Telstra and AFL demonstrate the future of footy with Glass

Avid football fans are likely to bring a decent smartphone or tablet to a game if they want to keep up with the scoring, but in the future, that information could be right in front of your face. Literally.

In a showing of what the future will have, Telstra has teamed up with local developers Seventh Beam to create an application for Google Glass that allows AFL fans to see live scores and stats during the football games, with commentary sent live to the Google Glass earpiece.

“Imagine a translucent heads-up display unobtrusively positioned in your vision field, giving you real-time updates on what’s happening around the league,” said Adam Good, Telstra’s Director of Digital Media and Content. “AFL Glassware is about bringing fans closer to the game than they’ve ever been before.”

“It will be the ultimate way to stay connected to the game with a simple glance, while staying part of the activities around you,” he added.

One downside to the project is that Google Glass isn’t yet available to Australians, though rumours suggest that Google is eyeing a timeframe of sometime in 2014 for getting its electronic companion app glasses onto the heads of more than just its mostly American testers.

That said, Telstra seems to indicate that AFL Glassware won’t be out until next AFL season, which should give Google enough time to launch its premium digital glasses.

We’re checking with Telstra to see if other electronic glasses will be supported by this app, but right now, it appears to be Google Glasses only, and based on what we’re hearing from Telstra, it’s the first of many apps that the company plans on having ready for the digital eyewear.