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Google Glass and the lost Explorers (pictures)

The story of Google Glass is about more than a company and a product. It's about the people who believed in what Glass could do.

James Martin
James Martin is the Managing Editor of Photography at CNET. His photos capture technology's impact on society - from the widening wealth gap in San Francisco, to the European refugee crisis and Rwanda's efforts to improve health care. From the technology pioneers of Google and Facebook, photographing Apple's Steve Jobs and Tim Cook, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Google's Sundar Pichai, to the most groundbreaking launches at Apple and NASA, his is a dream job for any documentary photography and journalist with a love for technology. Exhibited widely, syndicated and reprinted thousands of times over the years, James follows the people and places behind the technology changing our world, bringing their stories and ideas to life.
James Martin
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Showering with Scoble, again

Returning to the scene of the crime: Tech evangelist and blogger Robert Scoble says a 2013 photo of him wearing Glass in the shower was merely meant to show off the device’s water resistant feature.

“I was expecting it to get attention,” he says. “But I wasn’t expecting it to go viral.”

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Life before Glass

Kimberly Ann Graham says it's hard to imagine life without her Glass.

"I feel like I'm missing a sense when I forget it," she says. "Like the cell phone. We know we can and did live without them, but would we ever give them up completely? Not voluntarily!"

Graham, a driver for the car service Uber, says wearing Glass has given her the confidence to talk to anyone. "I have the inside edge on this tech and that makes me the expert in just about any conversation on the street. That safety net has allowed me to develop the confidence in all areas, something I lacked for all of my life prior to Glass."

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Glass co-pilot

Ari Ichinaga is a 17-year-old Glass Explorer and private pilot. He uses his device daily to capture point-of-view photos. Some of them have been featured on the Google Glass social media pages.

When piloting planes, Ichinaga uses Glass as a heads-up, hands-free navigational tool.

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Glass on the go-go

Like many others, Amir Shariat only wears his Glass for those times he will want hands-free photos and video.

A one time paramedic, Shariat has also used his Glass for hands-free navigation while driving ambulances.

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Je suis un explorateur

One of Kathryn Jensen's favorite things to hear is: "Well, you don't see that everyday." For her, that makes Glass irresistible.

Kathryn says she mostly uses Glass to take pictures and videos during her daily 10 mile walks. Most recently, she's used Glass to help her learn French. She also used the device's translator app while was visiting Paris for the first time.

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A piece of art

Julien Boubel is an adviser for museum tour guide company GuidiGO.

Last year, the company partnered with the de Young Museum in San Francisco to let visitors use its Glass app during an exhibit for the artist Keith Haring. How it works: When someone wearing Glass approaches a piece of art, audio and visual content automatically pop up to give the viewer more context about the piece.

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Lights, camera, Glass

Journalist and Glass film maker Boonsri Dickinson uses Glass as a point-of-view camera to produce film shorts and mini documentaries.

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Hand-drawn, hands-free

Justin Chung is a San Francisco-based freelance illustrator known for his work on Star Wars and Marvel Comics trading cards.

One of the things he uses Glass for letting people see what he's drawing, while he is drawing it.

Chung considers the Explorer program a very important "social experiment." "Centuries from now, we'll look back on it," says Chung. "You're putting cyborgs out in public, and we were out there trying to learn the right social protocol."

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Physician's (digital) assistant

Ethan Bresnick is a creative intern at Augmedix, a Google Glass startup focused on healthcare.

Bresnick joined Augmedix in 2013 because he believes the smart glasses could be a game changer for physicians.

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Tweet about this painting

Rebecca Aherns is the social media coordinator at the de Young Museum in San Francisco.

The museum last year partnered with the company GuidiGO to let people use Glass as a learning tool as they walked though an exhibit for artist Keith Haring.

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Glass, rattle and roll

Ivan Yudhi, a software engineer at business intelligence company OSIsoft, decided he wanted Glass because he thought it could help with his guitar playing.

His idea: Glass could show him the chords while he strummed a song.

It worked.

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