Since Glass just displays a small rectangle at upper right part of your visual field, it's not much use for that sort of application. You'd have to twist your head around until the virtual screen appeared to cover the object you wanted to look at.

Seriously, I'm amazed how many people seem to think Glass can place things anywhere in their visual field, when it's very definitely restricted to a small rectangle, as though you were holding a smartphone about a foot away from your head.

It's because the original promo video gave that impression: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSnB06um5r4

Yeah. That was a concept video created before anyone (even the ad production team) had seen Glass.

Kinda weird that they didn't even get the display position right.

One of the most practical limitations to augmented reality is battery life. Glass is limited-enough as it is, simply handling text messages, phone calls, and the occasional photo. It dies on me all the time. I can't imagine it recording (and processing) video for AR for very long between charges. Half an hour would surprise me.

It doesn't seem like that would be too difficult to offload most of that processing to a smartphone.

I think they made a mistake not making Glass an accessory for Android rather than it's own device.

It also wouldn't be impossible to put a heavier battery and wire connected to the Glass device in your pocket for much longer battery life in exchange for the minor inconvenience of having a wire tucked in your shirt.

I'd assume the video recording is more battery-intensive than the processing. Also, if you offload the processing to the smartphone, then it'll be necessary for Glass to be connected to your phone, which means wifi and/or bluetooth, which only drains the battery more.

It might be a challenge but there's no need to completely dismiss the possibility.

Here is a $5 keychain that can record for 1.5 hours. http://www.amazon.com/808-Car-Chain-Camera-Recorder/dp/B0084...

I'm sure Google and the countless engineers and scientists working on advanced battery technology could make something work for a reasonably long amount of time.

And there's no reason that you couldn't put a laptop size battery in a bookbag with a cord to the glasses and have an all day charge. Either 3 hrs without the optional extra battery or 24 hrs with the 3 lbs bookbag battery, that doesn't sound so bad to me, at least until we create better batteries.

The new Bluetooth Low Energy could help a bit with that a bit.

From my reading, Bluetooth LE isn't so "low energy" when you send lots of data, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth_low_energy#Radio_inte.... In the end, you still need to use a bit of power.

Consider Google Glass a HUD. (Not sure if that is their desired term but it's the closest commonly known example). Glass is not attempting to tackle AR at the moment.

See this for more background on why it won't be anytime soon. http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/why-you-wont-see-hard-...

See these for even more background

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_head-mounted_display
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head-up_display

The prototype hardware running Glass is not ideal for AR but it appears to be technically possible and obviously very useful.

http://www.slashgear.com/google-glass-augmented-reality-gets...

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2012-02/video-nano-...

Below would be the goal. The story is slightly cynical but the AR games and even pictures on the walls are very cool. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJKwHAvR4uI