"Puke. I find Glass to be ugly, impractical and completely ridiculous."

And I find Glass to be elegant, useful, and futuristic. So where does that leave us?

And then this:

"they simply don't know what it means to make products that make people happy."

Are you serious?

Reality is that our first impression of a new technology is pretty much a coolness measure. Some things look cool and everyone who sees it wants it but are not ultimately useful or impactful (eg segway). Its really hard to tell how important some new technology is.

Wait, bulky cell phones did not catch on. Cell phones became ubiquitous once they became practical. Go back in time and introduce a modern cell phone (assume the infrastructure to support it) and it would be a huge success.

Maybe the next incarnation of enhanced reality will be huge, but the argument is that this incarnation will not.

Also did the bulky ones not catch on because they were bulky, or because they were expensive or ...?

So I think we ought to welcome channels of criticism/contemplation rather than just continuing the cycle mindlessly. I get that he hasn't used the product, but at the same time I get where he's coming from. Just because we can do something doesn't mean we necessarily should. It's a worthwhile thought whether or not you agree with his particular criticisms.

Or maybe technology (better bandwidth, front facing cameras in laptops & mobile devices) just caught up with our realization that the concept is more useful when one or both parties are not at their desks or at home.

that's a strawman. The primary claim is that Google's implementation is lame.

The primary claim in not that 'Glass-type' hardware is lame.

I can see your point about how he's attempting to argue the implementation is lame, but its also easy to construe his argument as 'glass-type' hardware is lame. This is an issue with the authors presentation, not with the OPs argument.

I started to extract and quote the parts of the article saying the problem is Google's implementation but it was close to being the entire article.

Like many over-positive posts though this seems overly-negative. I don't get how someone can have such strong opinions about something they haven't touched or used.

The biggest challenge I see for Glass is practical uses. If I am walking down a country lane does Glass do anything? It would be cool to be able to look at a tree and say "whats this?" and it is identified. Similarly being prompted at a fork. "Left will take you past a waterfall. Right will keep you in the forest"

Realistically though I don't expect any functionality like this will exist outside the city, at least to begin with. Best sellers are practical products for practical people. I am not completely sold this is anything more than a niche item at the moment.

Similarly, even the demo video shows driving directions and both Google and others provide hiking trail, cycling directions (even offline ones, which you might need in such circumstances).

Personally, I'm interested because I'm a cyclist. I think they'll be in the front lines with anyone else who needs their hands free once the price comes down.

And, I can count the number of people I knew with those early, bulky cell phones on my fingers and toes. It wasn't until the smaller, cheaper cell phones of the 90s that everybody had one.

Will Google Glass lead to something useful? Perhaps. But, will it be a game-changer today? I doubt it.

And he's correct about speech interfaces. So far, all of the readily available consumer versions are horrible.

Why think that was about the size and not more about the price? Every kid I knew who watched Saved by the Bell wanted a mobile phone, they just weren't in the "get it for Xmas or birthday" price range.