Google Glasses Make Their Questionable Debut at (New York Fashion Week)
nymag.com
nymag.com
Can someone please look through that slideshow and explain to me how anyone could single out Google Glass as "silly" with a straight face? I mean, look at these earrings:
http://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/fashion/shows/2013/spring/new-yo...
Look at them.
The glasses, on the other hand, looked out of place. I understood exactly where the author was coming from -- due to the technology, the glasses still look a bit odd.
Which is why it seems to me like "that looks silly" isn't a valid thing to say at a fashion show in the first place.
Dismissive? Contemptuous? Irritated? Something.
Anyways, its always weird to see tech covered by non-tech outlets. It seems like the result is often worded like this.
I was actually pleasantly surprised by how mild the article was, which I would say is actually a pretty good sign for Google Glass.
Apparently the problem with Google Glasses is that they have to play second fiddle to DVF's new line of autonomous robo-clothing.
However, it's interesting that they've been essentially branded as seriously uncool before they've even launched. I wonder if this will lead to someone at Google trying to make them more stylish, or whether they'll hope the target market isn't fussed on fashion and style and it'll spread enough for them to not care.
The minute these were targeted for public release the fashion community's opinion was written in stone: uncool. An indeterminate but large part of the appeal of being in the high fashion world is the exclusivity. If they liked them it would be the kiss of death for seeing massive public uptake.
Plus something being really exclusive to a certain group of the population can have a massive effect on lust for another group of the population.
If I were Sergey Brin, I would be throwing a chair through the wall!
The more interesting challenge is how to make wearing the glasses socially acceptable.
I'd feel uncomfortable if a friend brought these on a night out, but then again I think I'd be a minority here in the UK.
Don't take them to France though.
Seems like a pretty big deal to me.
(I know it came post-iPod, but I loved my Creative NOMAD Zen Xtra. 60 GB drive and it would play all day on a charge, no trouble (wish my Android phone could pull that off))
Specs like being able to play FLAC, and minor differences in capacity per dollar, and often higher quality DACs did not matter as much as the design that made it easier to use.
It is also worth remembering that competing devices addressed the problem of a large library with search, while the iPod instead used an active matrix LCD combined with a large scroll wheel to quickly navigate the hierarchy of artists <- albums <- tracks.
I had a Creative Nomad before the first generation iPod, and even though the Nomad had larger capacity, it immediately seemed like junk in comparison.
We get stats from phone companies that complain about how much more iPhone users use their data plans, and I suspect that if had similar data for iPod we would find that users simply used their devices to listen to music more than users of competing devices.
Stylish ads may have been a large part of publicizing them, but it was the complete change in interface design that made people actually use them regardless of whether they enjoy gadgets for their own sake.
Maybe by having them at fashions shows, they become fashionable? There is some kind of self fulling prophecy here....
If you understand how a trend starts, this is a perfectly logical place to attempt broader acceptance of what is, aesthetically-speaking, a bizarre fashion accessory.
There are distinct sociological strata that fashion trends progress through on their way to the mainstream and they never start at "nerdy conferences".
See: https://plus.google.com/110625673290805573805/posts/Nmc8LuwF...