Google Glass Navigation Expansion Demoed: Walking, Driving, Biking

With the newest update to Glass (v. XE8) appearing via Google this week, a new set of voice-commands were added to the Navigation Glass App found within the headset. Along with this update comes a demo video from the Glass team, showing off the current state of Navigation in Glass from three perspectives. One from a user walking, a second for travel in a car, and a third on a bicycle.

You'll be interested to know that this is the bit of functionality that's currently being discussed by the UK insofar as how legal it'll be to wear miniature displays on your head whilst driving any manner of motor vehicle. They're speaking on how distracting a headset such as Glass will be, and if that distraction outweighs the benefit of allowing said headset to remain as legal as it is today.

In the video the biker you're seeing speaking is Steve Lee, Project Director for Google Glass. We saw Lee recently at Google I/O 2013 at a chat with several members of the Glass team: Google Glass Engineer Charles Mendis, Senior Developer Advocate at Google for Project Glass Timothy Jordan, and Google Glass' lead industrial designer Isabelle Olsson there in on the fun as well. Have a peek at our Google Glass Google I/O Chat portal to see the full series.

The newest update brings on contextual voice commands to Navigation in Glass beyond those that were already in place. In addition to being able to say "Ok Glass, get directions to", you're now able to say "Show route overview", "Hide route overview", and "Stop directions." Helpful, yes?

Have a peek at the directions given above and let it be known whether you'll be rolling with Glass in the future – and if you'll be wearing a pair to learn the way to your local bakery soon after you get yours in the mail.