Well, I've had Google Glass for all of 30 minutes - so I thought I'd give you my first impressions. No, I haven't read the manual. The first thing to note is that it is really well packaged. Everything from the USB cable to the bundled sunglasses are held together beautifully.

As someone who doesn't wear glasses, I found them fairly light and not too intrusive. The screen sits slightly above my line of site but - even when it's off - it is a distraction. It has a tendency to display light refracted from screens and lightbulbs. I almost wish it was larger so the edges were less noticeable.

When the screen is displaying white text on a transparent background, there is a noticeable "rainbow effect". As my eye darts around, there are little spectrum trails ghosting behind the text. I've previously experienced this on cheap DLP projectors - I've no idea why it's present on the Glass.

Compared to something like the Oculus Rift, the screen is great. There's no noticeable "screen door" effect (where you can see the gap between the pixels). That said, it's quite hard to get the focus of the screen perfect - either one side of the other seems permanently…. it's hard to describe… smeary?

The interface is a mixture of simple and maddening. Swiping forward moves you right - which just feel wrong to me. I get that it's moving right through a stack of cards - but it feels like it should be moving me right. Hard to describe - but certainly something which should be user customisable.

Everything is heavily tied into Google's ecosystem. I get that - but it's annoying to find yet another product which forces the beleaguered Google+ upon users. For example it seems to be impossible to share stuff with contacts unless they're on G+. I've got hundreds of contacts in my phone - which is paired via Bluetooth - yet Glass will only send to the half-dozen people who use G+. There just didn't seem to be any obvious way to send a picture to a work contact.

This also causes a problem with Caller ID. My mother called me and all Glass displayed was her number! My Android phone (in my pocket) was displaying her name and photo - and it was paired via BlueTooth - but nothing like that came up on glass.

Call quality was mixed. In an absolutely silent environment, the bone conduction technology works really well with voice calls. As soon as there's a bit of background noise, the quality drops and I had to stick a finger in my ear (literally!) in order to hear anything. Callers weren't overly impressed with the microphone quality from my end.

The various beeps and boops of the operating system work very well - even in a loud environment. I guess the pure tones work better than a human voice.

Finally, the voice interface. There's no doubt about it - you look like a muppet when you suddenly blurt out "OK Glass …. …. OK Glass …. Read aloud …. Read aloud…. cancel."

Voice interfaces haven't become socially acceptable yet. They're loud, crass, and rarely work first time. It's well supplemented by the wink gesture (takes a photo after a 3 second delay - which is just long enough to be irritatingly slow) and swiping at the arm. Tipping one's head to wake the unit looks like you're having a minor tic.

Overall, is this the future? Yeah, probably. But it's easy to see why these aren't on sale to the general public yet. The cost'll come down with mass production - but the user interface is far too alien. The mixture of swipes, dodgy vocal recognition, winking, violently swinging your head, and then sticking your finger in your ear make you look like an idiot. Mind you, I'm sure that people looked weird when the first walkman came out!

The real problem with Glass (after a few hours of playing with it) is that it is intentional crippled by Google. Everything goes via the moribund Google+. There doesn't seem to be any way to get it to integrate with your phone's contacts - or send videos and images to non-Google services.

Google have taken a brave step by releasing this as a technology preview to the wider community. It shows their strengths and the technology's extreme weaknesses.

Here are my findings.

Caveats

These are not Google Glasses. These are £15 DVR Sunglasses. They are cheap and nasty and don't look anything like the futuristic Google Glasses. They record VGA quality video and have a mono microphone suitable for picking up close range sounds. There's no visual feedback.

I popped out one of the lenses to make it look everso slightly more like Google Glass.

Recognition

Several people in the bar asked if I was wearing Google Glasses - for an as-yet unlaunched product, there are plenty of people who know about them. In swinging London, at least.

I walked down Oxford Street to get some cash - there are a few moments when people seem to recognise that I'm not wearing a normal piece of eyewear.

The video should give you a good idea of some of the pitfalls of life logging - not to mention the tediousness of always on recording.

I'm A Creep

From playing back the footage, I spend a huge amount of time staring at breast and arses. Am I a lecherous old creep? Well, only partly. Because the glasses have a fixed camera, the record whatever my nose is pointed at - not where my eyes are looking. My head is facing forward but my eyes are pointing left - I'm looking at you but recording what's ahead of me.

So, if you were to pick out the worst moments of my video, you'd see me oggling a collection of bums (male and female) and checking out a swathe of chests (again, male & female).

Just like President Obama.

More than embarrassing, it also means you don't capture what you are actually looking at. Unless the lens has an incredibly wide field of view, you're going to miss out on a whole lot.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it!

Eye Contact

Amazed by how @edent’s low-rent Google Glass-alike affects conversations. Even eye contact fails. Glass is doomed. Archived Source

Initially, people stared at the glasses rather than me. That was quite disconcerting. As the evening wore on, the glasses faded into the background and people seemed to get a lot more comfortable with them. It's quite easy to forget that you are recording - or that you are being recorded. Which leads to...

Don't Record That Please

Tom Scott & I were having a chat, when suddenly he let slip one of his frequent rants about how David Cameron was born in Kenya (or something). He immediately realised he was being recorded and asked for me to edit out the last few seconds of footage. Naturally I sold his bizarre and spiteful theories to the tabloid press in the hope of ousting him from his throne as King of the Interwebs.

We quickly came up with a universal gesture which means "please delete the last 10 seconds of recording."

I’ve invented a ‘scissors’ gesture for “cut what I just said out of your lifelog”. It might have another meaning Archived Source

The scissors is fairly recognisable to both humans and computers. The "snip snip" meaning "to cut out" is fairly unambiguous and rarely conflicts with any other common gesture. It also has added significance in the UK.

Other people just seemed to forget that I was recording. Within a few moments they were bitching about their jobs, spouses, health - all the usual things that friends grouse about. They are reliant on my continuing friendship to keep those conversations private. That's a really uncomfortable feeling. I don't want people to be friendly to me because they're afraid I might post to YouTube a video of them talking about how much they hate their boss.

In a way, we've always had this problem. But before it was restricted to "he said she said" - now there's evidence.

Low Light, High Volume

Some of the most awkward social situations - and some of my fondest memories - happen in darkly lit bars with thunking music. I've no idea how well the real Google Glasses will perform, but it's likely they'll be overwhelmed by the noise and - unless they include infrared lighting - be practically useless in low light situations.

Towards the end of the evening, Shoe Blogger Sabrina Johnson - came up to me to ask if I was really wearing Google Glasses. Here's the only barely usable piece of video.

Final Thoughts

I've experimented with perhaps the least interesting - but most controversial - aspect of Google Glass. We already have the ability to record our daily lives, but a cheap pair of Video Sunglasses make the process a lot more subtle - and virtually effortless.

One of my favourite sci-fi books is "The Light of Other Days"

It explores, in part, what would happen if we could see into the past. Imagine if you could rewind to any point in your personal history and rewatch old arguments. If you could see whether you really were as funny as you thought. If you could add up how much time you spent playing Tetris.

Watching back my drunken escapades was, ironically, a sobering experience. I thought I had a good time last night, but it appears I spent much of the evening queuing for drinks, looking at my phone, or trapped in conversation with a bore. My inebriated wit isn't quite up to the standard of Oscar Wilde.

I've trapped my memories on silicon wafers. Not just my memories - but slices of other people's lives as well. Those recordings are now my hostages - and I don't know how that makes me feel.