BrainTrust Query: What Will It Be Like to Shop with Google Glass?
Through a special arrangement, presented here for discussion is an excerpt from a current article from Insight-Driven Retailing Blog.
ConAgra Foods, makers of Healthy Choice and Marie Callender's meals, has created a video to show what the future of shopping may look like from behind Google Glass. What is pictured is clearly not possible today, but is within the realm of possibility for the near future.
The video shows two women, Shana and Jen, going through a normal day of shopping using Google Glass. The women start by reading their RSS news feeds in the morning with the device, forming and following through on a to-do list, text messaging and using video chat with the device. At the grocery store, Google Glass provides a store map aligned to their shopping lists, virtually tags the store's aisles by category, and shows food ratings and reviews on specific food items.
![[Image: Shopping with Google Glass]](/public/images/discussions/16664/google-glass-still.jpg)
I was annoyed they chose to follow two people instead of just one. I assume they did it to illustrate the conversation between the women, but it distracts from the overall shopping theme. If the conversation was that important, it would have been better to ask for product advice. I was more impressed with the voice response than the augmented reality aspects. Being able to direct commands to Glass vs. people in the room is tough — usually you need to preface commands with a keyword or press a button.
Being able to overlay text on products is pretty tough as well. Today, you'd need to use a barcode or marker of some sort because image recognition is just too unreliable, especially when all the products look similar. At best, you can count the number of facing items and possibly recognize the brands.
Checkout was certainly fast! I was surprised they didn't have to blink Morse Code for their PINs. All in all, I thought most of what they accomplished would have worked well on their smartphones without Glass. It certainly has me thinking about the future.
It would have been funny to see one of the women run into an end-cap because spam blocked her vision. Maybe next time.