technology is finding a way to integrate into everyday life in the most unlikely of places. While other establishments like many restaurants around the country are banning the use of Google Glass, it seems that some sports officials are taking the notion of wearing it off the bench. Stanford’s Offensive Coordinator Mike Bloomgren(who once again will be the one wearing glass at the event) was captured saying that “it’s a way to pay homage to nerd nation”. Stanford admittedly has a very strong relationship with Google, and Mike admits to being the techie member of the staff on Stanford’s Coaching team, so it’s not a huge shock to see Google Glass making an appearance at a major event like this. After all the bad publicity they’ve had about Glass’s practical applications into daily life, they certainly needed something that could be considered a win. We’d say this checks off as a big old “W” for the search giant.
Interestingly enough, although this is just speculation at this point, this event could start a revolution of sorts, and we could start to see Google Glass become much more openly accepted in some public places. Amidst all the privacy concerns people have about the technology, and despite its negative backlash Glass is the next wave of popular tech coming out to the public in a completely technology dominated era. We spend our days interfacing with computers, televisions, game consoles, smartphones, tablets, and even smart watches and wristbands. All or most of which have web browser capabilities or at least some form of connecting up to the internet. Some have cameras, some or most have the capability for you to send a tweet at a moment’s notice, while others are just your outlet for consuming all forms of media that you find enjoyable or necessary. When you get right down to it, Google Glass isn’t the first piece of tech to have a controversial cloud looming overhead, and it won’t be the last.
What might be the most interesting thing about this piece of news is not the fact that we could start to see things like Glass integrated into sporting events for officials and sports casters, but the fact that it could nearly remove or at least help remove the negative moniker that follows it around. Think about the possibilities for Coaches or people that report on sporting events. Coaches could access playbook digitally and have them laid out in front of them. You could get real time updates on player stats like trading cards, similar to this photo.Once the technology gets a little better and apps start to become available that will allow it, we could even have motion tracking that could tell us how fast a player might be running down the field during a big play. Sure that possibility isn’t here yet, but Google Glass as it is now is just the first step, and the possibilities are endless. With future updates we could start to see a whole world of potential applications. What do you guys think about Glass making an appearance at the Rose Bowl? Let us know how you feel about Glass now or what you think about its future possible applications in the comments on our G+ post.