Tag: augmented reality glasses

Google Glass provides South Carolina students with high tech learning tools

| October 21, 2014

Those enrolled at the Center for Advanced Technical Studies are trying out various forms of technology.

The Center for Advanced Technical Studies in Lexington County, South Carolina is not a typical high school experience, particularly now that students there are learning through the use of high tech gadgets ranging from Google Glass to robots and drones.

Students in the school do not receive the traditional type of classroom education, but are surrounded by tech.

While in some schools, kids would be punished for throwing paper airplanes, in this one, they are encouraged to do it, particularly when they are comparing the various aspects of those planes to that of flight simulators. It is all a part of the lessons in this school that is also pioneering one of the hottest new technologies on today’s market: Google Glass. Those augmented reality glasses that are connected to the internet and essentially work as a mobile device that is worn on the face.

Students have been quite enthusiastic about being able to try out Google Glass for a hands on experience.

Google Glass - learning toolsAccording to aerospace engineering class senior, William Blanks, “I wish I was able to take more classes like this.” That is one of the courses that uses augmented reality wearable technology as well as other tech such as flight simulators and drones, as a part of its regular curriculum. Blanks went on to say that “This gives us hands-on technology that’s actually useful in the real world and lets us do real-world scenarios. … It’s amazing that we have all this.”

The Center gives priority to creation and innovation, when it comes to its budget. Its classrooms have technologies that range from the latest in tractors from John Deere for its agriculture science program, to a media technology program that has a video editing lab and production studio. Now, the augmented reality glasses – which come with a price tag of $1,500 each – have been brought into the aerospace engineering classes.

That said, while the Google Glass use is starting in aerospace engineering, the goal is to bring the devices into every classroom in the school.

Wearable technology may not always be chunky smartwatches and glasses

| October 14, 2014

A new kinds of tech for wearables is being developed that feels just like skin and that adheres like a patch.

As companies rush to try to bring new wearable technology to the market, there has been considerable focus on coming up with new and innovative ways to make options small, convenient, and unique from everything else that is out there.

When it comes to the direction that wearables are taking, the industry feels very certain about one thing.

The issue about which the wearable technology industry feels the most confident is that wearables are, indeed, the next era within the computing world. However, along with that certainty comes with a very important uncertainty, which is that the industry has yet to come up with a design and function that will define the way that these mobile devices are worn and used.

At the moment, the majority of major manufacturers are angling wearable technology toward smartwatches.

Wearable technology newsThis has, for example, been the case with Samsung and Apple – with the latter’s entry being only very recent, in a device that will become available for sale early next year – which have chosen smartwatches to be their primary focus in wearables. Google, on the other hand, has created an operating system for smartwatches – Android Wear – but has also chosen augmented reality glasses, that is, a type of headset worn on the face.

Three are also a large number of companies that are starting to think that smart clothing will be the next big thing. That said, there is a tremendous number of startups that are popping up and that are each taking their own unique direction on how wearables will come to be. Among them is a new form that could adhere a chip directly to the skin in the same way as a temporary tattoo or an adhesive bandage currently sticks in place.

This type of wearable technology is already in development and is extremely thin, flexible, stretchable, and can be made to be clear (or close to the color of the wearer’s skin) or could feature a unique design that would stand out. An example of that type of tech is being tested out in Cambridge, Massachusetts, by a company called MC10. Their attachable computers currently look like small, rectangular stickers that include a tiny battery, a wireless antenna, as well as sensors such as for heart rate and temperature.