We’ve heard all manner of opinions about one of Google’s latest tech ventures that is currently in a testing phase with developers. I’m talking about Google Glass. By now you may have seen all the headlines about the negativity that it’s received, and you may even be aware of some of the more positive and innovative ideas that some developers have begun to come up with for use with the facial tech. Whatever you’r stance is on this product, we can’t deny that it has some excellent real world applications. There are many things that one could use glass for. No I don’t necessarily mean that it can do many things itself by way of features, just that each potential individual that might own a pair can seemingly have a different purpose in mind than another for their newly acquired high-tech eye wear.
One such new use is an application currently in development by a company called Emotient, which has recently raised $6 million in funding for developing their new app that can tell what people are feeling. This could be considered similar in a way to the controversial facial recognition app that has been in the news in the past, but only on a minimal level as it uses some form of facial recognition. It’s purpose isn’t for finding out who you are though, as it seeks to help Glass users to decipher the puzzle known as human emotion. People’s emotions can certainly be deduced to some degree without the use of this technology, and there are people in professions that specialize in being able to read other people’s faces to find out what they’re feeling. Reading people at an advanced level like this is a skill that most people don’t have though, and even for those that do it’s not really an exact science, so this app would serve as a tool that could fill that gap, theoretically at least. Emotient’s new app isn’t necessarily aimed at normal everyday Glass owners though it seems, as they want to position its uses to corporations rather then the general public.
During a particular press release about their new application, Emotient CEO Ken Denman was quoted saying that -All good business leaders know ‘you get what you measure’, and being able to objectively and accurately monitor customer sentiment allows retail teams to build plans and tactics to win-. He followed that up with a statement about the benefits of gauging human sentiment relating to the ability to drive focus and sales. Does this spell out good things for Google Glass or bad? There will most certainly be people on both sides of this debate. You could look at this as a tool to help sales people do their jobs more efficiently, but would it really work, and would it cause more harm then good? On the consumer side of things, the app could prove useful if ever released to the public for general use. If you’re a Glass owner, it could help you to recognize whether people are displaying a positive or negative stance to seeing you wearing this product. With the privacy concerns growing over use of Google Glass in many public locations, it just might serve as a tool to alert you that wearing Glass might cause a negative outcome in a particular area, allowing you to avoid any negative confrontation by either leaving or removing them from wear. What do you think about the development of this app?
