Boeing using Google Glass to build airplanes: Report

Tech giant Google's augmented reality (AR) eyewear Google Glass may not have worked among real life consumers but the device is helping US aircraft manufacturing company Boeing build airplanes, media reported this week.

Citing a report from news website CIO.com, The Verge said that members of Boeing's research and technology division used the original Google Glass to construct aircraft wire harnesses.

"Because planes contain hugely messy and complex webs of wires to connect electrical systems, technicians have to manually build them out, a painstaking process based on PDF assembly guide viewed on a laptop screen," the report said.

With Google Glass to replace that computer display, Boeing says it reduced production time for the harnesses by 25 percent and cut error rates in half.

Boeing has been using AR glasses since 1995, when it experimented with early head-mounted displays and rudimentary software. But due to bulkiness of the device, they shun it and switched to an affordable and more powerful Google Glass to accomplish tasks.

Initially, the basic device was a failure as it was not able to pull information from Boeing's databases in real time.

So the company asked APX Labs -- the maker of a smart glasses software platform called Skylight -- to produce a higher-quality Glass app that Boeing could give to its technicians on the assembly floor.

The Skylight app now works perfectly allowing a Glass wearer to scan a QR code, which pulls the wireless harness software, and then scan another code to load the assembly instructions.

The app also supports Glass voice commands and lets users stream what they're seeing to another technician in the event of something unexpected, the report noted.

--IANS

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