Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2013/03/22/google_glass_patent_display/

Google patent filing suggests Glass will be ULTIMATE REMOTE

Headset computing to control your life

By Iain Thomson

Posted in Personal Tech, 22nd March 2013 23:39 GMT

Google's Project Glass computing specs could solve one of technology's most enduring problems – finding where you put the remote control.

A patent filing from the Chocolate Factory shows that the firm wants to build control of everyday objects into its head-mounted hardware so that the wearer can use voice commands to order about other systems and get the know-how to use them when needed.

"A wearable computing device may facilitate the wearer's operation of or understanding of a particular device, described herein as a 'target device,' that is located in the wearer's environment," reads US patent application 20130069985, "Wearable Computer with Superimposed Controls and Instructions for External Device".

"The target device could be any electrical, optical, or mechanical device. For example, the target device could be a home appliance, such as a refrigerator, espresso maker, television, garage door, alarm system, indoor or outdoor lighting system, or an office appliance, such as a copy machine."

One example given is linking the glasses into an office printer. If the printer runs out of paper, the glasses will project an alert on the viewing eyepiece and then guide the wearer through the process of adding more in the correct tray. Similar heads-up displays could be used for a range of functions, possibly displayed on the glasses themselves or on other objects, using lasers built into the spectacles.

Mountain View has set a price of $1,500 for first glasses (although one enterprising eBayer receiving offers of ten times that sum before the auction was pulled), and is expected to announce availability of the hardware at this year's sold-out Google I/O developer conference.

That's a lot of money for a glorified remote control.

Google's been promising the Glass spectacles for nearly a year, and Sergey Brin is seldom seen in public without a pair these days. This patent filing adds more functions to glasses that are already being touted as having the ability to recognize people by their clothing style and which may "end privacy as we know it." ®