谷歌眼鏡:"炫酷"還是"恐怖"

It's either the most exciting technology product of recent years, or the 21st Century equivalent of the Sinclair C5.

它或許是近年來最讓人興奮的科技產品，也可能是21世紀的Sinclair C5(一種電池電車)。

It promises to reshape our relationship with the online world - or turn us all into cyborgs, invading each other's privacy with careless abandon. Say what you like about Google Glass, it's certainly proved a talking point.

它承諾將重塑人類與網絡世界的關係，或者把我們都變成賽博格，由於無心的放任而侵犯彼此的隱私。說一說你對谷歌眼鏡的看法，這無疑是一個討論的熱點。

I've spent the last 24 hours trying out Google's wearable computing device, talking to people who are developing apps for it, and gauging the reaction of onlookers.

我在過去的24小時裏試用谷歌這一可穿戴計算裝置，與爲其設計應用程序的人們交談，並觀測周圍旁觀者的反應。

The product - which is still a long way from being ready for consumers - has been in the hands of developers for a few weeks now, and many of them have converged on San Francisco for the Google I/O conference.

儘管谷歌眼鏡距離投放市場還有一段很長的路要走，但是它現在已經在設計者手上把玩了幾個星期了。而且他們中的許多人還齊聚舊金山，參加谷歌輸入/輸出大會。

When I had a couple of hours to try it out I found that, like any new interface, Glass had some rough edges. The screen looks rather bigger and more useful than I'd expected, like a reasonable-sized TV seen across a room. But you need to learn a series of touch commands on the arm of the glasses, and often I found myself stuck halfway down a long series of menus, swiping back and forth and getting nowhere.

當我試戴了幾個小時後，我發現正如任何其它的新觸面，谷歌眼鏡也有一些毛邊。它的顯示屏比我預想得還要大，還要有用，就像是觀看房間另一側一部尺寸合理的電視機一樣。但是你需要學習鏡架上一系列的觸摸指令。我經常會發現自己被卡在一長串菜單之中，來回猛擊指令，但卻毫無進展。

At the moment, there is a limited amount you can do with Glass - it's like a smartphone without any apps - and for many of the functions you may be constrained by the quality of the 3G connection on the phone to which it is paired. You may also feel a bit daft walking down the street and shouting to yourself, "Do I need an umbrella tomorrow?"

目前，我們對谷歌眼鏡的使用還十分有限。它就像一部沒有任何應用程序的智能手機，而且你可能會受到與之匹配的3G網絡的情況的制約而無法使用部分功能。你可能會覺得走在路上對自己大喊：“我明天需要一把雨傘嗎？”有一點瘋狂。

The voice recognition in the device is very smart - and even seems to understand my English accent - but again, once you leave a strong wi-fi connection, everything seems to become a little harder. And what about those privacy worries inherent in a device which can be recording without your subject knowing?

該裝置的聲音識別系統非常靈敏，甚至好像可以理解我的英國口音。但是，一旦你離開超強的無線網絡，所有事情都變得困難許多。而且對於那些在無意中錄入裝置的隱私隱患，我們又該怎麼辦呢？

When I took Glass for a stroll on the beach overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge, the elderly dog walkers there were more amused about a strange Brit talking to himself than anxious about their privacy, although the majority felt the whole idea was rather more creepy than cool.

當我戴着谷歌眼鏡在海灘上漫步，並眺望金門大橋的時候，那裏一些遛狗的老人家比起對他們的隱私的擔憂更感興趣的，是看一個正在跟自己說話的奇怪的英國人，儘管他們中大部分人認爲這一想法與其說是“炫酷的”不如說是“恐怖的”。

Where Google's big idea impresses most is as a camera. Because it captures exactly what you see, you get the kind of pictures you often miss with a camera you have to ready for action. And when it comes to video, the footage is much steadier than what you often see from a shaky camera phone.

谷歌眼鏡最棒的地方是它也可以被當作一個照相機使用。因爲它可以精確地捕捉到你所能看到的一切，還可以獲得你在使用普通照相機拍照時，按下快門那一瞬間所錯過的照片。而當它被用作錄像機時，連續鏡頭將比你在一部搖晃的手機照相機中看到的更加平穩。

We began our filming by visiting the world's most enthusiastic early adopter, the blogger Robert Scoble. He's certainly mastered the art of Glass photography - as you can see from his picture of us filming him.

我們去採訪世界上最熱情的前期使用者——博客撰寫人羅伯特·斯考博（Robert Scoble）——以開啓我們的拍攝之旅。他已經掌握了眼鏡攝影的技巧，正如你從他的照片中所看到的我們正在拍攝他的情景。

Despite his promise never to go a day without the product - or something similar - he has a few words of caution. The price needs to be right, he says, and the product has to be able to do a lot more if it is to appeal to a wide audience.

將“每一天都離不開這個產品”或類似的豪言壯語放在一邊，他也提出了一些忠告。他說，產品的價格必須合理；而且如果想要吸引更廣泛的客戶，這一產品要做的還有很多。

By the sound of it, there will soon be plenty more apps. Developers big and small are in San Francisco, showing off their projects. Rajiv Makhijani and two friends who won a Glass hackathon, are now developing a social gaming idea, which sounds to me like Foursquare meets . Bigger players, including Twitter, Facebook and Evernote are also thought to be working on apps.

聽起來，在不久之後將會有大量的應用程序出現。大大小小的開發商在舊金山紛紛展示他們的計劃。拉吉夫·瑪吉詹尼（Rajiv Makhijani）和他兩個贏得Glass編程馬拉松比賽的朋友正在完善一個社交遊戲類的想法，在我聽來，這跟Foursquare地理定位網站很相似。而包括推特，臉譜和印象筆記在內的大的開發商也正在應用程序上下工夫。

What strikes me in San Francisco is the sheer fascination and excitement of many people when they see Glass for the first time. It feels to me that we are ready for a new way of interacting with the web.

在舊金山給我留下印象最深的是當人們第一次看到谷歌眼鏡時所表現出來的喜愛和興奮。我感到我們正準備迎接一種與網絡互動的新路徑。

Google Glass may be clunky, and it certainly isn't going to win any fashion awards. There are serious debates to be had about its legal and social implications. But we may look back 10 years from now, and say this was the moment when wearable computing stepped out of the sci-fi films and into real life.

谷歌眼鏡可能會帶來惡果，而且它也並不時尚。對於谷歌眼鏡的合法性以及社會影響，人們將會展開激烈的辯論。但是以現在爲座標原點，回顧過去十年，我們可以說這是可穿戴計算裝置走出科幻電影進入現實生活的一個重要時刻。