Study: Google Glass Has Blind Spots – Because They’re Glasses

Nov 05, 2014 03:08 PM EST

A newly released study from the Journal of the American Medical Association has Google Glass doomsayers out in droves after it revealed that the wearable technology caused blind spots - like all eyeglasses do.

"Is that an email in your eyes, or are you about to get hit by a truck?" read a rather dramatic lead in in The New York Times, showing that nothing gets a reader's attention like the fear of death.

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"It's been a rough few weeks for Google Glass ... now there's more bad news," says The Washington Post, referring to the product recently being banned in movie theaters.

The International Business Times went so far as to suggest that the wearable technology shouldn't even exist, telling readers "Don't Wear Google Glass."

But according to the study, the blind spots are not unique to Google Glass, and are no different than blind spots that can be created by regular eyeglasses with relatively large frames.

"Defects were induced by the frame hardware design only and were not related to a distracting effect of software-related interference," said the report. "Conventional spectacle frames can reduce visual field, sometimes causing absolute scotomas (blind spots)," the report said. "And head-mounted devices have even more pronounced frames."

The large eyeglass frames worn here by Justin Timberlake likely cause a blind spot for the musician/actor. He may not be aware that he's sitting next to Jessica Biel.

(Photo : Reuters) The large eyeglass frames worn here by Justin Timberlake likely cause a blind spot for the musician/actor. He may not be aware that he's sitting next to Jessica Biel.

That would reason that any glasses with "more pronounced frames" would cause the same kind of blind spots to the wearer. And large eyeglass frames are a trend in fashion these days.

The study was led by Tsontcho Ianchulev, a researcher and ophthalmologist at the University of California, San Francisco. And the finding that caused such a scare among media outlets was that "the device created a clinically meaningful visual field obstruction in the upper right quadrant."

That certainly isn't good news Google, and even though the actual findings are far less troubling than the headlines make them out to be, it's not good publicity for the product.

The report also found that it wasn't just the large frames that could cause blind spots, but the way in which the glasses were worn also caused reduced vision in the wearer.

"Image analysis further demonstrated that many people wear the device near or overlapping their pupillary axis, which may induce scotomas," said the report.

Based on the findings of the report, the biggest problems with Google Glass is that they're glasses, and that people aren't wearing them in the best way. Those don't come across as insurmountable challenges for Google.

It seems the answer to reducing the blind spot would be to reduce the size of the frames. That shouldn't be too difficult of a task since size reduction tends to be the natural evolution of new technology (except for cell phones which went from big to small and back to big again).

So for those who want wearable technology without any of the blind spots, they may have to wait for Google Contact Lenses to come out.