Opinion: With smartglasses, can Apple succeed where Google failed?

by | Jul 27, 2017 |

The headline isn’t quite fair: Google has actually reinvented Glass as an enterprise product, and I’m sure it will be successful in that field. The application shown in the video – a technician carrying out a wiring task by referring to head-up video displays rather than paper manuals – makes obvious sense. I’m confident there will be many more engineering and business applications that will prove equally successful.

But it also seems clear that Google has abandoned all hope of selling Glass as a consumer product. It wasn’t just that normal people reacted badly to the device (of which more in a moment), it was also that the geeks who so enthusiastically lined-up to buy the Explorer Edition mostly found that the novelty wore off. It wasn’t too long before most devices were gathering dust.

If the rumors are correct, and Apple is indeed planning to launch its own smartglasses, can it succeed in turning the technology into an appealing consumer gadget … ?

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TransferWise to let you use Apple Pay to send money internationally from USA & elsewhere

by | Jul 27, 2017 |

TransferWise, a service that allows you to send money to people in other countries at a much lower cost than through banks, will soon support Apple Pay in the USA and elsewhere.

Customers will no longer have to enter bank account or payment card details, but will instead be able to select Apple Pay as the source for the funds. The card linked to the Apple Pay account will then be debited …

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Apple-assigned Metaio patent illustrates rumored augmented reality glasses

by | Jul 27, 2017 |

Rumors that Apple is working on augmented reality glasses have been growing for some time, and a patent application published today shows how the same approach might be adapted to both a smartphone screen and smart glasses. It also describes how the two devices might be used in tandem.

This embodiment is particularly useful when using a head-mounted display comprising the camera and the screen. For example, the head-mounted display is a video-see-through head-mounted display (HMD). It is typically not possible for the user to touch the head-mounted screen in a manner like a touchscreen. However, the camera that captures an image of the real environment may also be used to detect image positions of the user’s finger in the image. The image positions of the user’s finger could be equivalent to touching points touched by the user’s finger on the touchscreen …

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