Virgin Atlantic is trialling Google Glass. For the next six weeks, Passengers flying Virgin Upper Class from Heathrow’s terminal three will be greeted by staff wearing Google’s wearable computers. The Virgin staff will be able to greet their customers by name, and will have immediate access to their preferences for drinks and food. They will be able to update travellers on weather, flight times, connections, and, well, pretty much anything the internet knows.
If the trial goes well it will be rolled out to other locations. Which prompts the question, is this the first time in history that Heathrow terminal three has been at the forefront of anything?
The UK paper whose coverage of this story attracted the most comment was the Daily Mail. Most of the comment was negative, with several readers saying they would never fly Virgin Upper Class again. No surprise there, then.
Many of the journalists and others who have been Google Glass “explorers” have said the technology is crude and unreliable at the moment. But that will change. Google Glass is going to be a Big Deal.
If you doubt that, consider this comment by another organisation exploring what it can do with Google Glass. “We signed up, got a few pairs of the Google glasses, and we’re trying them out, seeing if they have any value, mostly for patrol purposes.” That was the New York Police Department.
