Google co-founder Sergey Brin rides the subway, just like the rest of us, but when he does, he’s wearing Google Glass and presumably seeing much more about the dreary downtown 3 train interior than his fellow passengers thanks to his magic augmented reality powers. Brin was photographed and chatted up by Noah Zerkin, an AR blogger, who posted the encounter to Twitter. Brin looked ready to infiltrate any high-security bank vault in understated black, with a Google Glass design that actually manages not to stick out.
What was Brin doing with Google Glass in the cold, unconnected depths of NYC’s subway system? Probably not uploading images snapped through the headset, or streaming data on the downlink, since he’d be hard-pressed to get a decent signal deep under tons of concrete (the city is rolling out more subway station cellular coverage, but it’s still only available in a few stations in Chelsea for now). Maybe Brin was specifically testing some Google Glass offline features – offline transit maps in a heads up display sounds like something could come in handy.
Google Glass is headed for some exciting developments soon, including hackathons in both NYC and SF, where developers who signed up to get on board with Google’s $1,500 early hardware and API access will take a look at building for the platform and be judged on their efforts. Registration closed last Friday, and the events themselves take place on January 28 and 29 in San Francisco, and on February 1 and 2 in New York. Can’t wait to see what developers come up with to help occupy Sergey during his commute.