At various events and conferences where Google Glass has been shown and talked about it’s been difficult to understand how the user actually makes use of this new wearable technology. Watching a guy up on stage and seeing what is displayed on his Glass system didn’t really give a good idea about the use of the system as the presenter pokes and prods his spectacle rims with barely distinguishable movements and gestures.
Now Google has released a very simple and easy to understand video, demonstrating the touch commands and gestures available to Google Glass wearers and how these interact, in real-time, with the interface. It’s a snappy one minute video entitled “Glass How-to: Getting Started” and just concerns the touching, tapping and swiping interactivity. Other ways to use Glass, such as voice commands, aren’t erm... touched upon.
All your touch control will take place on the touchpad which runs from the front of the spectacles, near the display towards the right ear (sorry sinistrals). Operating Glass seems pleasant and easy, as once you wake it up with a simple tap you can scroll through the interface “cards” intuitively by swiping and work with the currently central card app by tapping again. Options can be found with a long-press, just like on many other touch interfaces you might be used to. Exiting a card app is done with a swipe down action. Consistently, from the home screen, a swipe down puts your Glass system to sleep.
Now I’m looking forward to a video using voice commands with Glass in such a straight forward and intuitive manner. Whether voice commands are completely interchangeable with touch commands remains to be seen.
If you want to read more about Google Glass, at the weekend details about the hardware behind Google Glass came to light for the first time and we saw an enthusiastic two week review by Silicon Valley uber-geek Robert Scoble.
