I Want To Be Iron Man! Don’t You?

Iron Man Visual Interface

In seeing the Iron Man heads up display for the first time, I thought – “Wow! That’s awesome!”

Google is planning to release a cool piece of new technology called Google Glass. If you haven’t heard of it, it is a pair of glasses to be worn by a person providing them a heads up display – very similar in concept to the Iron Man graphics.

With a simple tap of the finger or using voice commands, the wearer will be able to access and use Google Maps, Google+, Gmail, take photos and videos and share them with social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Google Glass is an open platform allowing third-party developers to create applications for it. Check out this demo by TechCrunch. Now Google will not only have your finger-tips but also your eyeballs.

Through mobile devices and social media, retailers and advertisers have been able to accumulate massive amounts of data about their customers. By analyzing this information (big data), they have been able to gain deeper insights into the buying habits of customers such as where and when customers made their purchase. Was it done online, or was it at a retail store and which location, time of day and day of the week? Retailers also have more detailed customer feedback, such as, did customers “tweet” about it, give it a “like” or not, was it easy to use or wear, was the service good when customer service was called and was it recommended to others.

The goal of every advertiser is to grab your attention. With a display just an inch away from your eyes, advertisers and retailers all over are salivating at how they can take advantage of this technology. Combined with all of the information they now have available, it is a given they plan to use it to further build and reinforce their brands. Loyalty marketers will be anxious to draw you back into their stores with “we are just around the corner” notifications.

It will be interesting to see if there will be any new value-added services that become available with Google Glass or if this will only be a new platform with a new rendering for existing applications. It will also be interesting to see if there is any adjustment in market share between Google, Apple and the other major vendors of mobile devices.

From a technology perspective I can’t wait to try it out. From a cost perspective, it’s pretty steep at $1,500 each although the price is expected to drop to $299. While it’s not a full Tony Stark/Iron Man experience, it’s easy to see how it can get there.

It appears that Google Glass does have some challenges ahead as the United Kingdom’s Department of Transport is putting together “Don’t Glass and Drive” legislation. Perhaps with Glass 2.0, Google will also market arc-reactor powered jet boots along with it.

Corner Office Wisdom:
It’s not for everyone at the initial starting price of $1,500.