The New Way to Keep an Eye on the Market: Fidelity’s Google Glass App

The image of the Wall Street investor with dollar signs flashing in his eyes is about to become a lot more literal. Financial firm Fidelity Investments today launched a Market Monitor app for Google Glass, the Terminator-esque wearable computer that makes your entire field of view immediately interactive. The current version of Fidelity’s app is fairly simple, offering stock quotes from the major U.S. indexes. But an ambitious concept video (featured above) shows where Fidelity sees financial headgear evolving in the future. In the video, an investor is able to flip through financial articles, watch a news anchor discuss the markets, and even scan a company logo in his line of sight to immediately pull up a stock quote—all through the use of voice commands and eye movements.

There’s no sign that users can actually use the program to buy and sell stocks—yet. But apps that allow for stock trading on mobile devices are already common, so it’s not hard to imagine a world where people are yelling out trade orders in restaurants, on sidewalks, or in the middle of unrelated business meetings.

While the entire concept of Google Glass still feels plucked out of a science fiction movie, the product is already in the hands of software developers and eager first adopters who were willing to fork over $1,500 for a pair. Google’s promotional videos provide a good sense of all the things the glasses can do out of the box, while developers are working on an ever-growing list of downloadable apps that do everything from help keep you hydrated to stealthily take photos with a mere wink of the eye. The device is expected to get a full release sometime in 2014 at a more mass-market price (some analysts are predicting $300).

As the velocity of stock trades continually accelerates, investors may look to Glass as a way to save those precious seconds spent fumbling with a phone or clicking on a computer. Thanks to this innovation, spending any time not worrying about money may soon be a thing of the past.