Google Glass Not an Optimal Tool for Space Tasks: Nasa

The upcoming eye wearable device Google Glass is "not an optimal tool" for handling operational procedures and tasks in a simulated space environment, Nasa astronauts have revealed.

In a latest series of experiments, astronauts spent several days inside an underwater lab and performed multiple tests using both Google Glass and an iPad.

They found that iPad provides features readily adaptable to support operational tasks in space.

"Google Glass is a promising technology but needs to overcome battery life, display viewing and scrolling issues in order to be an operational useful tool," Space.com quoted astronauts as saying.

In its current configuration, Google Glass was useful for data collection but for current operational procedure/task completion, it is not an optimal tool, they added.

Glass scored highly on video recording taking photos but scored poorly in areas like "reading".

The tests were part of NEEMO 18 - Nasa's latest underwater "extreme environment" mission off the coast of Florida, reports added.

Real-world applications of Google Glass have been diverse so far, from use in operating theatres to most recently, agriculture.

In the latter application, Basecamp Networks has developed the 'IntelliScout' application that uses Google Glass to make it easier for crop scouts to log any issues they find, without having to pull out a camera or even a smartphone. The wearable makes it possible for the scout to share exactly what she is seeing, dictate notes or even shoot a small video and instantly mail it, while still at the farm.

Last month, a London-based firm released a new app that lets users control the smart eyewear using the only power of their mind - and also Neurosky's EEG biosensor. The biosensor, used to measure brain activity, wraps around one side of the user's head and has a contact point on the temple.

What that means is that you can use it as an input device, and London-based developers This Place have made an app called MindRDR, which allows you to control Google Glass with your mind. So, instead of saying "OK Google, take a photo", you could instead... stare intently while thinking of taking a photograph?

Written with agency inputs