Google Glass Adds Earbuds And Pitchman, Young Guru, To Promote New Music Features (VIDEO)
ByWith the addition of physical ear buds (available at the end of the month for $85), a voice command feature that identifies the name of the song in closest proximity, and now an ad featuring acclaimed record producer Young Guru, Google Glass is trying to break into the hip world of music, Wired reported.
Based on media attention alone, the previously musically-deficient company is succeeding.
In the commercial, Young Guru, who was an actual "Glass explorer" before the commercial, sports his eye technology while sitting down to order in a Mexican restaurant in Los Angeles.
He asks Glass to translate, "What's the best thing on the menu?" into Spanish, which Guru repeats back to the waitress. She only grins in response and heads back to the kitchen to relay the message to the cook. In the meantime, a Mexican song in the background catches Guru's attention.
Glass not only tells him what it is, but brings up the album cover on its tiny digital screen. Skipping to a new scene, Google Glass' investigative work has led Guru to the physical album in a China town record shop. The producer, who's worked with Jay-Z, Beyonce, Young Jeezy, Rihanna, and others, takes the album to his studio and begins his work of stripping it down to create a unique beat.
"With these new features, we're now building a great music experience on Glass, whether you're a classical music professor, an acclaimed sound engineer and hip-hop producer, or someone who wants to listen to their favorite tunes anytime, anywhere," Ed Sanders, the director of marketing for Google Glass, said in a statement.
Wired described the two minute ad as "fun and engaging," while Guru called the technology "an immense timesaver and a great tool to make the world that much cooler..." Wired, however, questioned whether Google is fit to enter the world of music.
Google's first attempt to break into music wasn't until 2009, Wired pointed out, and the company has never really had much success since. That year, it tinkered with its search engine to direct song-searching users to the best music sites.
Two years later, Google, tried to copy Apple's iTunes, but Google Music never really took off, according to Wired. Nexus Q, which came along six months later, was supposed to allow its users to stream music through radios and TVs, but it was cancelled before it was ever sold to the public.
YouTube, which is owned by Google, will soon be offering a subscription service that would offer customers the ability to skip advertisements, listen and watch YouTube videos without an internet connection, and gain access to radio stations similar to Pandora and Spotify that cater to listeners' previous interests, The LA Times reported.
The subscription would also pair with Google's latest foray into the music world, Google Play Music All Access, according to Wired. YouTube is currently the most popular way both teens and adults access music.