Exclusive Google Glass Vol 001 book includes interesting insight into early days of the project
You may have heard that Google shipped some lucky select Glass Explorers a book—labeled simply “Vol 001″—to officially close out the Explorer Program. Within it is a collection of #ThroughGlass phot0s, quotes from some influential members of the community, and a few words of thanks to those that made the program possible.
Among some of the more interesting quotes thrown in are some from team members that were actually part of the Glass project in its earlier days, including one from Lasse Wassermann that details the hectic process of setting up a Basecamp in San Francisco…
The weekend before I/O 2013 we were overrun with Explorer requests to pick up their preordered Glass during I/O so we went out and tried to find a space close enough to the Moscone Center. We ended up renting the presidential suite in the Intercontinental Hotel and changed it into a Glass Basecamp. Over 72h we met more than 500 now Explorers, who were not only able to get set up on Glass but enjoy the gorgeous view of San Francisco from the 32nd floor.
What a lot of our Explorers didn’t notice was that for a long time we only had 3G tethering available to set up Glass – somehow we couldn’t get the hotel ethernet connection working in the room: As we found out 12h later, the cable was cut during the last visit of President Obama in the city, when he was staying in the same room.
And another from Greg Priest-Dorman, who mentioned an experience with the earliest builds of Glass, one of which that was named “Dog”:
In the early days of Glass, we built and shipped a new version of the device every 4 – 6 weeks. We named them alphabetically, so the fourth version was called Dog. It was a popular device; it ran well and lasted a long time, but when people had battery problems, they’d email me with messages like “my dog’s dead” or “my dog’s misbehaving.” After a while I started receiving Gmail ads for pet cemeteries and behavior training for dogs.
Sarah Price documented what it was like launching the #ifihadglass competition:
We decided to announce #ifihadglass at 6am EST, in order to catch morning in the eastern United States. But our team is based in California… so that meant we went live at 3am PST. Now a lot of people on the Glass team work a lot of hours and it’s not uncommon to see people in the office late at night or on the weekends, but 3am is pretty exceptional ;) The people who needed to push the website live stayed late; and their work “ended” once the announcement was made.
I knew my work would just be beginning, though: this would be the launch of our Twitter handle and the beginning of Glass replying directly to our fans and followers. I went home around 4pm and tried to go to sleep, then came back around 2am. Everyone was in a great mood (and perhaps a bit hyper from the caffeine and energy drinks). I had all of our social media posts queued up in tabs in Chrome. When the time came, it was so unnerving to push that button, but I did, right on the hour.
Then I waited for the responses. A few appeared almost immediately. I started replying as Glass, but soon there was a backlog of a dozen posts. Then two dozen. Then fifty, then a hundred. Wow!
And there’s another hilarious account from Stephen Lau, previous software Technical Lead of the program, who notably just recently left Glass to join the YouTube team:
When I first joined Google, I’d heard about the communal Gbikes that Googlers could ride. I even saw some of the weird ones like the conference bikes. One day during my first week, I went downstairs and saw this weird Elliptigo bike in the lobby. I thought it was one of the communal Gbikes, so I grabbed it, and took it out for a quick jaunt around campus and back (maybe around 10 minutes). When I brought it back, the receptionist (who wasn’t there when I first took it out), gave me a strange look and I couldn’t figure out why. It wasn’t until I saw Sergey riding it the next day that I realised I’d actually stolen Sergey’s personal bike and taken it out for a joyride.
And that’s the story of how I stole my billionaire boss’s bike and didn’t get caught/fired. (I’ve never told him this story though, so it’s probably not too late to fire me).
There’s plenty more to be read, but these are some of the most interesting. If you’re a Glass Explorer and weren’t lucky enough to be chosen for a book, Google says that you can head over to this support page and download the book in PDF form.
