You'll probably see Google Glass being worn around San Francisco and in other parts of the U.S. But filmmaker Josh Kim has taken Glass to other far-flung places such as Burmese street markets and boxing rings in Thailand.

Kim is working to produce 100 short chronicles of the lives of people in different professions around the world. Named the Google Glass Diaries project, it'll be told from the peoples' point of view. So far he's filmed about a dozen clips in Burma, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan, and soon, South Korea.



Each film is a short take; about one or two minutes long, that gives just a flavor of a person's life. The subject wears Glass and tells his or her story in a voiceover with the footage. The best stories, according to Kim, are the ones from people who have a special point of view in jobs that are otherwise hard to see or understand. They also have a good personal story and an interesting look or voice.



“[With Glass,] we can see more intimate moments and also the ones that we kind of miss already, because a smartphone takes too long to pull out,” says Kim. “And when you have a big bulky camera, the most funny things or the most interesting things usually happen when you put the camera down.”

There was a spectrum of reactions to Kim's work with Glass. The poorer people were less excited about the device. Like in Burma, they just assumed Glass was another fancy but common U.S. gadget they hadn't heard about. But the people in higher classes found Kim's use of Glass to be noteworthy.



As word gets around about his work, Kim is beginning to get requests to film marginalized people whose stories rarely get told. For example, in Thailand, a transgender group raised $400 for him to visit a school in the countryside which employs transgender teachers. And sex workers in Thailand have also raised funds for Kim to visit, so they too can film a clip with Glass. When he visits Seoul soon, he plans to post films with defectors from North Korea.

There’s a form on his website so anyone can suggest a person or a story to be told.