Google's Skydiving stunt for Project Glass will make you want one badly

Sergey Brin, CEO and Co-Founder of Google, had a special surprise for everyone at yesterday’s Google I/O, and it was something that no one anticipated. For those attending, it was the icing on the cake (well, all the free goodies were the icing really, but this comes close). In order to demonstrate how Project Glass works in the real world, Google took live demos to a whole new level when a bunch of professional skydivers, all wearing Project Glass, jumped out of a hot air balloon and landed on the roof of Moscone Center, where the conference was being held. Since Project Glass is a wearable Android device, you can receive updates about e-mail, messages, etc., and also use Google Hangouts, which was the focus of the whole demo. The attendees at the event were treated to a live first person view of all the skydivers which could be seen on the Nexus 7 tablet that Brin was using. Everything was streaming live and the thrill of watching them jump out of the hot air balloon in first person mode was nothing short of exhilarating.

A new dimension to personal technology

It didn’t stop there, though. Once the skydivers landed on the roof, we had a couple of BMX bikers riding across obstacles; the view then switched to a guy rappelling down the side of the building, and ended with two more BMX bikers riding into the third floor of the building where the conference was held. All the while, we were treated to a live view of the users through Hangouts, which was pretty cool. Project Glass is far from finished and there’s still a lot of work to be done. According to a Google post, “We are always pushing the limits of our technology, and Project Glass is no exception. It is designed to help you live in the moment – even when you’re falling from the sky. We’re still in early development days, but at Google I/O this morning we wanted to do a product demo in a way we’d never tried before. We worked with some of the world’s top athletes, combined skydiving and mountain biking, and shared the experience – through their eyes – with the world.”

More from News & Analysis

What is the US HIRE Bill and why is India’s $250-billion IT sector worried? Is the internet dead? What's this theory that OpenAI's Sam Altman says might be true?

We had a demo about the video capabilities of Project Glass last month, where the prototype device was shown recording a 720p video. The media recorded from the prototype devices were captured by Google’s own employees during recent activities and events undertaken by the search giant, including their Google+ Photographer’s conference and Google Glass Walk event. The photos themselves feature the likes of Sergey Brin, Colby Brown, Peter Hurley and other Google employees.

Google is offering Project Glass to developers who attended Google I/O 2012 for $1,500 so they can help Google shape Project Glass into something a lot more than what it is today.