Hello Glass Uh-oh Google - Picked up my First Glass When Gmail Was Down

Failed to Add to Glass and Voice Actions Malfunction in Google Glass

Friday, an exciting for my first pair of Google Glass. I am ready to be a Glass blogger and a developer. Wait a second not so soon... it wasn't working. Glass works closely with a web portal, which in turn is closely integrated with Google's social like Hangouts, Plus, Gmail,  Google Now... and the Chrome Pixel that every one was using at the "secretive" San Francisco office.

As a Glass Explorer on baby day 1, two consequences: MyGlass website keeps saying cannot add app to Glass, Path is temporarily over quota 500 server error, and Voice Actions (the Google voice search, likely Google Now also had trouble) just won't work.  You can say tons of "ok glass", but Google Glass voice actions or voice search wasn't working when Google social, email, and possibly voice search features down. Thanks to perfect integration with the Google suite, your Chromebooks and Chrome Pixel probably wouldn't have worked well Friday.

Supposedly the outage only last for short amount time, but was definitely experiencing trouble long after. Looks like the config error has caused rippling error report.

But this is not a rant. It's actually a part of the experience of trying a new technology. Some of the thoughts raced through my head: wow glass is cool but mine may have hardware problems, touchpad is cool but I wish the voice commands work, wait a second it worked intermittently maybe I just have bad accents! This interesting confusion leading me to think my English is broken was quite funny.

Unable to demo voice command also drove me to explore the MyGlass iOS app (read more below). Helped me found a helpful testing and demoing feature called screencast.

It was an insightful experience to understand the interconnection of Google services, and more importantly how the rest of the web use Goolge hosting (Path wouldn't work for a while, Premium Pixel download didn't work, not sure if also connected), and a rare experience using Glass without the voice commands.

This morning (Saturday), glass is working perfectly and responding very well to voice commands.

Picking Up Google Glass : Highlights

First Google Glass Picture is High Quality!

There are some awesome things to note though: the picture quality is high! Sharing is easy using the touch pad. Google Glass studio has gorgeous views, beer, and tentative staff who makes you feel like a VIP. Supposedly, there's phone support for Glass Explorers too. If voice actions continue to go on strike, I will have to give them a call.

Funny enough, putting a Google Glass on is excitingly disorienting. Having a "third eye" takes time to get used to, and made me do silly things like knocking things over and mistakenly miss my elevator stops. Because voice actions don't work, I had to use Wink to take a picture, and the touchpad extensively (which also takes time to get used to).

Titanium 4 eye rest rods with memory? Pretty cool. A twist on shade panel, and bone conduction technology (maybe I really didn't needed headphones at all). People have talked all about these experiences. The errors are new, as it's not every day that Google goes down. The iOS app is fairly new - MyGlass.

MyGlass iOS App Allows You to See What the Glass Explorer Sees!

MyGlass lets you access some myglass web portal options. Its coolest feature is the screencast which mirrors the glass view, so others can finally see what the Glass Explorer is seeing. And less passing around of let other people sweating on your precious glass ;-) I was able to demo the glass to my parents without them touching my glass. Pretty nifty for development testing too. On Quora, people asked what does a Glass Explorer see. Now you would know!