Google filed a patent today for a Glass-like wearable that records video and makes it searchable. If the gadget senses, through pre-programmed cues, that a significant moment is taking place, it will document the event and file the clip to the cloud for your future reference.
The patent doesn’t state that this new functionality is for Google Glass, but it does shows the processor and data storage mounted onto a Harry Potter–esque pair of spectacles. It could be a hint that Google is either reprising the troubled Glass's potential as a consumer product or considering a separate tool geared toward Glass' devotees in the medical and technical industries.
In a hypothetical scenario, Google imagines the glass being used by security personnel or airport screeners to review "the faces of all people that were seen between 1 P.M. and 3 P.M." For the rest of us, it could be a neat lifelogging device—a means for capturing events accurately without removing yourself from the action. (You'd no longer have to fish out your smartphone, set up the composition, and press the record button.) But that has its drawbacks, too. Some people may not take kindly to being recorded without their explicit permission. Google Glass had a creepy-vibe problem, and these glasses, however school-marme looking, might not be an exception.
