with a head-mounted display that is being developed by Google. It can snap photos, shoot video, relay text messages, make phone calls, guide you with GPS, and basically do everything a smartphone does but through a small cube of glass in the corner of eyewear.

Royal Oak-based Vectorform, which has five offices globally but is headquartered here on Rochester Road, was chosen to take part in Google’s Glass Explorer Program.

“We have four pairs of Google Glass in Royal Oak,” said Foreman. “How we got them is we submitted four ideas to Google during the (#ifihadglass) campaign and all four ideas were selected.”

The #ifihadglass campaign invited people to tell how they would use Glass and then Google selected only 8,000 ideas from 200,000 submissions worldwide. That’s how rare it is to see a pair computerized spectacles (which actually have no lenses). Foreman knows of no other Google Glass in Michigan.

Upton students had dozens of questions for the Lawrence Tech grad, including, “Are the glasses waterproof?” (They are water-resistant.) “How are they charged?” And, “Can they be used by the blind?”

“So if you are blind and you wear Glass and you are not sure what something is, through objection recognition, Glass will actually tell you what you are looking at. It also has GPS, so it can help you navigate… It’s a great use because it’s using technology to help people interact with their world,” said Foreman.

The wearable technology comes in blue, orange, white, gray and black and will be available to the public in the summer of 2014. The price tag will likely be around $400, Foreman said.

“I thought it was really cool,” said student Jessica Silvatzs. “I’m glad I got to be here to see it. I know a lot of other schools haven’t got to do this, which is really cool that Upton got to do this.”

Originally published by Royal Oak Patch