Google Glass Enters The Manufacturing Sector (npr.org) 61
NPR recently profiled one of the 100 factory workers now using Google Glass at the agricultural equipment manufacturer AGCO. An anonymous reader quotes their report:
Google Glass tells her what to do should she forget, for example, which part goes where. "I don't have to leave my area to go look at the computer every time I need to look up something," she says. With Google Glass, she scans the serial number on the part she's working on. This brings up manuals, photos or videos she may need. She can tap the side of headset or say "OK Glass" and use voice commands to leave notes for the next shift worker...
Peggy Gullick, business process improvement director with AGCO, says the addition of Google Glass has been "a total game changer." Quality checks are now 20 percent faster, she says, and it's also helpful for on-the-job training of new employees... Tiffany Tsai, who writes about technology, says it's one of a growing number of companies -- including General Electric and Boeing -- testing it out... Companies working in the health care, entertainment and energy industries are listed as some of the Google Glass certified partners.
AGCO plans to have 200 workers using Google Glass by the end of this year.
Peggy Gullick, business process improvement director with AGCO, says the addition of Google Glass has been "a total game changer." Quality checks are now 20 percent faster, she says, and it's also helpful for on-the-job training of new employees... Tiffany Tsai, who writes about technology, says it's one of a growing number of companies -- including General Electric and Boeing -- testing it out... Companies working in the health care, entertainment and energy industries are listed as some of the Google Glass certified partners.
AGCO plans to have 200 workers using Google Glass by the end of this year.
Re:Discountined? (Score:4, Insightful)
Privacy concerns helped kill it for one. Because the threat to your privacy isn't the NSA or CCTV cams everywhere or facebook on your phone or the two cameras on it. No no, it's a grainy camera on some tech bro's head evidently.
Also the thing was absurdly overhyped. The video announcing it made it seem like it would be a full view overlay [youtube.com], not like holding your phone up off to the side [dailymail.co.uk]. But I'd have still maybe wanted one so I could read while walking around without looking down at my phone.
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It becomes a problem when you're standing at a urinal in a public washroom taking a leak and minding your own business, when all of a sudden a Ruby on Rails programmer comes up, starts using the urinal right next to you (which is itself a socially unacceptable practice), he looks over at your groin region with his glasses recording, and he makes a comment like, "That's a nice piece of meat you've got there."
As the victim, you've got no idea what
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using the urinal right next to you (which is itself a socially unacceptable practice),
I never understood the dudes who piss/shit right next to you when there's an entire wall of urinals/stalls empty.
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Freud called it "anal expulsive". Today we call it an extrovert. People that do this don't realize they're doing it - they need constant contact with other humans and this bathroom behavior is symptom of it.
Re:Discountined? (Score:5, Funny)
So I'm just going to start hitting that random dude that plops himself next to me at the urinal
I went to play golf one morning by myself and on the first tee I saw another single golfer who came up and asked if I wanted to play a round with him. It was fucking Jack Nicklaus! So I said yes, thank you, and we proceeded to play. He had a cooler full of beer, so I gradually relaxed and we were having a fine afternoon. We get to the 3rd tee and he excuses himself to go pee. He comes back and there is a yellow stripe right across the knees of his white pants. I say nothing, because it's fucking Jack Nicklaus. We play a couple more holes, he goes off to relieve himself again. Again he comes back, this time with another yellow stripe across his pant leg. I think this is odd, but it's Jack Nicklaus. I say nothing. This happens a third time, at the 10th hole. This time I can't contain myself. I say casually, "Hey Jack, how come every time you go to the men's room you come back with a yellow stripe across your pants?" He looks resigned and annoyed and says, "Because every time there is a guy using the urinal next to me who eventually looks up surprised and turns to me and says 'Hey, you're Jack Nicklaus!"
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a Ruby on Rails programmer
Couldn't make your point without crossing the line into the obscene?
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Moreover, whatever is stopping him from doing that now with his camera phone, that would have been the same thing preventing him from using glass to do that.
Re: Discountined? (Score:2)
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We should pass a law prohibiting Republicans from going into public restrooms,
To be fair, it's probably enough to prohibit Republican Congressmen.
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Privacy concerns helped kill it for one. Because the threat to your privacy isn't the NSA or CCTV cams everywhere or facebook on your phone or the two cameras on it. No no, it's a grainy camera on some tech bro's head evidently.
He's not my tech bro.
The smartphone is visible and there is no mistaking when it is being used as a camera.
The CCTV camera keeping watch over the till is not something I need to worry about. The creep sneaking videos of my girlfriend at the bar is something else again. The geek frets over the anonymous bureaucrat pouring over video footage at the NSA but this strikes close to home.
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well, how about a time/motion study (Score:2)
Re:well, how about a time/motion study (Score:5, Insightful)
In AGCO's case it looks like they make products that are not assembly-line and not otherwise terribly automated simply because agricultural products are not made in sufficient volume to justify the costs to automate. Too much per-customer customization, too little volume, and the machines are very expensive so it's kind of hard to try to force customers into not customizing.
My biggest concern with things like on-demand lookup is that it may lead to people thinking they're more knowledgeable or capable than they are; that reference substitutes for experience. I've seen it firsthand where people in the IT field think they're all-that but they really don't know what they're doing and are so reliant on reference materials that when the system behaves other than how it's supposed to they are unable to cope.
Hopefully AGCO won't have this problem, especially when they're applying the technology to manufacturing in particular.
Re: They've must have been working on this for a w (Score:4)
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Pretty common for technology that doesn't catch on in the consumer market to get used elsewhere.
If this is pretty common, why don't you name three examples? Maybe Segway. What else?
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"Google's not just going to throw away their asset."
Though doing exactly this seems to be a Google specialty.
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of Marshall Brain's 'Man (Score:1)
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http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
Came her to say this. The quote from TFS:
"Google Glass tells her what to do should she forget, for example, which part goes where."
A quote from 'Manna':
"It tells you exactly what to do. Like, It told me to get four new bags from the rack. When I did that it told me to go to trash can #1. Once I got there it told me to open the cabinet and pull out the trash can. Once I did that it told me to check the floor for any debris..."
I know that Google Glass isn't actually giving 'orders' in the same way that Mann
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The use of Google Glass on the factory floor is just the thin edge of the wedge.
Having a means of telling employees where things are would be useful. Having a means of tracking them, docking their pay if they're goofing off and providing evidence to fire them if they do it consistently would be even more useful, but you'd have to be pretty desperate to work there. Like the character in "Mana" was.
Having a means to give them an encouragement tasing when they step out of line or try to take off the glasses would be ideal.. for prisons, or secondary schools, perhaps.
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Having a means of telling employees where things are would be useful. Having a means of tracking them, docking their pay if they're goofing off and providing evidence to fire them if they do it consistently would be even more useful, but you'd have to be pretty desperate to work there. Like the character in "Mana" was.
Like our fearless leaders want us all to be, so that we can be more easily controlled. And if the downward spiral isn't redirected upwards, or cut off, it's just going to keep going downwards. That's why the reps want to sack all the social programs. To make us dumber and more tractable.
just an AR headset (Score:4, Interesting)
Google Glass is just an AR headset, one among many, and one with a fairly limited feature set. These kinds of simple, monocular AR headsets have been around for a while commercially, for example the Epson Moverio and the Vusix. For higher quality AR, the Microsoft Hololens and the Meta are probably better choices.
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I would compare Google Glass to a heads up display. No one that I have ever heard has called the HUD in an airplane or automobile an Augmented Reality device. To put computer graphics over the real world around you, you must track the location and orientation of the persons head. You also need to track the objects around the user so you can make the graphics overlay or interact with the real world realistically.
So, no head tracking, then no AR!
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No, but the fact that it overlays information on top of the real world does make it an AR device. And that's what Google Glass does. It doesn't do it very well, mind you, but it does do it.
There are all kinds of business uses for Glass (Score:4, Interesting)
And this is where it should have been rolled out first, not as a toy for dudebros to wear in clubs.
Think of surgeons and pilots who need HUD data while at work, repair personnel who can have manual pages open while they fix your product, lawyers being able to search Lexis in the courtroom, and wilderness guides able to have the 'map in front of them' at all times as a link to their GPS.
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RTFA
Hands-free devices can offer major benefits.
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I pointed that out many times when Google Glass first came out, that consumers were completely the wrong market for it, and that it would be much more likely to be a hit in commercial or industrial applications.
People told me I didn't know what I was talking about...
For me as a service tech, this would be brilliant (Score:5, Interesting)
So many times I have to "google" a part number to find out what it does, oh...it's an 24 Bit AD converter, now let me find the datasheet.
Imagine if I could just look at the PCB as I do normally when searching and fault-finding, and have a Video-overlay with simple specs on each chip and device I am looking at, and perhaps with a few blinks just bring up the datasheets and quickly close them again.
Are you kidding me? This is SUPER useful!
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Re: For me as a service tech, this would be brilli (Score:2)
Re:For me as a service tech, this would be brillia (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, that took as long as it sounds, was as buggy as it sounds, and killed battery as much as you would guess. Oh, and they got hot if you were really taxing them like that.
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I believe you. This device isn't powerful enough yet. But imagine when the network speed is fast enough, and the real-time image processing happens online in the cloud, maybe this will be improved over time.
Still find google "Goggles" quite useful when looking up famous artwork.
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Remember the older tablets and PDAs running WM5? or even the Apple newton?
This thing has a lot of uses in the work place and the military, it just need to get more reliable...and we are almost there
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Paperless office (Score:1)
One of the problems with the 'employees are replaceable' mentality is, employees need generic job skills (eg: Accounting rules, using a spreadsheet, following a checklist, reading) and knowledge of the business processes used by a specific business. This became a big problem ten years ago, when businesses switched to paperless offices, where nothing could be written down. This looks like the answer. Then again, it magnifies the problem that people don't learn anything when they've got a "monkey see, mo