Usually, when I get a work email with the subject “Exciting opportunity” I expect to feel let down on opening it. Last week however, one arrived that lived up to that billing in offering a chance to participate in a research project involving Google Glass and being paid to eat.
“We are currently looking to recruit 40 participants to test Google Glass as a means to record the food people eat. To participate you will need to wear Google Glass while eating a meal that we have prepared on four separate days. If you are interested in participating, and to get four free meals and £20 as a reward, we would really appreciate your help.”
As an ex-researcher, I felt it was my duty to help out (nothing to do with the other incentives, obviously), so immediately went to sign up. When I did, I found just one other name already on the list – my colleague Chris Thomson 🙂
So, over the next few weeks we’ll be dining on four classic dishes while wearing glass:
- Baked beans and toast with scrambled eggs
- Chips with fish fingers and peas
- Vegetable soup with bread
- Spaghetti Bolognese with grated cheese
The meals will be served, rather fittingly, in the university’s “ambient kitchen.”
That’s about all we know so far. We didn’t need much persuasion to sign up to try tech that we otherwise might have to wait a long time to get hold of. We’ll report back on our experiences with Glass, as well as the research, in a later post.
I still have a lingering doubt that we might have inadvertently volunteered to be part of an art installation or reality TV show. So I’m off to practice eating. Just in case!
Photo credit: “Guinea Pig Glasses” by RubenWardy (CC BY-NC-SA)
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