Heather Erickson can hardly be called a hipster. Yes, all these pictures of Google Glass. But it does not use them to check Facebook, to dictate messages or shoot video with no hands on a roller coaster. Erikson 30 years, and she works in a factory in rural Jackson, Minnesota. For her, Glass is not a reason to put apps in front of eyeballs, but a tool — like a wrench or a jig saw. He’s been with her the entire shift at the station 50 in the shop, where engines for tractors.
No one at the factory Erikson don’t care what your custom version of Glass after the initial hype was doomed to drown under the barrage of bugs, criticism, and sink into oblivion, never seeing the light of day. Original Glass designers dreamed of life in tandem with the frame and a tiny computer screen, hovering before my eyes. But the dream quickly gave way to disappointment, because the first test points found that pieces of glass do not reach the stated characteristics. In just three years Alphabet (parent company Google) has phased out Glass. At least so thought the people.
What they didn’t know is that Google tasked a small group to develop a version for the workplace. This group is a detachment of the laboratory of X belonging to the Alphabet, where Glass was first developed under the personal supervision of Sergey Brin. Now the emphasis was on creating a practical tool for workplace that saves time and money. This version of the glasses called the Glass Enterprise Edition.
Their Erickson wears every day. She works for AGCO, manufacturer of agricultural support, which is among the first experiences Glass EE. Within two years, Glass EE quietly used on dozens of jobs, moving away from the radar gadget lovers, analysts and self-proclaimed futurists. Yes, the number of those who got tired of using the Glass, sitting in the lounge and sipping on a cocktail with a hookah, accidentally getting on unwanted videos in YouTube, pretty poumenshilsya. Meanwhile, Google has already sold hundreds of units EE, improved versions of the product that were originally sold in version Explorer Edition in 2013. The company, which were experienced EE — including giants like GE, Boeing, DHL and Volkswagen — sized sickly growth of productivity and quality. What started as a pilot project, is now planned for widespread implementation in large corporations. Other business sectors, e.g. medicine, are trying to use Enterprise Edition at work places, to convert a previously awkward and cumbersome processes.
The difference between the original Glass and the Enterprise version can be summarized in two images. The first is the iconic photo of Brin with designer Diane von Furstenberg at the fashion show, which both captured with eloquent headband, topped with the monitors. The second image Wired reporter saw at the factory where he works Erickson. Workers at each station along the Assembly line wearing glasses that are not much different from eyewear — begin with the words “OK, Glass, start”. When they go home, the glasses remain on the table.
These workers are from Jackson, Minnesota, is located on the crest of a wave. In a recent report, Forrester Research had forecast that by 2025, approximately 14.4 million workers in the US will be wearing smart glasses. And it was not about fashion glasses. It turned out that the image of the first Google Glass has developed a very promising technology, but during the presentation are unable to understand who it would be best to use it. Now the company has changed their opinion. Factory and the factory will be expensive to return Glass.
The workplace is a curious turn for one of the most advertised products in the history of Google. For the first time Glass was thrown in the General court five years ago at the conference Google I/O in 2012. Literally thrown out because thousands of visitors had the opportunity to witness a free fall from the point of view of paratroopers in Google Glass, the soaring after the jump from the roof of the Moscone Center. High the product launch is not even close to consistent with the actual situation to the end of the year when the glasses were presented to the developers. Google called the first buyers of Explorers — pioneers, explorers. Tried sunglasses, probably everyone from Prince to beyoncé Carolina, Time named Glass product of the year.
However, it soon began to ascend the obvious shortcomings of Glass. They are buggy, caused an uneasy feeling and did not have clear functions. And more people began to be indignant supposedly what the users points will have to photograph on the sly? Wearing glasses started to ban in various establishments. The project just collapsed.
“When we initially created the Glass work on the technology front was enormous, and the launch of the Explorer was required to find out how people use the product,” says Astro teller, head of unit X. “We slightly lost his way when he tried to jump to consumer applications. Lost my way is to put it mildly”.
Return to the path of the developers of Glass and failed, the project was closed in January 2015. It seemed that this is the end, though the company promised that “the journey does not end here”.
Actually, however, began a different journey. Although the sound of broken Glass were still ringing in the press, the first users have found that Glass is an excellent choice for jobs. Workers need information in real time — and hands — so they only benefit from a Glass, even if Google haven’t found this yet.
It is a choice between a form of augmented reality experience that overlays digital information over the real world, and an alternative that allows workers to switch between virtual and real. Some companies in the business sector sing hats “mixed reality” imposed graphics and information on the image of the real world that is passed with the camera. But it is cumbersome, expensive and poorly suited for routine tasks in the factory. In cases where workers need access to information in real-time, Grand slam, occupying the entire field of view. Smart glasses represent a lightweight version of augmented reality — some call it “assisted reality” — and suggest a computer display on which you can look by simply squinting the eyes, and the world will remain in place. It’s cheaper and more convenient than full immersion.
Without specifying Google, these companies started to buy Explorer Edition and use them with the custom software to solve specific problems for its corporate clients. And Google found out about it.
“We talked to all our researchers and realized that in the business segment we can have a future,” says Jay Kothari, currently leading the team Glass EE. Brin himself noted the interest of the corporations and offered to create a special group to work for them over the Glass. In April 2014, Google began a program ‘Glass at Work’, which included former developers. And in the same year, when a few people from X called for Boeing, which had been Glass, it became known that the work of people using Glass and the work of people without glasses is a heaven and earth. The difference is about the how to find IKEA furniture with encrypted instructions, lying unassembled in the room and how to get detailed instruction in real time from someone who on his own has designed millions of these items.
The company decided to work on a version of Glass that will be completely separate from the custom version. It only remained to decide where to live team. Glass gradually withdrew from X but Google returned to the team Enterprise. One of the reasons was that a great engineer named Ivo Stivoric was now a senior Director at X. Stivoric worked in the field of wearable electronics for nearly twenty years, he founded BodyMedia, which then bought the Jawbone. “He literally did it 20 years ago,” says teller. In addition, the head of a fast-paced team X Rick DeVol also had experience in the development of wearable devices.
End users this new version — from small businesses to large corporations — have worked with independent startups, which are adapted for Glass jobs. Team Glass in X formalized this structure by creating an ecosystem that supports “partnership solutions”, including the purchase of real devices from the Alphabet. Partners need to sell complete packages of hardware and software to corporate customers. The main objective of the Enterprise team in X was to create a new model themselves Glass, improved the requirements to the workplace and optimized with new features demanded by users. In January 2015 we began shipment of the resulting Enterprise Edition partners in the solution. Perhaps due to unhealed wounds of failure on the user market, Google has asked users not to mention the existence of EE.
The one who still uses the original series of Explorer will die from envy when they see the Enterprise Edition. First, technology is absolutely perfect for those who are prescribed to wear lenses. The camera button, which sits on the rim, performs a dual function, at the same time removing part of the electronics unit from the frame (Glass Pod). You can then combine the glasses with safety glasses factory — EE offers certified protection, or wear a plain rim. Now the average weight of points with glass and frame is almost equivalent to the weight of ordinary glasses.
Other improvements include enhanced network is not only faster and more reliable Wi-Fi, but greater adherence to standards of safety — and a faster processor. The battery life has been extended — it is important for those who want to work full eight-hour shift without recharging. More intensive use still requires an external battery. The camera has been upgraded from five to eight megapixels. And finally, when video is recorded, the green indicator lights.
“They look like the original Glass, but better than them in every aspect,” says Brian Ballard, CEO Upskill, one of the most prolific suppliers of it solutions. “They saw how we use them, and rethink everything — how to charge them and fold them, so as not to fog up, to keep the network”. Ballard says the new version is just class. Three years ago glasses was an experiment. But they are now in full swing, embedded in the corporate segment.
Google Glass return.
Steven levy, a Wired reporter, seen Glass in action when I visited the AGCO factory in Jackson in may. AGCO is the company behind the $ 7 billion that produces large equipment for farmers — tractors and sprayers Challenger and Massey Ferguson, among others. Factory in Jackson, which acquired the tractor Assembly line in 2012, very high-tech. It employs 850 people. Expensive equipment, which most frequently produces exactly the AGCO ordered the consumer, therefore each unit of equipment as a “snowflake” has a unique set of characteristics. To keep track of the specifications of each machine, AGCO before it was necessary to consult with the laptop which required to go thirty meters and distracted from work. “It happened that someone already took the computer, had to look for another,” says Heather Erickson. The company experimented with the tablets, but even the most persistent industrial tablets have not lived more than a week in the brutal environment.
And then someone suggested Peggy Galik, Director for improving business processes in Jackson, to try Google Glass. Galik convinced his boss to buy a single instance of Explorer. In 2013, they bought and tested the possibilities. However, in order to adapt them to the workplace, needed a solutions provider. Several months passed before AGCO finally got a job with the Belgian company Proceedix.
Working with Proceedix, AGCO began to solve all possible problems, from security Explorer could not connect to the corporate network — to tracking and security of the device. “We could not risk the appearance of our employees headaches and other problems,” she says. “During our first quality testing our numbers were so large that we had to recheck all again and again. Some numbers we could not publish, because the management would say that they are too high.”
Observing workers on the floor, it’s hard to say how much Glass is integrated into the process. You just see that people are taking the parts, tightening bolts, assemble all together, sometimes touching the rim of his glasses. After you will see examples of what you see working, the benefits of Glass will be more obvious. A typical task for AGCO takes 70 minutes to complete, breaking into stages 3-5 minutes. When an employee starts a stage, he is prescribed on a small screen. Menu items offer up options for how to proceed to the next stage, take a picture, request assistance and more. When the stage is completed, the worker says: okay, glass, went on, and the process repeats.
Turning to the task which they have mastered to perfection, a work is not necessary to look at the screen. But they can refer to it anytime to see where you need to go the item, and even to enlarge the object on the display to examine it closely. Glass tell you what the bolt — a bolt of a different size can cause serious damage to the engine and specify which key to take and how much to tighten. If the item looks damaged, you can take a picture. Some prefer voice commands and other gestures.
Galik noted that not all are equally heat treated to a new process — the old, the experienced workers at first did not understand what eyeglasses they could help. Was the skepticism that had to be overcome, says Scott Benson, collecting the transmission. And although the plant is not a cocktail bar, security issues continue to take place. However, in General the staff just took the Glass as part of the Toolkit.
However, what they did. On the whole, the adoption of Glass as a tool is very different from making any other public, in addition to workers. Some of them are enthusiastic about, as Heather Erickson. When she moved to another station, where the process with Glass has not yet been implemented, in two hours she went to the office Peggy Galik and asked to expedite the deployment.
Now AGCO has hundreds of pieces of Glass (each had paid $ 1,300 to $ 1,500) and, according to Galik, planning to order another 500 to 1,000 in the next 18 months. The company definitely pleased, as Glass’s learning — reduce training from 10 days to 3.
When a company like AGCO adopts new technology, it makes you think how far can automation and what it will mean for jobs. AGCO executives believe that Glass can help to resolve any hesitation. “We don’t use them to replace workers with robots that do their jobs better — we help people to better do their job,” says Galik.
In fact, advocating this and the first users of Glass EE. Upskill Executive Director and chief economist of one of his clients last month posted in the Harvard Business Review article titled “Augmented reality improves the performance of the workers.” “There were concerns that the machines replace workers-people…,” wrote the authors. “But the experience of General Electric and other industrial companies revealed that for many jobs a combination of people and machines is superior to working alone. Wearable devices augmented reality is definitely strong.”
General Electric took a particular interest in test-Glass, saying that with them the warehouse worker is required 46% less time to complete their tasks. The use of Glass in this environment, the same transforms as in the factories — after successful testing, the DHL has announced its intention to deploy Glass in 2000 depots worldwide, where needed. 59% of employees say that the Glass system reduces the number of errors.
Not only blue collar workers are content Glass Enterprise. When the engineer and enthusiast of medical technology Jan Shaquille first saw a prototype of Glass with friends from Google in 2012, he quit his job and founded a startup Augmedix, which through technology is trying to make the medical examination more productive — and that doctors and patients were satisfied. Examining the patient, the doctor puts on Enterprise Edition and broadcasts a full examination of the interns or nurses, who are recording. They keep records and if necessary, refer to a medical book patient, allowing the doctor to concentrate on patient entirely.
“The total time spent on records, decreased from 33% in our days to 10%,” says David Lundquist, physician Dignity Health, which uses Augmedix and Glass in clinical work. “And direct communication between patient and physician has increased from 35% to 70%”.
The enthusiasm of Lundqvist against the Glass underlines the irony: the very traits that attracted criticism in the consumer version of Glass due to the covert entry of external information in the real world; allows for discreet video recording has become an essential function of Enterprise Edition. “When you hear the word Glass, I think: dehumanization, social upheaval,” says Shaquille. “And we are instead to be closer to the patient, to be able to put a hand on his shoulder to calm him.”
Why Glass is so well accepted in an intimate conditions, and so are perceived negatively in public? Perhaps because in the world of Glass enterprises is not Intrusive and distracting your smartphone and the tool for the job, nothing more. Enterprise Edition works with a single application that you want to work. There’s no Facebook, Twitter, Vkontakte, notifications or yellow headers. Glass in the workplace ceases to be a toy, says Lundquist. It is a tool that gives us the opportunity to work professionally. In most cases, patients see it as a ultramodern of the doctor, not the little brat.
Of course, the art had to be original Glass before Glass refused by the company-manufacturer. Will the success in the workplace to revive the custom version? Industrial version developed separately. Alphabet avoiding a direct answer to this question, but everything points to the fact that X, a division of Google Cloud and hardware Google do not intend to write off the smart glasses for ordinary people off.
“None of us gave up the idea that over time Glass will become less and less Intrusive and that more and more people will use them,” says teller. “But we are not going to prejudge what will be their way, in that we screwed up last time. We focus on what really has value now, and will try from there, keeping the mind open”.
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